Shiksa on the riviera, part 2

Morning run, glorious sunrise again, and a slightly different route - up the hill instead of down the driveways. And what did I find? A beautiful little cemetery atop the hill (that nasty steep hill...grrr). Might make a long walk part of the plan for tomorrow so I can take photos properly.

Here's one from the tourism website:

More later - must practice!

Shiksa on the riviera

Went to bed at 1030 after having been awake for 33 hours. Slept for a glorious eight hours and awoke in time for my morning run. And when I pulled back the curtain, this is what I saw out my window. (blogger is being stupid so these photos are in reverse order)

The sun rises so quickly - in the time it took me to get dressed and put on my running shoes, the sky had gone from dark red to purple and still lighter. This is why people get up early.

So I went downstairs to wait for Marcus (who chickened out on me). While I was there, this guy comes up to the hotel, drops a huge sack by the front desk, and leaves. Curious, right? I go and peek in - it's a huge sack of freshly baked baguettes for the day. They're still warm and I can smell that wonderful freshness that tells me they were made while I was still sleeping.

The run was pretty good, but the humidity is brutal, even at 630am. I huffed and puffed my way through the run, out and back in 1:01 with more walking breaks than I would have liked, but I think a full day of travel and exhaustion has a lot to do with it.

French gratitude

1. sunrise on the riviera

2. centuries of pedestrians who made sure we have places to walk and run

3. fresh croissants

4. French coffee - oh my Lord

5. what looks to be a beautiful day

6. the slow return of my French skills

sprinklers

thank God for sprinklers

the humidity was already crazy at 630 this morning when i went out to do my long run

seven miles

in my warmup i met an old pro, trotting down metropolitan

he says to me, 'how long are you going?' 'seven miles' 'how far along are you?' 'just started'

'good for you!' he says

good for me. oy. if only i had known.

i have this formula to achieve a good run. i lay out my clothes the night before. i wear my good socks. i lace my shoelaces with the reef knot so they don't come undone. i don't start out too hard or too fast. i hum my pace song. i smile on the downhills (that's for my Vegan girl who's out running a half marathon as i type this).

but mostly, i tell myself that i just have to finish.

this run was almost as bad as the six miles i did two weeks ago. slow and hard and too hot outside. will i have to get up at 5 just to avoid the humidity?

feel disgusting. getting in the shower. but at least i finished.

Knitting, my other random hobby

Go to this link. Go NOW.

I need these patterns in my life. NEED NEED NEED.

And after all, don't you want a chance at receiving a hand-knitted monster for Christmas?

At your own pace

Just got home from my four mile run with the running club. Funny thing about peer pressure - sometimes it's what causes you to run too fast and injure yourself. Sometimes it's what pushes you to run just a little bit faster than you normally would, and helps you get to a new place.

I really feel like I've turned a corner in my running. I'm finally able to go more than five miles, and I'm able to judge my own pace by the feeling in my legs and my feet, I can take my walking breaks and make them stretching breaks at the same time, and I'm home and I don't feel dead. Starting to run outdoors was absolutely the right thing to do and I'm so glad. The discovery of my pace song was also a happy and completely serendipitous occasion, so I'm just going to share the happiest part that runs through my head every time I start to feel like I can't do this.

When everything feels all over

Everybody seems unkind

I'll give you a four leaf clover

Take all worry out of your mind

Let my love open the door

Let my love open the door

Let my love open the door to your heart!

I had to break off and leave the group - they were doing eight miles tonight and since I did six yesterday, eight today would have been stupid - and as I was waving goodbye to them, I realized that I don't feel alone even when I am alone. I'm in Boston, THE marathon city, so every sidewalk is filled with runners and sprinters and joggers and walkers and bikers. We're all sweaty, we're all huffing and puffing, we're all bitching about the humidity and giving thanks to the gods for the breeze off the Charles River, we're all in this together. And that's a very comforting notion.

That said, I'm going to stretch before the ick in my hamstrings sets in and reminds me that blogging after running, while a useful winding-down tool, should NOT come before stretching!

Under pressure

I had laryngitis all last week. For the first time ever. And then I had an allergy attack in the Norman Rockwell Museum, which has precipitated some very serious gook in my nose and throat. Nothing colorful, just....plentiful. Yuck.

I'm supposed to be in Vermont right now. I'm supposed to be in Middlebury, immersing myself in my German so I can audition for these agents on Thursday. And yet, where am I? I'm still in Boston. I'm actually in my running clothes because I decided to go do a little four-miler with the running club this evening. They are doing eight miles, but since I did six yesterday, I'm going to lay out halfway through.

When people ask me about sources of pressure (school, job, etc) nothing seems to measure up to the amount of pressure I put on myself. Pressure to make my workouts, meet my goals, get well on time, learn my music right away, get the laundry done before I'm out of running socks, all of those things. It's always been this way - I set goals and, if I don't meet them, I'm so much harder on myself than necessary. I had laryngitis. I didn't go to a Faith No More concert and scream my lungs out. I didn't blow out my vocalis by yelling at A-Rod at a Sox/Yankees game. It just happened. Poof. I did everything in my power to get better quickly. I didn't talk or whisper. I drank lots of fluids. No caffeine (aaaaarrrrrgh) or alcohol. Lots of sleep. Throat-soothing tea. But I'm scared that if I drive up to Vermont tomorrow, I'll have to sing. Just because I'm there. I will have to sing because I'm me and I will be there and exercising restraint in the face of an opportunity has never been my style.

So why am I still sitting in Boston in my running clothes?

Because I have crud. I have crud in my throat and my voice is mostly there but it's not back in shape, nowhere near ready to get up and sing Lakme or Zerbinetta for those people. And I don't want to make a bad first impression (you only get one chance to make a first impression...blahblahblah) but if I don't go, is it because I'm scared I'll suck or because I'm not ready. And is that letting myself off the hook. And would letting myself off the hook be such a bad thing for once.

Is bowing out giving up or being sensible? Ask me after my run. Maybe I'll know by then.

Y'all gonna make me lose my mind (up in here, up in here)

I don't know why DMX is my personal soundtrack for this morning, but here I am, humming this ridiculous song as I'm stretching.

I'm one of those people now. Those people you see out on the sidewalk when you're half-awake, clutching your coffee as you trudge from the kitchen to the living room. Those people who go to bed early so they can get up early to do their long run before the sun is all the way up. I found myself saying to my friends last night, "No, I'm gonna pass on the sangria, I have to get up early for my long run." My friend Laura says to me, "Um..are you training for something?" "Yes, the Boston Half." "And why are you doing that, exactly?" "Ask me tomorrow."

If I didn't do my long run, I would feel like shit. I would feel guilty and I would be cranky all day that I didn't go. At what point in time did running become a major indicator in my mental health? I was having this conversation with my weekly running phone buddy, the VeganDiva of NYC. We usually talk on Mondays after my long run - catching up about our runs this week and her pursuit of the half-Ironman and singing and whatnot. We are those bat-shit-crazy people. We have conversations about sports bras and Bodyglide and shoes and pacing and running plans. I done lost my mind. It's time to shower.

Slow coloraturas and the sound of silence

I ran six miles yesterday. I use the term "running" to generally describe the jogging/ walking/ running that occupies a significant portion of my day in preparation for the Boston Half Marathon. Yesterday was my first six-mile run. Just like two weeks ago was my first five-mile run. I decided that it would be a smart move to have my husband drop me off at the track, which is approximately three miles from our home, so I could do three easy miles on the track and then do some road running for the last three. We live near the Blue Hills so it's pretty hilly, but it's still quasi-residential so there are sidewalks. The weather channel predicted rain by about 7pm so I figured that would be great - rain coming down about halfway through my run would keep me cool and probably lower the temperature outside, a singular bonus of the New England summer rains.

It didn't rain. There were dark clouds and wind but not a DROP of rain.

The first three miles were okay. I stopped, I stretched, I wondered why exactly my shins were giving me trouble when they have NEVER ever given me trouble before, and then I found the perfect trotting pace song. Who knew that Pete Townshend's "Let My Love Open The Door" would be the perfect song to jog to? (sidebar: one of my favorite performances of this song is from "Dan in Real Life," with Steve Carell - a rare moment where he's so earnest I want to kiss his cheek) It got me through the third mile with flying colors and I felt ready to hit the road.

I learned a lot yesterday. I learned why runners have those little belts with plastic water bottles around their waists instead of carrying an enormous aluminum bottle. I learned why Hal Higdon tells people it's about finishing the distance and not a thing about speed. And I learned why they cover the Boston Marathoners with blankets when they cross the finish line. I was sweaty, achy, HUNGRY, and I felt like I'd been battered with a blunt object the whole way home. But I finished, and with stretching and walking breaks (as well as the telling myself I was insane for doing this), I still made it home in 1:20, averaging a 13-minute mile.

