The Sequined Threat

On 18 May 2014 By MezzoSherriIn Pop Goes the Culture, Practicing in the Heart, Topics of StudyLeave a comment

I knew from yesterday’s exercises that this morning’s concluding movements for the retreat were going to be physical ones. So when I got dressed, I said a small prayer of thanks that I had one T-shirt to wear for the work and a fresh shirt to change into before heading off to the airport and my travels home.

In retrospect, it might have been wiser to switch the order of how I wore these two items of clothing. In my own way of mixing vanity and propriety when I travel, I saved the “dressier” T-shirt for my travels: darker and more subdued colors as well as a subtler design. Dark blue flowers, grey leaves on a dark cocoa background, with a small smattering of sequins across the torso.

It seemed like a good idea at the time. But as it turns out, the security body scanning machine isn’t a fan of sequins, so wearing them may result in you getting sorta-kinda felt up by the lady TSA agent.

———-

Nota bene: As much as I love comic hyperbole, let me be really clear right now about the professionalism shown by the TSA agent in question. She told me what the scanner procedure required, and that she would be using only the back of her hands for this “pat-down.” She made it very clear this was not an enjoyable happening for her, either, and she gave me the option of stepping to a more private location before this extra-level search happened. She also warned me before every body contact within the pat-down, and was as quick as she could be within what was required.

All in all, she did the best she could within the structure to make an invasive and dehumanizing moment as painless as she could. So: honor to her.

———-

Nevertheless, the structure itself was incredibly dehumanizing — something I didn’t really get till I was in the middle of the happening. Foolishly, naively, defiantly, I had chosen not to step to a more private location for the “pat-down.” Naively, because I didn’t quite get how thorough the search was going to be. Foolishly, because I had zero foresight to understand how profoundly shocking this boundary-crossing was going to feel in my system. Defiantly, because even with my limited ahead-of-time understanding about the structure, I knew enough to want it to be out in the open.

Let them see what this system is like. Do not let this be swept over and hidden in the shadows.

No, I don’t really know who the “them” is I want to wake up to this structure. But even now that I know how thorough the search is, and how it really feels to stand and experience that, I have no regrets for staying out in the open for it. Let them see, indeed.

And although today’s happening was an especially charged case study, the principle of how dehumanizing air travel can be holds true in so many other expressions.

Yes, I’ve seen that Louis C.K. bit before. I know how miraculous it is that air travel is available to us at all, and I have profound gratitude at being able to use this miracle in order to attend these retreats, to study, to grow my awareness, and to move my life forward.

But still.

So many elements of airport design and airline systems reduce people to one or all of these things: cargo, cash cows and potential threats. Seats that keep getting more cramped and compressed to increase the profit capacity of each individual flight, and the endless up-charges to try and increase the profit potential from each individual passenger. The continued ridiculousness of taking your shoes off at the security checkpoint. The price mark-up on the Dunkin’ iced coffee bought in the airport as compared to the one a mile down the road from Logan, paired with the regulations that forbid you from bringing the more reasonably-priced caffeinated beverage along on your travels.

I am by no means a road warrior. But I travel enough to have some chances to study these dynamics. And I do see individuals — staff and travelers alike — taking what steps they can to maintain their humanity and bring it into the travel machine in whatever ways they can.

I’ve started making my own conscious efforts in this direction. Saying my “thank you” to someone with attention and sincerity rather than just by rote. Helping someone place a computer cord so he can use the extra plug at the charging station where I’m sitting and feeding my Apple gadgets. Holding my shit together when a TSA agent needs to pat me down rather than exploding any of my triggeredness on her.

But I can’t help but wonder. What would it be like if humanity were intrinsically woven into the travel structure? What would it be like if moments of humanity and connection were part of the design rather than operating as a sub rosa counter-narrative?

After all: how many other structures are similarly ripe for transformation?

Gone Fishin’

On 14 May 2014 By MezzoSherriIn Practicing in the Heart, Spirituality, Topics of Study1 Comment

Off on an early morning flight to the retreat tomorrow.

