I was weeping. Not just crying, or quietly tearful—but full out shoulder-shaking and wracked with sobs, alone in my seat in a suburban movie theater. My three young daughters—the oldest, 13, the twins, 11—and I had just seen Greta Gerwig’s wonderful adaptation of Little Women, and they were surprised—maybe even alarmed—by my reaction. Oh, I react to plays and movies that move me—my friends tease me about being a “real emotional girl” after the Randy Newman song I love to sing—but this was, even I knew, something else. I sat in my seat, overcome by an emotion whose purpose or source I could hardly explain or recognize. Was it nostalgia for something past? The world depicted seemed so remote from my usual one, where I was getting ready to go on the road with a series of concerts singing the songs of my mentor, Michel Legrand. The tour was to take me throughout America and on to London and Paris, and while this is not quite as glamorous as it may sound—a lot of small hotel rooms and rented gowns and sleepless nights in strange beds—still, I won’t pretend it doesn’t sound glamorous.

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