So for that 1:20, I didn't talk to anybody. Which also means I didn't seem to notice what was taking place in my throat. I sang two services yesterday and felt fine. I mean just fine. Somewhere in the afternoon, I got a little husky. This morning, I tried to call the dog and nothing came out. That's right kids, my voice (speaking, singing and otherwise) has gone on vacation. I was waiting for some kind of illness to take over - once my classes were done and my summer program was done I just knew my body was holding out on me. But I didn't expect this. I guess this is some weird way of the universe telling me it's time to hold my tongue.

I'll take the hint for today, but as of tomorrow, I'm calling the doctor.

Here in my car

We went to Tanglewood this weekend. Despite the gross weather on the front end, it turns out to be lovely. I saw some friends from last summer and tried hard to let myself off the hook for not working out yesterday. Technically, Friday was my "free day" and Saturday was supposed to be some kind of cross-training for 30 minutes. Whoops. Saturday ended up being "sit in a masterclass with Mark Morris and eat honey-lavender ice cream day." Being in the car brings up all of the aches and pains that normally get stretched out when I go to the gym. That pinch in the bottom of my lower back, the knots of ick that find their way into my shoulders and neck. But today's four miles was good, if not easy. Much better than the 3.5 mile disaster of last Tuesday. I'm told that the group is running close to 6 miles this Tuesday. I confess that I'm frightened to even put myself in that situation, but if I can stick to my interval training, I think I'll be fine. You know how peer pressure works. You're with a group whose pace is faster than yours and you don't want to be the caboose. I am the caboose. I have to embrace my caboose (you in the back - get your mind out of the gutter. you're not getting anywhere near my caboose so don't even think it!). I'm sure someone smart would say that those who don't run fast run long.

Dinner with friends tonight, a lazy afternoon is ahead of me. Four miles down, maybe learning a new aria and a glass of iced tea...

Band on the run

Yesterday was rough. At least one day out of the month, I want to eat everything in sight and feel like a ton of bricks has settled into my ass. Everything looks appetizing. Those weird pistachio snacks sold next to the cashier in the liquor store. Rhubarb. Waffles. Any of the above, but with peanut butter. So I did what I always do when I'm in a pms-induced haze: I tried to go shopping. My husband says that this happens, like clockwork, every month. He could set a watch by it. I'm never successful, and the combination of fluorescent lighting and short running shorts only makes me feel more bovine in my personage. But luckily, yesterday was free pastry day at Starbucks. So before I went back to the school to teach the little kiddies, I treated myself to an Americano with steamed soy milk on top and a blueberry scone. As I'm reading the little pastry sleeve, I notice that Starbucks has decided to join the revolution and stop using artificial whatnots in their food. No more high fructose corn death, preservatives, etc. No wonder this blueberry scone tastes so SO good. Read through some music, had a lovely long conversation with the Divine Dr. L about her upcoming visit to Boston, taught the kiddies and hung out watching various recordings of the Lucia sextet on youtube.

*sidebar for fashion: if you have some time and inclination, go look up the Lucia sextet with Pav and Renee, circa 1991. There is some SERIOUS fashion crisis involving puffed sleeves and what looks like a side ponytail. I'll say no more.*

Tuesday is the day that the urban youth running club meets and since I'm teaching the aforementioned urban youth, I've decided to join them in the pursuit of the Boston Half Marathon. We've already established I'm insane for doing this, just ask my mom - oh yes, I made the mistake of telling Miss Jean. The run yesterday was looking very promising. Rain coming down, cool air, not that many people out on the Esplanade, and it's only 3.5 miles. Shoot, I can do that no problem. Easy peasy.

My legs were like lead. Every breath was labored and I generally wanted to die every single step of the way, all the way down the Esplenade, across the bridge, back across the other bridge, and down to Clarendon for the last stretch. My feet were wet (but then again, strangely dry thanks to my Smartwool socks), I had one too many layers on so I had my outer layer tied around my waist (too hot!) and I had chosen to carry my Sigg bottle with me for water. But of course, I carried it FULL because I'm an idjit. I was the slowest of my group, plodding along at the back, trying hard not to focus on the fact that my heart rate was absolutely peaking out and that I feel like a total poseur in this running business I must be crazy I must be crazy it's so close run run run hard to the end and the boys are there to greet us on the porch, clapping and yelling and hooting and hollering. At least I finished. That's all that matters.

Hal Higdon does this great training program for the half marathon. In it, he says that even if you have to walk every single pace of the half marathon, you should still do it and not be at all ashamed. Well it may happen that my legs give out and I consider flinging myself into Jamaica Pond somewhere in the middle of the course, but I'm going to try hard to stay on my feet and not be at all ashamed when the course closes and I'm left to finish the race on the sidewalk. Not ashamed, nosir.

Well maybe a little.

Today was better. I followed Hal's plan and did 3 miles plus strength training. I ate yummy chicken curry for dinner, I anticipate a Hit cookie for dessert, and I feel confident that I can achieve Hal's 2 miles set down for tomorrow, with an eye to 4 miles on Sunday. Especially with the help of my telephonic running coach, the VeganDiva of NYC. If we can get enough musicians together, then my blog title will be made manifest. Wouldn't that be hilarious? A few hundred opera singers, running en masse?

I see it in Shepherd Ferry-type colors.

Josquin and the pips

I'm listening to a WGBH broadcast on which I sang a few years back. I was into some pretty serious early music at the time and, even though I was super busy into my DMA coursework, it was really nice just to take a few nights out of a month and sing Josquin with some amazing musicians. There's a wonderful camaraderie among early music nerds. We already accept that people think we're weird for liking plagal cadences or cross relations or weird things like antiquated French. Knowing that from the outset, we really let loose and indulge those crunchy suspensions and cling to those weird metric modulations by the skin of our teeth. I frequently think about one of my old colleagues, Carolann. She was an unquestionable force of singing and had the best instincts about phrasing and exactly how to lean into a pitch and how to pull away from it with incredible style and panache. Carolann lives in Princeton now and, I suspect, is thrilling another congregation with her Hildegard. If my life had taken a different turn, I would have pursued early music as a field of study. Instead, I'm an opera singer. Weird.

I did a crazy thing today. I told my mother I'm running in the Boston half marathon this October. Now that's the funny part, isnt' it? It's not so much crazy that I'm running the half marathon, it's that I told my mother about it. She promptly pronounced me insane, told me that I must wear my heart monitor every step of the way so that my heart doesn't "go crazy" and also told me that I must not attempt anything "heroic." Hunny and I were talking at the gym - what exactly would constitute something "heroic" along the way? At mile marker 9, will there be dragon-slaying? Does the city have the right permits for that?

Fish tacos for dinner tonight. Very excited.

I'm on a bus (this bus is real!)

On my way to NYC for an audition and a meeting with my agent tomorrow.  The only perk of riding the bus is the use of outlets that power my macbook and thereby keep me entertained with the third season of West Wing.  Additionally, there's an adorable little black lab service dog sitting in the seat in front of me who keeps looking back and making sweet eyes at me.  I know she wants my peanut m&ms, but she's not getting a one.  

I'm also going to meet up with one of my singer/runner friends for a visit - our first face to face since probably last winter.  We encourage one another's crazy career pursuits (namely this singing thing) and our even crazier extra-curricular activities, that bonkers idea that's called running.  My church runs an urban youth group every summer, and they have started a running club.  Because the associate organist is a dear friend and a marathoner, he's persuaded me to join said running club and, this is the real clincher, to run the Boston half marathon with them in October.  I must be losing my mind.  

Yesterday was my first run with them.  I was in the second group, renamed the "slinky" group so as not to call ourselves that other word that starts with "s" and might indicate our general pace.  I did not grow up running.  I did not engage in activities that required running.  I played piano and did ballet and sang in choir.  I spent approximately four months leading up to prom my senior year working my behind into shape for said prom (sidebar: let's talk about how good my ass looks in those pictures, shall we?) and as soon as prom was over, I promptly went back to my books.  I ran five miles yesterday with a group of kids, along the Charles River and over the bridges and back, and I tell you what.  My legs feel fine.  My glutes feel fine.  But my knees, oooooohhhh my knees.  Only going down stairs, not up.  And when I get off this bus, they are not going to be happy with me.  Five miles down, a little over eight more to go.  Oy.  I have eleven weeks to get this together, because I'm running with this team and, if yesterday was any indication, I just might be the timer and pacer.  Slow and steady, that's me.  Watch out for the goose poop, single file on the bridge, stretch out your calves every time we stop.  

