Blue bayou

I'm listening to the Cox Family sing "Blue Bayou" and it pulls at my heart so badly I can hardly breathe.  I've been doing these Skype interviews for my friend's elementary music classes and they get to ask me all kinds of questions about my job and my life as an opera singer.  Notice I make the distinction - my job is NOT my life.  Maybe it used to be, but I'm really working hard to remedy that.  Kim Witman has been talking recently about singing on your interest instead of on your principal - continuing to build that technique so you're not eating away at the raw materials of your talent.  She also talks about living on your interest instead of your principal.  This is a subject that goes unmentioned in most round-table opera discussions.  People talk about managing their jet-lag, they talk about dealing with complicated income taxes, they dish about managers and directors and where they're staying, but no one ever talks about the life part of this business.  The part where you leave that house, the house you saved for and finally bought, and the family that you never get to see except now and then when they can come to one of your performances, and the friends that you don't really get to visit with unless you happen to be between gigs.  Well those little ones just reached right out and pushed the buttons.  They asked me if I get lonely being away.  They asked me if the people I work with become like my family.  They asked me if I plan to have kids.  They asked if I ever regret going into this profession.  Who knew that agreeing to do a few little Q&A sessions with seventh-graders would stir up so many sore subjects?  

I have a new running buddy.  We were out the other day talking about subletting in Seattle and how the majority of furnished sublets you'll find are with six frat guys in the U district and thank you very much but NO I will not be staying there.  He said it didn't really strike him as the type of place I would go for and I joked that I was either very transparent or he was a good judge of character.  And he paid me the most interesting compliment - he said that it was probably a little of both, because I struck him as a person who's very self-aware, but also unapologetic about who I am.  

Unapologetic.  Self-aware.  

Well that's about the nicest thing someone's ever said to me while pounding out a few miles of pavement.  

I've been thinking a lot about perception, especially when it comes to auditions.  I'm a tall girl.  Can't change that (sorry to the costume designer who thought putting me in flats would somehow disguise how much taller I am than the countertenor - that ship has sailed sweetie) and really I wouldn't want to.  I've got presence.  I'm a smart girl.  And no amount of eyelash batting seems to conceal that I really do know what I'm talking about.  I keep giving off this worldly-wise-vibe that takes me out of the running for every young milkmaid part that involves looking like easy prey for some local nobleman.  Because chances are, I could bat my eyelashes but I would still look like I was going to clock him with the milk pail.  

I have to believe that I am meant to be who I am.  I am meant to be a tall, self-possessed, academically-minded individual who can rattle off the names of Poulenc scholars.  I am meant to be this person.  And anyone who can't deal with this probably won't hire me.  And I have to be okay with that too, because there are enough people who see my strengths as advantages, and I want to work with THEM.  People who think tall is beautiful and statuesque, and I have to stop trying to fake this stupid soubrette that I'm simply NOT.  And I have to take this opera-free summer as a blessing in disguise and enjoy my time at home with my husband and my dog and my house.  Take long runs.  Experiment with new recipes in the kitchen.  Go to the beach and enjoy the wind off the Cape.  And maybe, just maybe, take a long vacation to the homeland and not worry about spending too much time with my family, lest we drive each other crazy.  Families make each other crazy, and the place where you grew up can be a place that stirs up old weirdness.  But there it is.  Unapologetic.  

So let that be the goal for my 29th year.  To live up to that compliment.  To be unapologetic and self-aware.  To really embrace myself and all of my flaws.  I've got just under two weeks to get ready for that challenge, so let's get going.

I'm going back someday, come what may, to Blue Bayou