Climb Every Mountain, la la la la

Two things bother me about The Sound of Music. It's not the matching play outfits made out of curtains. It's not really the fact that the outside of the house has huge stately windows all around the front door and the inside has none. It's not even when the nuns disable the cars of the Nazi guys chasing Maria and her new family. I mean, what would you do?

I like The Sound of Music, who doesn't? The running, singing, carrying the guitar case...the good night song - cuc-koooo....the brown paper packages....the learning to sing scales running through the streets of Salzburg...and c'mon, how cute was it when Gretl's finger got caught in Friedrich's teeth? But I have two problems.

One is the whole "Climb Every Mountain" scene. Is Maria a nun or what, first of all? I can't seem to figure it out, maybe she's just a practice nun, but certainly if she is a nun I can't imagine the mother superior providing her with such counsel as she does. Nuns are married to Jesus, right? I'm not Catholic, so I really have no idea what I'm talking about, but assuming they've vowed themselves to being a nun, what would possess the mother superior to immediately break into song about trying out everything in life until you find your dream the second one of them got strangely warmed by a dude in uniform? Can you imagine going to your preacher to discuss the confusion of falling for someone else when you're already married and having the guy go to the window and start wistfully and powerfully singing, "Climb every mountain, ford every stream, follow every rainbow till you find your dream!" I always think that scene is so weird!

So then she goes to her Captain and he loves her and she loves him and she's all, wow, how can this be happening? So she breaks into song and again sorry, but this bugs me. She says she must have done something good since this is happening to her. Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could so somewhere in my youth or childhood, la la la la la. Yes Maria, you flibbertyjibbet, nothing comes from nothing! Everything good comes from God, remember? You've only just left the abbey hours ago and already you've forgotten.

Sigh. How do you solve a problem like Maria and that wacky mother superior?