Other than the running, I had a lovely weekend in Chicago doing an audition.  I got all dolled up in my new dress (care of the dress barn 50% off sale rack - score!) and my pewter pumps that make my legs look killer, and Spanx that, well you know what they do.  I was all set to roll out the new rep.  I've been practicing and working myself through this Bellini aria and some Baby Doe, embracing a more vulnerable side of my singing, trying to show a little more lyricism.  I'm all set to pull it out, terrified that I even wrote it down on my rep sheet (that means it's possible for them to ask me to sing it oh crap) and the pianist seems a little unsure and what do they ask for?  

Mozart.  Queen of the night.  First aria.  

So I'm still dizzy with fear when the piano starts, but the Queen is an old friend and I smoked it.  Now it's all about wait and see.  I hate wait and see.  But I love the art institute and the field museum and old friends and dinosaurs and Seurat.  And I'm going to try to zen out on this bus until we get out of Connecticut.  Maybe the little black labbie will look back at me again.  

To run or not to run

On any given day, that is the question.  But today it's not the specific question.  It's "to enter the Boston 1/2 marathon or not to enter the Boston 1/2 marathon" because registration is next Wednesday and the church running team is working up toward that race.  Yikes.  

I have to go and get on a train to the airport for Chicago (audition, cross your fingers) so it's not something I have to decide right now, but I do have to decide soon.  Will I make that kind of commitment to myself and this team and enter the Boston 1/2 marathon?  Stay tuned.....

Freaky dreams, or What happens when I eat after 9:30pm

So we double-booked yesterday.  It was an accident, we swear.  We were going over to see our friends and their kids in the afternoon and we thought it was going to be an early dinner, so we accepted an invitation to a fireworks/late-night drinks party out by the water.  By the time the kids went to bed, it was 7:30.  This pushed our arrival at our second engagement (shame on my face) to 10:30.  And the host was serving lamb and roast potatoes and peas and heavy duck gravy and wine and cocktails and all that stuff.  I didn't eat half of what was on my plate, it was so rich.  I had three very sinful sips of red wine (acid reflux is the devil) and it was deeeelicious, and then I took my apple pie out of the oven and managed to eat a piece of that too.  There was a time when none of this would have bothered me in the slightest.  I think it was when I would have considered myself in my "early twenties," but we ain't there no more, no siree.  And that means we have to accept certain things about ourselves.  I must go to the gym or else I will be cranky.  I must not drink red wine or my acid will act up and my voice will be shot.  I must be asleep before midnight or else I will feel like poop the next day.  Now and then, when I break my body's rules, I am rewarded with some pretty freaky dreams.  Last night was a doozy, and my friend Ayla suggested I write them down just for humor or something.  

Part 1:  Hanging out at very large house, not mine, with Cher and Bette Midler.  Raving about how much I love Cher's acting in Moonstruck, Bette Midler might have been doing her nails.  Not so freaky.  Woke up, went to the bathroom, went back to sleep.  Just wait.

Part 2:  I'm visiting Peter (artistic director of the Seattle YAP) on the set of a show he's directing.  He's busy and trying to tell me where to go so that I will be out of the way and I can see what's going on - tells me to go sit on the set.  I'm asking, "are you sure you want me to sit on the set, won't I be in the way?"  "Damn it, just go sit on the fucking set!"  "Okay okay, I'll go!  But if the mailbox ends up on my bed, you'll pay for it!"  (What the hell?) So I go and sit on the set, where there's this girl doing some kind of ass-backwards seduction with a semi-cute guy.  She's not nailing her beats, and I'm just sitting there, trying to be out of the way, making spitballs with straw wrappers (that have mysteriously appeared in my hands) and then someone yells, "HOLD!" which usually means something is seriously wrong and/or unsafe on the set.  I take this opportunity to get off the set and Peter comes up to me and says, "Okay, either you are seriously fucked up and mad that you didn't get in this production, or you completely misunderstood my directions."  "What are you talking about?"  "What am I talking about?  They were running the fucking scene and you were sitting right in the middle of it?  Have you lost your mind?"  "YOU TOLD ME TO GO SIT THERE."  "Right.  So then you misunderstood.  Now my actress is freaking out, would you please please go apologize to her so maybe she will come back and finish the fucking scene?"  So I go off to find this woman, feeling absolutely horrible because she probably thinks I was trying to hijack her scene for some stupidly malicious reason.  I find her, and I'm trying to apologize and saying, "You can ask anyone on this set who knows me, it's not me to do something like this.  I misunderstood Peter's directions when he told me to go sit on the set, I took him literally so I did, I'm so so sorry and I really hope we can be colleagues and work together someday."  And she says, "Well.  I think any chance of that went out the window when you said "If the mailbox ends up on my bed, you'll pay for it!" right in the middle of my scene!"  At this point, Jenna, the girl who runs the computer lab at NEC, comes out of the next room.  She's apparently the stage manager, because I say to the huffy girl, "Look, Jenna knows me and she knows I would never do this to a colleague - Jenna, tell her!" And she tries, but to no avail.  The girl grabs her giant white crayon highlighter, smears it down her nose, and stomps off.  Jenna shrugs and leaves.  So then I'm really feeling like crap, trying to get out of the way as fast as possible.  Then, I hear the music start for the "big number" in the act, and I realize they're doing Sunday in the Park With George, one of my favorites, and this crazy girl is playing Dot.  So I dash around to the front of the set so I can watch (just watch, I swear!) and the production is.......weird.  The girl playing Dot is wearing these space-aged go-go boots and something out of Thunderdome (or a Lady Gaga video) and she really REALLY can't sing.  I mean really.  And projected on the scrim behind the main part of the stage are videos of squid, octopi, and other fish, floating around during this opening number.  Wow.  Now I'm really confused.  Sunday in the Park With George, at the aquarium?  Underwater?  Underwater in space?  

And then I woke up.  Holy crap.  Happy 4th of July.  I'm NEVER eating that late again.

All the things we leave behind

I've had a couple of really eventful weeks.  I spent a week in Tennessee with one of my best friends, tooling around the Dress Barn and eating sno-cones and soaking up all of my southern trash food nostalgia.  Capped off with the fact that their house, which had been sitting on the market for 18 months, suddenly had a bunch of interested parties, one of which actually put down an offer while I was there.  Bang!  Their house is sold and they bought another one.  Forget burying the St. Joseph's statue in the yard, just invite me down for a week.  We'll get right on that.  

Last week, I was in Maryland with my husby to see his family.  It's not really vacation when you see people you're related to.  I love my family and I love my husband's family, but that's just how it is y'all.  Vacation is when you don't see the people who share your DNA.  

It's got me thinking hard about where we live and what we do.  I was tripping down the steps at my sister-in-law's house and suddenly it occurred to me, "it would be so nice if we could just drop by her place and visit with her on the weekends."  Now I'm sure my feelings would be different if we actually DID live that close, but I'm trying to plan my annual visit down south and it's proving to be really hard.  I have a job for the month of July.  I'm going to France for a week in August to do some singing.  September, the church job starts back and then I have an orchestra gig.  October seems promising, but then my little brother is already back at school so I won't see him for yet ANOTHER year.  I love our house in Boston.  I love coming home to our space that's decorated with our colors and holds our furniture and our dog and our friends.  I love when people come over to our house for supper - like last night, when we cooked Christmas present dinner for Mary and Laura - and I like it when we pile into cars with our friends and take day trips out to breweries on the Cape and have cookouts and go to Red Sox games.  I love all of those things, and more.  We took the train to the airport.  From right outside our house.  Never in a jillion years would that be possible in the state of Louisiana.  It just isn't possible.  At the same time, something in me longs for those drives on wide, straightaway roads.  I haven't driven much since we moved to Boston, other than here and there around the city - public transportation is totally the way to go for me.  But I miss it.  

I feel torn in two most times when I think about this.  Other than the people I love, I really don't know if I could find a peer group that suits me so well.  People from different backgrounds with common interests and (mostly) common philosophies on life.  I had forgotten what it was like to see people flinch when I say, "Fred and his husband Warren."  And I don't mind that forgetting.  I had also forgotten what it was like to have someone say, "Excuse me honey," when they have to get past you in a crowded place.  Recently, a high school friend remarked on facebook that the TSA people in the Boston airport were terribly rude to him.  Now I'm not saying that I'm all lovey-dovey with the TSA, but I spend far more time in the Boston airport than most people do, and I would say they're polite and efficient.  But it's not the same as the TSA people in Knoxville, who are twanging sweetly at you and asking you if you're having a good day.  The airport is also the size of my living room, so they have the time to do that, and they're not considered a "high-risk" airport like Boston is.  

How much do we give up as we grow up?  I've already given up red wine (acid reflux) and eating fatty foods as much as I want (Gilda has to fit into the bag) and seeing my best friend's baby (they live in Texas) and birthdays and anniversaries and spending holidays with my family, mostly because of gigs.  I've given up months away from my husband for work, and paid obscene amounts of money on plane tickets, just to steal a few days with him.  For what we paid for our house in Boston, we could have a beautifully restored Victorian on an acre of land in Louisiana.  How do we justify decisions when our heart is in many places but our address is only in one?  

I need red velvet cake.  

You can't be crabby and grateful at the same time

....or so says Richard's grammy.  

So this is me, being grateful.  And then I'm going to the gym to work through the rest of the yuck.

1.  my sister-in-law is a match for her sister's stem cells

2.  the pinch in my back is subsiding, indicating that it was just a nasty muscle pull and not an actual back problem

3.  my husband cooks good food for me and does so under limited time so that I can eat before I go to rehearsals

4.  my dog is sweet and lovely, and smells like warm puppy when he's been laying in the sun

5.  my parents love me and say so

6.  my little brother has a good job

7.  I haven't completely forgotten all of my Italian

8.  I'm done with my terminal degree

9.  cheap flights

10.  good health in my household

You can't be grateful and crabby at the same time.  Off to the gym, in search of more grateful.

I'm so tired

Listening to the Beatles sing this song, which seems to be evolving into my personal anthem.  It's been two weeks since graduation, 33 hours since my parents' plane departed Logan airport, twelve years since I finished high school, and I don't feel any closer to clarity at this particular moment than I did those twelve years, 33 hours, or two weeks ago.  I've been multi-tasking the business of being a student and a singer for the last two years in a hard-core way.  Before that, I was multi-tasking student with church musician, music director, accompanist, take your pick.  

And now, I'm not multi-tasking shit.  I'm trying to put together recordings and coachings and language sessions and if I don't find something else to do I'm going to lose my mind.  People who talk about how much free time you're going to have when you're done with school and how you will just rejoice with that free time - those people are fucking crazy.  Bat shit crazy.  They have never met me, and they have never seen me when I don't have enough to do.  This is me, with not enough to do.  I'm sitting around, listening to the Beatles and editing my latest recording and wishing against wish that I had some kind of structure around which I could build my day.  A class.  A meeting.  An appointment.  Something.  My gym doesn't have morning classes (other than the over-55 water aerobics class) so that's not an option.  I teach all of my students on Sunday afternoons, I've never been SO BORED in all my life.  

About this point, some busybody tells me how I need to embrace the quiet times.  I need to take yoga or learn to meditate.  Some people meditate.  I'm not one of those people.  And as soon as this pinch in my back is fully gone, I know I'll be able to get back on the running train and my head will be clearer, my body happier, my stomach less full of knots.  The extra energy that's being channelled into fretting is NOT HEALTHY.  And it saps my energy entirely, so that not only do I not have anything to do, my general malaise is so overwhelming that I don't even do the things I want to do.  Instead, I'm stuck in front of Garageband, listening to the three edits of my recitative, because that's what needs to get done, and I don't go to the gym and I don't enjoy the sunshine and I generally want to pull the heads off of flowers and scowl.

Sigh.

It's going to get better.  Tomorrow.  I hope.

They can't take that away from me, or The girl with the silver sandals

As I was tooling around the hall in my (ugly) robe with the fuzzy stripes down the sleeves and trying not to fidget with the silly cap on my head (lip gloss attracts tassel, it's not pretty), one of my former student/colleagues said to me, "I love reading your blog.  It makes me hate my life less."  Well I'm in favor of anyone hating their life less, namely those in my profession,  because life is hard enough even when you don't hate your life.  

A lot has happened in the last two weeks.  I finished up my last set of gigs in Seattle, my parents came to see my new house for the first time, and I graduated with my doctorate.  It was kind of anti-climactic, really.  I went to church that morning, I put on my makeup and my festive shoes (sidebar: the silver sandals were intended for the graduation day, but as they did not arrive in time, nor was the weather conducive for open-toed shoes, I wore my clogs for most of the day until just before the ceremony, when I pulled out my black and white checkerboard wedge heels) and sat in a very small seat for a very long time while the president of the conservatory flapped his gums about the state of the institution and how they were using lots of money for "deferred maintenance" on the campus.  First of all, one city block does NOT a campus make.  Second of all, "deferred maintenance" is a nice way of saying, "this place is being held together with duct tape and if we don't put up some scaffolding and get it done, it's gonna fall down."  Then Ben Zander got up and gave a wonderful (and shorter) talk about musicianship and  wholly energized things, more speaking from the alumni president (snore) and the chosen undergraduate speaker (you, who say you've met every single one of us, what's my name?) and then finally the actual graduation.  Undergrads, masters' students, and at the very end, after everyone else, the eight people who were receiving a doctorate.  Two people from my class - good ole Matt put his nose to the grindstone and finished up same time as I did, three people from the class that started in 2002, and some others from before and after that.  I can't imagine spending seven years on a degree.  It's just unfathomable to me.  I would have killed or taken hostages or burned books or something along the way.  Four years was plenty.  So they put the funny hood on me and I beat feet out of the auditorium to the sounds of a brass quintet, and then tried to get home as quickly as possible to accommodate the 25 people coming to my house to help me celebrate.  Lots of little cooking things and five or six screwdrivers later (was anyone else counting? I sure wasn't...) it was the end of a long day in which I went from a normal (scoff) musician to a doctor musician.  Paging Dr. Shiksa, we have a pedagogical emergency.  

Major event, right?  Cause for pause, right?  Take some time to absorb the gravity of the situation, right?

Nope.  Got on a bus the next day for New York to do an audition for a competition.  A big competition with lots of international audition dates, one that I'll probably audition for again next year.  Did not continue with the celebratory drinking, hydrated lots, prepared for the singing of the arias, fixed the hair, put on the makeup, freaked out about the pianist being late, freaked out some more, and then made my way through the maze underneath the Met to get to my audition spot.  More waiting.  These competitions, the ones that are sectioned off by voice type, they absolutely make me want to kill myself.  Sitting in a room with NINE OTHER SOPRANOS who are all singing the pre-prescribed repertoire, NINE OTHER VERSIONS of "glitter and be gay,"  FOUR OTHER VERSIONS of the queen of the night's first aria, it makes me nauseated.  Seriously.  I thought I sang well, ate some korean food with my pianist, and made my way back to the bus.  Plug in macbook, insert west wing dvd, and wait for the ride home to be over.  Temp work at the church for a few days plus actual church choir work, a little shopping, a little facebook, a little watching of harry potter trailers, more work, contemplation of job possibilities, a job interview at a law office (people who are actually impressed that I finished a doctorate - how unusual), a job interview at a church that was canceled before it even began (how rude) some walking in the park, a tutorial at the apple store on websites (stay tuned) and then the email I got today.

It's not so much about the fact that I didn't advance as the numbers that accompany that fact.  When we auditioned for this competition, we were told that our singing would be scored across four categories, five points each.  So when I received said email, I went to check my scores, thinking that I might receive a little enlightenment.  Did I receive enlightenment?

The answer is a big fat NO.  I received a set of threes, across the board.  This indicates that I am wholly average, across the board.  Alternately, it could indicate that they didn't actually take the time to put in individual scores and just put everyone as average unless they made it into the finals (therefore: "above" average).  What do numbers tell us?  They tell us how we did on standardized tests, potentially determining where we went to school or how much we paid to go there.  They tell us how much our speeding ticket is going to be when we are caught by an especially zealous member of law enforcement sitting at the bottom of a hill (personal anecdote?  I deny everything)  or how many stitches we have to knit before we can turn around and purl on the sweater we're working on.  

If I were in a different place (as I have been many times since I read these numbers) I would think that I am a wholly average singer, and that I should just hang it up, embrace the doctorate and the teaching career, and get the lead out on the job search.  If I were in a different place I would question my worth or the originality of what I do, or even go back and try to micro-examine every tone that came out of my mouth three days ago.  I would question what I wore, my hair, my makeup, my shoes.  But I'm not in that place right now.  I'm wearing the silver sandals (which are fabulous, by the way) and I'm in that "screw you" state of mind.  

I am an individual.  

I am an intelligent and thoughtful performer.  

I kick particular quantities of ass on the two arias I was asked to sing.  

I look DAMN HOT in my purple dress.

And I realize that I was the last person before your lunch break, but I deserve more than a set of threes simply because you couldn't be bothered to use another keystroke.  I'm not saying I deserve higher scores, I'm saying I deserve a few minutes of consideration to consider if my technique played better than my musicianship, or if my artistic presentation was really as strong as my facility.  I'm asking for the consideration of someone who gives a crap.  Because I do give a crap about what I do.  And I do give a crap about my languages and my diction and my legato line and the cleanliness of my coloratura.  I do care about those things.  

And if that's not enough, I have a doctorate that no one can ever take back, and a killer pedicure inside these silver sandals.  And that makes Dr. Shiksa a ten, thank you very much.

Swinging for the fences since 1980.

Spring has been hip-checked by summer

Just two weeks ago, we were wearing socks to bed so our feet wouldn't be cold.  The heat was on, I wore a long coat on Easter morning, and the possibility of more snow did not seem unlikely.  This morning, I woke up at 8 and got out the door for a run around 8:30am.  I ran on the east side of the street in hopes of getting some shade from the houses and trees, and by the time I got back, I was wishing and praying for death and a cold shower because it was HOT.  According to the little widget on my dashboard, it's 81 degrees outside and it's not even noon.  I went looking for my summer clothes and realized that I need to get a new pair of squishy flip-flops and that I seriously need to find a new sunscreen.  

Educational sidebar:  Sunscreen has an expiration date.  It should be good for up to three years, as long as it's in a cool place like your medicine cabinet.  But you shouldn't be keeping sunscreen for that long because you should be using it EVERY DAY.  And anything below SPF 15 is just a joke.  

So I pulled out my trusty bottle of Neutrogena, SPF 45, for my little run yesterday evening.  And I was sure to cover my ears and my neck and a little extra on my nose.  But my skin started to tingle, and my husband said his did the same, and even though I know that my super duper Neutrogena is less than nine months old, it started to tingle on my face so I threw that business in the trash can and I'm going to the drugstore today.  My moisturizer has SPF 28 but that's not nearly enough.  I'm looking into the serious SPF 50 stuff that Aveeno makes, especially with the new endorsements from the american academy of dermatology.  Wear your sunscreen y'all.  No one wants to look like a Coach purse before they've actually purchased one.

Because it's warmer, I'm going to have to inspire myself into getting up earlier and earlier to get in the run.  By the time the afternoon comes around, I'm just feeling lazy and the sun is over in the west which means it's shining right on my running path.  Ick.  So that means I'm going to hang my running clothes on the armoire and put my running socks on top of my shoes and set my alarm a little earlier each day.  Because if I can get my butt into my running shorts before I leave the bedroom, there is an increased possibility that I will actually go running.  Otherwise, you're just some silly girl in her running clothes sitting on the sofa watching The View.  And I do not want to be that girl.  I want to be the girl with the firm legs trotting down the parkway.  The happy girl who sleeps well.  The happier version of myself.  So let's do the math.

run/walk

total time - 39:45

total distance - 2.89 miles

The goal: make this into my "short run,"  find a "long run" that doesn't involve dodging cars.

And finally, the countdown:

18 days till my parents arrive, 19 days till Dr. Shiksa

Hooray!

Doors

"When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us."

-Helen Keller

When perusing the blogroll that google suggests, I rarely find anything of serious interest. Angry people writing about angry things, a few opera singers who, like myself, share the same issues of insecurity and travel and jet lag and ever-flexible relationships with those two little folds that live inside our throats. But a fellow singer who, not unlike myself, is facing some changes in his life that affect not only how you do your job but where you do your job and how you life your life. He's in the thick of it, but someone else had this Helen Keller quote on their blog, and he reposted it to his and, at the risk of starting some kind of weird meme, I've posted it to mine.

I had dinner with my voice teacher tonight. It's his last trip to Boston, his last week of teaching, and the last time I'll see him before I walk across the stage and an administrator places my DMA in my hot little hands. We talked about his students and their seeking me out to ask for grad school advice, career advice, audition advice. We talked about my search for a new teacher and the idea of technique as process, an idea that I didn't even know I had until I was articulating it to another singer. I suppose it's more of a philosophy about learning than anything else. We seek out new people and new perspectives because our learning is ever-changing, and we seek those new words so that an idea, which may have always been in our consciousness, can be new to us. Same with singing. We seek those new teachers, new coaches, so that they may speak the magic words to us that create new neural pathways and reactivate those two little folds in our throats so that they may perform that same task of vibrating in a new and hopefully easier way. Even having this conversation with him was weird. I'm no longer the naive 24 year-old, fresh from Mississippi, with no experience on a stage bigger than a municipal auditorium and more time in an orchestra pit than on the other side of the footlights. But I'm not ready to assume the other role of the real teacher, the mentor who guides those young singers down the scary and treacherous path that hopefully leads to happiness. Notice I didn't say, "success."

I'm trying to be patient. I'm trying to keep my eyes open. I'm trying to keep those lamps trimmed and burning so that when the time draws nigh, I am ready to embrace whatever my future really is. I am treading water like mad and wishing I had a new language to learn, one with a really hard alphabet, or maybe some kind of complicated artistic craft, like glassblowing or furniture-building. Patience is a virture and I SUCK AT IT. But the door of studenthood is closing. Rapidly. And I'm watching it close. I pray for the good sense and awareness to look forward once it's shut.

To that singer-blogger-colleague, my heart goes out to you. It will get better.

Spring is in the air

It's a beautiful day in Boston, which means that we might actually be rounding the corner into spring, leaving that long winter behind us.  I was cleaning out my closet and armoire (with the help and coercion of my sweet husband) and discovered a pair of boots that still have salt stains on them.  I've put away the heavy sweaters and the waterproof boots, but it's not quite warm enough to go out without a coat.  I think I like this time of year the best.  Sam Summer is now on tap in the bars, which means that Sox season has started.  I went out without socks today and didn't even glance at my hat.  Tomorrow, when husby and I make our way to Fenway Park, I'm not even thinking about wearing long underwear under my Sox T-shirt, and I might actually have to find my sunglasses.  

Sunshine makes me unusually optimistic, so I'm especially gushy after seeing that my old friend Jeff is engaged.  And in his typical style, he didn't just propose - he brought his bride to a fancy French restaurant, disappeared mysteriously, and then sang to her.  Now as a girl who has swooned at the romance of singing (and who swoons onstage pretty regularly) I give Jeff extra points for turning up the romance dial.  Another wonderful man joining the married club, we're happy to have you here.  

It's been a hard month.  Lots of trips, auditions, a dissertation that finally got approved (that's right kids, they're handing me the doctorate in count it - ONE MONTH) and the constant refrain of "what's next" that will not stop whistling in my ears.  But today, I'm feeling good.  I told my mom, the closer I get to 30, the better I feel.  I have good skin (thanks to all those years of sunscreen and moisturizing), I have great hair (genetics), and the older I am, the happier I am with my body.  My voice is in good shape, my apron strings to the academic institution are being chopped at last, and I'm really free to do whatever I like.  I can teach, or not.  I can go to work at Starbucks, or not.  I can wake up every morning and watch Beyonce sing about how a diva is a female version of a hustler (sidebar: how exactly did she come to the conclusion?  And what does being a diva have to do with wearing weird clothes and super stilettos and tossing your hair?  What am I missing?  Girl has got some style, but I think she got some bad advice on that particular video.  I'm just saying.), or dance around listening to Justin Timberlake while I'm folding the laundry.  Now if only some of those options would fall away and leave me with what I'm really supposed to be doing?!

Oy.  In the meantime.  Fenway Park.  And a story about Chanel for another time.

Mean people suck, and another year of thicker skin

When I was in elementary school, I had these two girlfriends who lived around the corner.  Their houses were on the same street, and we would roam the neighborhood with some frequency as a giggly, awkward, nerdy triumvirate.  One of them even had the same birthday as I do (which means she's turning 30 this year as I celebrate my last year in the twenties) and I don't think there was a single Saturday in 1989 that wasn't spent at one of their houses, watching The Princess Bride or making papier-mache jewelry.  Sometime in the eighth grade, they both ditched me.  Without ceremony, and without warning.  This was around the time I became "one of the guys" with the boys in my gifted English and Algebra classes.  Despite my new status as the only girl among many nerdy boys, I was crushed that my girlfriends had deserted me.  They had moved on to cooler, more arch pursuits that probably involved tanning by someone's pool and playing junior varsity soccer or what have you.  And my mother tried her best to comfort me, saying all the things that mothers do: "They're not worth your tears, You're so much better off without them, They were intimidated by your intelligence, They need to hang around with underlings to make themselves feel superior."  Miss Jean is pretty smart in that way, and in time, I saw that they were hanging around with the intellectual equivalent of nutrient agar and felt slightly better.  Like that amazing quote from 'Some Kind of Wonderful' - 

"Look, I was hanging with you fungi in a vain effort to cool you out, but all I am getting is breeze."  Mean people suck.

What does this have to do with today's daily doings, you might ask?  

Just before an audition this afternoon, I was killing time in the green room and checked my email.  I found this message in my inbox:

A user has submitted their contact information.

Name: xxx

Email: xxx

Comment:

"most important sopranos of our time"?

Come on babe.  You're pretty and you've got a nice voice, but don't be a jerk by falling prey to the egotistical stuff that other young singers do.  Just be yourself and let your voice do the talking---okay?

A few things.  

First, this person left only a first name and last initial, and an email address that I seriously doubt is real.  

Second, the fact that they took the time to peruse my website and leave a nasty comment leads me to believe that they really have nothing better to do with their life.  

Third, I don't write my own bio, because if I did it would say, "Shiksa sings, likes dogs and the Red Sox, and wants you to hire her."  And then my agent's head would explode.  The bio on my website, and any print material that's associated with my career, is written and proofed by my agent.  It's their job to get me work.  

Fourth, mean people suck.  

Needless to say, I wasn't completely on my game during that audition.  I really hope I sang well, because there were some jobs in the room I'd like to come my way.  But who knows?  I was so wrapped up in this horrible vortex of, "Do people really think I'm some kind of self-aggrandizing jerk who would actually purport myself to be an important singer?  Does this person know me and think this?  And if they don't know me, have they heard that I'm a huge self-important diva?  Does my headshot say that I'm a huge self-important diva?"  It was awful, just awful.  And I fretted and fretted and called my husband and my mom and fretted some more.  While I was buying a birthday cupcake for my colleague Liz, I treated myself to a mini-cupcake and tried to gain some perspective between the cake and the frosting.  Still finding it lacking, I ran 4.5 miles.  And I tell you what people, clarity sure as shootin does come between the third and fourth mile, when you no longer care about anything other than why somebody bumped the fan that was blowing on you.  I was watching CNN, all the kerfuffle about GM and Chevrolet and Madonna adopting some little girl in Malawi and none of it even made a dent. Because I was in the quiet place in my head.  

My feelings were hurt, are hurt, that someone who probably doesn't know me at all would take the time to try to bump me down a peg.  I have worked very hard for this peg.  I have worked nearly 29 years to get this peg to where I want it to be.  I'm good at what I do, and I know what I know, and I'm getting better at accepting who I am (fierce warrior queen - that's another story) and even liking who I am.  I think grace comes with age, and I think muscle comes with more mileage, and I've got new Smartwool socks to aid me on that particular journey.  But Miss Jean was right back in eighth grade, and she's right again today.  That thicker skin that I'm so reluctant to grow, it does help us protect ourselves from those who would hurt us, simply because they can.  So here's to another year of grace and thicker skin.  Now it's time to see how my to-do list from this year shaped up:

28 things I want to accomplish in my 29th year on earth:

1. finish my doctorate

2. buy a house

3. paint a room in said house blue

4. learn to make a really good red sauce

5. get to the point with my knitting where I don't have to look at my hands

6. bump up my Italian reading proficiency

7. go to a foreign country - NOT for work - with my husband

8. train for and run a 10K

9. spend time with my relatives in NOLA

10. spend a full day at the beach, any beach that's warm will do

11. reread Pride & Prejudice

12. eat more veggies

13. do more yoga

14. go to a Red Sox game

15. go to a Southern Miss football game

16. eat crawfish - lots and lots of crawfish

17. pick a haircolor

18. sit on the porch with Dr. L and shoot the breeze

19. get Sammy to go running with me

20. go sailing on the Charles again

21. meet Garrison Keillor

22. get my piano north of the Mason-Dixon line

23. learn a new role, just to learn it

24. swim in the ocean

25. accompany a recital 

26. go to church - not go to work at church

27. get hired to do an opera back home

28. be more thankful

Half isn't bad, and I'm confident that I'll still accomplish some of those before 2009 is out.  And speaking of gratitude, I'm going to do 10, because gratitude is most needed on the days when things are sucky, like today.  Let's do this.

1.  one of my colleagues, who reached out and hugged me today without any kind of warning, simply because she saw I was hurting

2.  the silent and comforting monotony of the treadmill

3.  random days of sunshine in Seattle

4.  my parents, who are nuts, but they're mine and I love them

5.  good moisturizer

6.  dogs, because they never lie

7.  seven days till home and house

8.  friends both far and near

9.  red beans and rice from the Steelhead Diner - who knew I could find real southern cooking at a diner in Seattle?

10.  my husband, who always offers a great vengeance plan, and then tempers it with, "But that wouldn't make you feel better, would it."  He's the best.

Poop on your head, mean person in the internet abyss.  Dr. Shiksa (thank you very much) is too cool for your drama.

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

Two kinds of people

Last night I was having a chat with Ian, the revival director of Flute.  He was telling me how there are two kinds of people: those who pack their suitcases two days in advance and sit there, poised and ready to go to the airport at any moment.  And people who don't.  

Three guesses which one I am.  

I'm still sitting in my pyjamas, reluctant to get in the shower because it means I must acknowledge my impending departure from this experience, my international debut, my two and a half months in London, my reacquaintance with some really wonderful friends, and my work on a production that has become so incredibly dear to me.  And when I say impending, I mean I have to leave this house in a little over an hour.  My husband would be pulling out his eyebrows with frustration, were he here to see this.  

Now don't think I'm totally unprepared.  The bed is stripped, the suitcase just needs to have the toiletries thrown into it, and the clothes I'm going to wear are laid out and ready.  It's just me that's not ready.  Last night, I got to the theatre nice and early so I could put cards in the rooms of my colleagues.  I even stocked up on mindless reading material (a big thank you to Stephanie Meyer, for writing those inane Twilight books - you're keeping the crazy away on those long flights) so I was all set when Eddy came in to do the wig.  I gave my dresser and my makeup artist their gifts - large bottles of alcohol always seem appropriate at the end of a long run of a show - and tried hard not to contemplate how many friends and important people were in the audience.  And suddenly, poof!  they're calling my name over the intercom to get up on the rock, George the birdman tells me thank you and he hopes we'll see each other again, my little dove behaves herself like a good girl should, and then Rob and I just go out there and have a good time.  This is the best part of my job.  When you're onstage with a colleague and you're both having such a good time, you can flash your eyes at them and they flash theirs back, and you know you're both doing your jobs and enjoying each other's company.  Same way in the second aria - I'm shrieking down at SJ, and she's grinning up at me, examining my back molars, and in those little secret moments, we're just two singers on stage, having a fabulous time in really kick-ass costumes.  

It's over all too quickly.  Some people hate doing the long run.  They would rather have their eyelashes plucked out at the root than do a revival of Magic Flute.  And maybe the guy from that audition is right - maybe I will have to say no to Queen someday.  But that day is not today, nor will it be any time this year, Lord willing and the creek don't rise.  

To all of my singer friends, I wish you the kind of happiness and support I received on this production.  We should all endeavor to be better colleagues, better stewards of our craft, more generous with our art and our time, and more open to the possibilities that lie in these old productions.  

Shit.  Now I really do have to get in the shower.  

1.  for my excellent and estimable colleagues - who made this experience beautiful and memorable

2.  for my sweet husband and dog - who were willing to let me go for two and a half months so I could do this

3.  for my dear dear friends in London - who came to the performances and were loud and raucous and made me feel as if I might belong here

4.  for the opera gods, who smiled on us almost every night, and for George the birdman, who made sure the birds were always magnificent

5.  for the gorgeous day outside that makes me wish I had just one more day to walk through the park, to meet my friends for coffee and cake, to go to the theatre

6.  (because my heart is swelling a little) to the city of Boston - I'm coming home!

Make new friends, but keep the old

I was walking through Covent Garden with Ayla today, shooting the bull like we always do, when I was seized by a sudden realization that I'm actually leaving London in two days.  This means that I won't get to ring up my friends and make dates for French pastry, or get on the tube to go eat pancakes with them, or even just send silly texts to talk about how crap the TFL is.  And it made me a little sad.  

I've been away from Boston for two and a half months.  I'm sitting here in my Red Sox t-shirt (birthday gift from husby last year) and jammy pants and I absolutely can't wait to be home in my house with my sweet puppy and my washing machine and my DRYER (oh how I've missed my dryer) and my DISHWASHER (let's not even go there - it's a Russian novel) and all of the clothes that I left behind.  It will be like an episode of What Not To Wear, where they show footage of some poor soul wearing the same clothes over and over again on video, and then they give her this great wardrobe.  Yep, that's me, the girl wearing the same black sweater for two and a half months, because I had to do this operation in one large suitcase.  Good thing I like that black sweater.  Yeesh.  I just want to wear a different coat.  My black trench coat needs to go back into the closet, and stay there for a while.  But I digress.  

Ayla and I ended up sitting at Pret, waiting for another girlfriend of mine and her new boyfriend to arrive.  We were joking about how we just walk around and shoot the shit (sex and boys, sex and boys, she says) and then about the occasional interruptions for architecture and art history lessons (sex and boys, sex and boys, ooh look it's a combination of neo-Gothic and Victorian architecture! sex and boys) and then my googling at dogs on the street (sex and boys, Gothic Revival, look a labrador! sex and boys).  It occurs to me how much I will miss this girl.  We met ten years ago, at very silly ages, and totally hit it off.  Ten years later, we're no longer quite so silly, but our love for pencil cases (mission accomplished!) and good cups of tea and the incredible ease of company has remained.  Hubby says it's because neither of us suffer from the "smartest girl in the room" disorder when we're together.  

After supper, I took a little time to walk around, popping in and out of shops, gently deflecting comments from people about the "smudge" on my forehead (um, hello, it's Ash Wednesday?) and realizing how comfortable I've started to feel in London.  I know my way around so much better than I ever did, and the warm fuzzies from the ENO people make me hope and pray that I will be hired back.  I'm not ready to cross London off the list.  In how many other cities could you go to a Templar church, and buy a Japanese pencil case, and then go to the opera, and see the crown jewels, and listen to a real Evensong service, all in one day?

So.  I've lapsed a little in my habits of betterment.  Let's get back on the horse.  For Lent, I'm giving up trying to relive the old lives of myself, chocolate, and sleeping past 9am.  And I'm bringing back the gratitude, because there's so much I have to be thankful for.  Let's do it.

1.  Muji - the silly store full of fun organizational things that make my heart hum

2.  good friends, who still remember how silly I was 10, 5, 2 years ago, and like me anyway

3.  an Ash Wednesday service in which I was neither leader nor singer

4.  the kindness of strangers

5.  progress, grace, and humility, in no particular order

Penitential seasons

Yesterday was Mardi Gras, one of my absolute favorite holidays that I haven't been home to celebrate in years and years. At least I was with some friends who decided to make pancakes - the yummy little thin French ones that you put sugar and lemon on. And nutella. Ohhhh nutella. So I woke up this morning, still trying to figure out what I'm going to give up for Lent.

Letting go of things is important. These last few weeks have been really strange for me. I've been grilled about my degree, I've gotten absolutely rotten reviews, I've had this enormous train of friends come through London to see the show and I've flown and driven all over the UK for auditions. And while visiting some of those old places I had to really look hard at the old times. Sitting in the pubs where I drank myself silly as a 21 year-old masters' student, I was remembering how hard those times were, how uncertain I was and how much I DO NOT MISS THOSE TIMES.

So this is where I'm at. Sometimes you can't get those things back, and you can't get those times back, and sometimes you really don't even want to. I'm giving up looking back. No more.

Three days till home. Eyes on the prize.

Greatness at work

I just got home from the dress rehearsal for Doctor Atomic.  It opens this Wednesday and if any of my readers (lurking out there in the blogosphere) happen to be in London, GO SEE IT.  I've never seen a John Adams opera before, or any opera that made use of amplification and effects of this magnitude, but it really was an amazing sight to see.  I felt that the drama was very well-written and executed beautifully, and the singing was just breathtaking.  I have a huge singer crush on Gerald Finley now, which makes me one of the many, but he's such a consummate artist.  Such finely honed singing, so excellently crafted and finessed, and with the kind of diction that you usually hear on recordings.  As a point of home-turf pride, I was happy to see that Sasha Cooke turned out marvelously well.  Our Seattle Opera parents are bursting with excitement to have two former young artists on the mainstage at ENO, and now I can go there next week and tell them I saw her kick ass with my own two eyes.  Lots of good singing up on that stage, a few minor mishaps with the raising and lowering of shades, but I was absolutely riveted to my seat.  Another one of those days where I just love what I do for a living because it means I get to sit in the opera house and watch greatness happen.  

Katrina and I were sitting in Paul today, nibbling on french macaroons and almond pastry and quiche, and I was telling her about my most recent crisis of career/conscience/life.  At an audition last week, I suddenly found myself in an episode of Jeopardy, getting grilled about everything from where I went to school to what I studied and why, and whether or not I was finishing the doctorate and why did I start it and did I really want to be a singer.  Now everyone I've told this story to butts in at this juncture and says, "Um, did you tell them that HELLO you already ARE a singer???"  While I agree with them, that's not really the kind of attitude you want to throw down when hoping to be hired, so I did a lot of creative tap dancing to get out the door without offending the people on the audition panel.  When I mentioned it to my agent, they told me that the concern is not so much that I might be less-than-devoted to the profession of singing, it's that an opera singer might be too intelligent.  Read: more intelligent than the people directing/coaching/conducting them.  It's a very complex issue for me.  I've spent all this time and effort working on finishing this degree with both speed and success, I've managed to write and edit a dissertation while maintaining a full performing and auditioning schedule, and now that I'm on the precipice of finishing (the disser went to committee last week, let's hope they will have an answer for me soon) I have to effectively shelf my intelligence so that I don't scare the people I want to employ me.  Now no one wants to hire a singing idiot who can't put together two grey cells to get from stage right to stage left, but no one likes the smartest kid in the class either.  This has been a long-standing source of contention with my colleagues that's well-documented in this blog, so I won't belabor the point by expounding further.  Needless to say, I was pondering the duplicity of this philosophy at the opera tonight.  John Adams wrote some seriously hard music, and it makes me think that the people involved in that production are of serious musical cred to be able to pull it off successfully.  Would John Adams care whether or not the singers were too intelligent?  Or would he be grateful that they had spent twelve years in higher education so they could execute his score with expedience and accuracy and artistry?  Points to ponder.

Three days till the close of Flute.  Four days till I fly back to Boston, green money, and my sweet life in my sweet house with my husband and dog.  And six days till I fly to Seattle to start Midsummer.  Eeep.

A beautiful day in the neighborhood

Or borough, as some might say.  Hubby left early this morning after one long whirlwind of a week that involved a trip to Glasgow for an audition, a quick run-out trip to Exeter for a bit of nostalgia, more auditions, and two performances of Flute with a veritable revolving door of friends from the States.  The show is going really well - last night's performance was especially fun, with the added benefit of hubby and friends in the audience raising a serious ruckus, and a visit from a UN ambassador who couldn't make it to the end of intermission without coming backstage to meet me.  Seriously.  There was a tiara, and they called her "her excellency."  

So now that the sun is shining and the cloud of grey seems to have lifted from its permanent place over the UK, I find myself feeling a little melancholy.  How strange to long for sunshine and then be a little surprised when it shows up.  It was a hard week for us.  One of my husband's friends from high school was killed in a plane crash - the one that went down in Buffalo - and he's been taking it, well, exactly as one expects to take it.  Hard.  You reconsider your life when faced with death.  Am I doing what I should be doing?  Am I living up to my potential?  What is my potential?  Should I have done (insert list of potential life choices) instead of (insert list of life choices actually made) and would it have made a difference?  Hard to say on all counts.  In the same week, I found out that one of my high school classmates died.  The paranoid superstition within me says, "ohhhhh crap, bad things come in threes, please let it be over...." but it doesn't feel like that.  When I think about it, it feels nothing.  Numb.  I was not close with either of these people who died, but when I contemplate their seemingly senseless deaths at incredibly young ages, it makes me want to get on a plane and fly home and see my grandmother and my aunts and uncles and cousins and even my crazy parents and my reclusive brother.  It makes me want to call everyone I've lost touch with, just to make sure they're okay.  One of my high school boyfriends turned up in a dream the other night - he hasn't spoken to me in ten years, but there he was, in my subconscious, and I awoke with this panic.  It's irrational, I know it is.  And my sweet husband petted my arm and told me to go back to sleep, because that's just how great he is, but I confess I'm still going through that mental list of, "wow, I haven't spoken to them in forEVER, I wonder how they're doing."  Facebook is the devil and only enables this kind of morbid curiosity, so I'm trying to keep it to a minimum.  

It's not the same for my husband.  He had a relationship with his friend who died, he had personal memories and photos and a friendship to think about.  I have these snippets from high school, passing conversations, vague remembrances, and a generally warm feeling about the person who has died, a well of sadness for his family, and this little voice in my head that says, "why on earth are you gallivanting around the planet doing this silly opera business instead of sitting at home with your family?"  

Separation is an ongoing theme for me.  Meeting new people, living with strangers, coming home to my husband and the dog and my friends in Boston.  Packing, repacking, unpacking.  Wash, rinse, repeat.  And along the way, some things do get left behind.  But how do we choose what to take with us as we go forward?  How do we sift through the everyday and the pedantic and the frivolous and hold on to the dear and precious?  

Call your parents.  Better yet, call mine, will you?  They're crazy, but I'll keep them just the same.  

A trip to the library

I don't have an inner nerd.  I have an outer nerd that is frequently cloaked in costumes and outfits that make me look like an opera singer instead of a musicologist.  Well Monday was "come as you are," and Ayla and I got on the train at 7:38am to Saxmundham, en route to Aldeburgh and the Britten-Pears Library.  One train, one very confused bus driver, and a little tromp through the mud later, we arrived at the Red House on Golf Lane, also known as the home of Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears.  Nerd heaven.

Three hours, three boxes of archival scores (annotated in Colin Graham and Britten's handwriting), and a stack of uncatalogued photographs later, the archivist suggested that we break for lunch.  And here's where the real festivity began.  Ayla and I traipsed into Aldeburgh to get something hot to drink - the rain was coming down sideways! - and ended up at this local pub.  When she sends me the photos I'll be sure to put this one up, because the bar was housed in what I can only assume was some kind of general store.  You know, with the painted windows advertising their wares?  And they sold, in the order in which they appeared on the window: "fancy goods, sponges, photographic, toilets."  Wow.

The inside of the pub was nearly as festive as the outside.  Being the only two patrons in there, we were served by the barman and a guy named Barry, who referred to himself as "the local drunk getting drunk as a skunk."  He kept patting us on the shoulder and asking if everything was okay.  Um, we just ordered a pot of tea, dude.  And it's fine.  Barry would stagger back and forth, and the dog on the floor would grouse a little and come over and sniff my umbrella and then grouse back to the bar.  Then, Barry and George decided to come over and talk to the foreigners with their pot of tea, and we got to go through the fun "where are you from?" conversation.  Now Ayla is an expert at dealing with strangers, she is so smooth you wouldn't even know she's trying to escape.  I'm not so smooth, so I let her do the talking.  We finish our tea and fantastic lunch and hike back up toward the library, via the parish church yard where Britten and Pears (and Imogen Holst) are buried.  It's a little surreal to walk through this town and the church yard and the high street and think to myself, "This is where Britten spent a large part of his life.  This is where the two of them would walk down and get groceries."  It's a tremendously special thing to stand where those before you have stood.  So we hiked back up to the library, I finished my photocopying and had a marvelous conversation with another librarian, who just happened to be a Poulenc scholar and she just happened to have written a huge chapter on Mamelles, and in that chapter she went to the library in Paris that housed the original program from the Paris premiere, and she basically saved my ass from trying to figure out if I was nuts, or if scholars had failed to figure out if Mamelles premiered with Boheme or a ballet.  Whew.  Then, the curator showed us all around the library and opened up Red House for a little private guided tour.  It's closed until June, so it was very quiet, just the sound of the rain and our bootie-covered feet (to protect the floors and rugs) shuffling through the house where Britten and Pears lived.  The chairs where they sat.  The desk where Britten composed, his spectacles and manuscript paper still lying on the desk.  The photos and artwork.  My favorite photo was in the windowsill by the windowseat overlooking the garden.  It was a picture of Britten sitting in the windowseat, the tapestries unchanged, the light a little dim, just as it was when I was standing there.  The photo of Peter Pears with one of the dogs on his lap, having a fantastic laugh.  Since Pears was also an art collector, Ayla got to see a lot of modern art and talk with the curator about the building and the preservation/restoration efforts.  A totally worthwhile use of our time, and completely worth getting the early train there.  When we finally caught the bus back to Saxmundham just after 6pm, soaking from the rain and freezing our tails off, I could only feel happy and satisfied.  Not only had I put my hands on the primary source material from which my dissertation has sprung, but I got to touch things that the public has never seen, that scholars have never seen.  I got to leaf through scores and see photos and walk through Britten's living room and study, and run my hands over Peter Pears' piano.  As Ayla was saying to me, the English have a very good sense of place when it comes to history - this is something that America is working on, but it's hard to convince people that a house not lived in is worth preserving when space is at a premium.  Here, history is just sitting there, waiting to be seen.  Churches, cathedrals, even in the tiny streets of London that are so inconvenient for driving, it's just waiting.  What a treasure.

So we got back to Saxmundham, had pub dinner in front of a fire, and got back on the train to London at 7:32pm.  Spent the night at Ayla's, drinking tea and warming up from our journey and recovering from an extremely long day.  I spent the morning working on my dissertation edits and sent what I hope will be the final draft to my advisers.  I answered every question, integrated every section, checked my sources and citations, and even managed to find a great quote for the front page.  I think it's done.  Please let them think it's done too.  

It's just before 11am, so I've got to get dressed and out of here in the next hour and a half.  I'm meeting my old adviser from Exeter.  From one musicologist to another.  Nerd lunch :)

Pictures to follow! 

Why I love my job, part 2

My dear friend Tobi came all the way from Stuttgart with his girlfriend Babsi to see me sing this weekend.  They arrived super late on Thursday night, we spent most of Friday sight-seeing and shopping (my first successful trip yet - I found true adult love with a handbag) and then I spent Saturday indoors recovering for the performance while they trotted all over London.  I left the house early so I could go in and pick up my beautiful bag, bringing my Midsummer score with me - no sense in buying a professional bag if it doesn't fit the needs of your professional materials, then into the theatre.  I've got the sniffles but I'm feeling unusually optimistic.  Everyone is so tired from having done the matinee, but there's something wonderful about a double-dipper day.  The initial nerves are mostly gone, even though our 2nd cast Pamina is on for a double-dip as well, the staff has all gone out and grabbed a quick bite to eat, and the theatre is still buzzing with people coming and going.  Eddy comes and gets the face on, puts on Her Highness (the wig), and since I'm drinking tea like a fiend, Jessie lets me make one last trip to the loo before the massive skirts go on.  The makeup and wardrobe people are taking pictures for their archive, so we get to pose in the hallway and lark about being silly.  I'm called for the first aria, George the birdman hands me the missus, who proceeds to get squirmy AGAIN and now I've just accepted that this will be part of our routine.  Squirmy bird makes for a good aria.  Fine.  The first aria did go really really well, if I do say so myself, and then I did some work on Midsummer until the interval when Jessie was kind enough to release me from the skirts (more tea, more loo, is this TMI or what?) and then before I know it, they're calling me for the second aria.  Feeling good, feeling in control, a little tickle in the throat during the last b-flat, I'm sure that didn't sound exactly the way I wanted it to, but on the whole, quite good, storm offstage and what do I see?

Rob, my Tamino, standing there with a tray of McDonalds - big Mac, fries, and a vanilla milkshake, and I'm laughing and jumping up and down so much I'm afraid I'll disturb the scene that's still going on.  I'm pulling off my gloves as fast as I can because those are fries and they need to be in my mouth as fast as possible and I can see the costume staff inwardly cringing so I take the tray back to my dressing room, tell Rob that I will kiss his face soundly once I've got all this makeup off, and then the dressers take turns photographing the Queen, stuffing her face with a burger.  

Back story: last Saturday, when the performance was going really well, I came off after the 2nd aria and there was Rob and Roddy, just hanging about and listening until their next entrance and I said to them, "you know, I just get so hungry singing this role but I don't dare eat a thing until after the 2nd aria is over.  I could so eat a big dirty burger or fish and chips or something."  They found this hilarious, and Rob said that one night, he wouldn't say when, he would appear with a burger for me after that second aria.  I thought he was totally kidding, and we had a good laugh about it, so for him to appear with a burger when I'm coming down from that second aria high was just about the best feeling ever.  All of my self-criticism about my singing vanished, all of my worries about the sniffles vanished, and I could only think about how hilarious this was, and how wonderful my castmates are to do such silly and thoughtful things.  And also, I began to plot exactly how I will surprise him next time......must plan must plan.....

The show ended, the audience was marvelously responsive (though I'm sure that most of the shouting for me was from my small entourage that came to visit) and then I was getting changed as quickly as possible to get out there when the conductor stuck his head through my door.  He said it was an amazing night for me, and that I had hit the nail right on the head.  

It still makes the hairs on my arms stand up to think about him saying that, to think of the audience roaring, and how happy this whole process makes me.  Later, after drinks with my friends, we were talking about how hard it can be to find something new in Flute, to make the orchestra play with the kind of enthusiasm that comes when a piece is fresh and straight off the page.  But really, for me, this has been about finding new ways to express myself through the work - new ways to let myself off the leash without completely letting go of the reins, how to play the scene fast and hard without singing fast and hard, and also how to temper what other people say with what I know happened on the stage.  

I know that I'm still smarting from the critics.  I know I am.  It hurts to have your name printed up with such awful adjectives and mean-spirited opinions.  It's horrible.  And it makes you question everything you do and how you do it and whether or not it's even worth it to go on with the next performance.  Because this is an extension of ourselves, of our deepest and innermost desires, and we're about to dress it up and put it onstage for others to see, and hopefully to enjoy.  It's their right to say that I'm too young or that they don't like my singing.  They are entitled to create a blog that's all about their criticism of arts events and post what they think, just as I'm entitled to say what I think here on my blog.  But I should not let any of those people into that spot in my heart, the spot that still swells from hearing the overture and skips a beat when the walls part, the part that gets hurt when I think someone doesn't respect my work.  Because that spot is still mine, most cherished, and I should protect it and nurture it.  Because I love my job, and I want to continue to love it.  

So while they're all entitled to their opinion, I will kindly ask them to piss off, please.  My friends are waiting out there, and they're waiting to watch me kill.  Which I did.