Last night and tonight I was/am deep in packing, preparation, and managing domestic tasks to compensate for the abbreviated week. And once I’m at the retreat center, I’m completely off-the-grid till I emerge Sunday evening.

So: no blogging for Sherri this week.

I’m excited. And nervous. And a little stirred up — some of the forces I expect I’ll be processing tomorrow-and-onward have erupted a tiny bit early.* The retreat will be hard work, but it’ll be good work, and work well-worth the doing.

———-

* Which is how it usually goes for me.

Trading Two Left Feet for a Regular Pair

On 12 May 2014 By MezzoSherriIn Meta-Blogging, Pop Goes the Culture, Self-Acceptance, The Voices in My Head, Topics of StudyLeave a comment

I spent some time this evening getting organized and doing a little packing for my weekend retreat. And I should be doing my homework for said retreat. Instead, I’ve been trying to figure out another blog post while I watch Dancing with the Stars.*

Like with theater and musical theater, I have loved ballroom and contemporary dance for years. Unlike with musical theater, I have never had talents in that direction, so my love of dance has always been the love of a spectator rather than an aspirant.

(I mean, I can bluff my way through some basic stage choreography, like a lot of community theater participants. I think my natural musicality can give me some help in that department, but nevertheless: this gal would never be considered a triple threat.)

I’ve never been sure how much of my lack of dancing talent comes sincerely from a lack of talent in that direction and how much is the legacy of having lived dissociated or semi-dissociated for so many of my formative years.

There’s probably some aspect of a sincere lack of talent. I’m not naturally athletic in any direction, and I consider dance to be as sincere an athletic endeavor as any other sport. And then, when you look at my natural genetic body shape as compared to the body type of most dancers,** there’s another signal about how I’m not naturally suited for terpsichorean pursuits.

But as I’m learning more and more to live in my body and in communication with my physical self, and as that study overlaps with the possibility of me dipping my toes back into musical theater, I find myself wondering if the flavor of that experience might be a bit different now than from when I was last on stage, some decade or so ago.

Not that I’m expecting to be transformed from a faker to Fosse overnight, but I do wonder if there will be a bit more ease in my next dance audition. Hard to predict, but certainly something to watch.

* Fumbling fingers alert: my initial typing of the title was Dancing with the Tsars. How’s that for a new reality-show concept?

** You will, perhaps, notice that I don’t even list ballet as a dance style I’m strongly a fan of. That shit is just way too body dysmorphic for my tastes.

The Value of a Wasted Day

On 11 May 2014 By MezzoSherriIn Detox Journey, Practicing in the Heart, Self-Acceptance, The Pressure to Fix Myself, The Voices in My Head1 Comment

Yesterday was somewhat rich with errands — Mr. Mezzo has a quick trip for family business today and tomorrow, so we were trying to get a full weekend’s amount of usefulness crammed into the single day. Then in the evening, I went into the final, most intense steps for the gall bladder flush, which consist of a couple of doses of Epsom salts to help “clear out” the system (as it were), and then a grapefruit juice/olive oil cocktail to encourage the gall bladder to release any accumulated stones in there.*

I had a fair amount of discomfort during the overnight hours, and thus far, there hasn’t been much in the way of internal “movement,” if you get my drift. (I had kinda hoped this particular issue would complete itself once I finished the damn HCG shots, but oh well.) So that’s been my excuse to take it kind of easy today.

There’s certainly things I could (should) be doing. I have a retreat weekend coming up starting early morning Thursday, and supposed appointments Tuesday and Wednesday nights, so I could very well be packing and getting organized. Alternately, I could be doing some UNpacking down in the basement, since I’ve lost some momentum there with last weekend’s concert and next weekend’s out-of-townness. And then there’s always the usual rounds of grocery shopping, cleaning and decluttering, checkbook-balancing, and so on and so forth.

I dare say those laundry lists of things are remaining undone. After all, if at 7 PM the most ambitious things you’ve managed with your day is to take a shower and start a load of laundry, there’s not a whole lot else that can happen at this point.**

Make-A-Deal-Doors — http://mathfest.blogspot.com/2008/04/monty-hall-probability-problem-in-news.html

I’ve had wasted days like this before. More than I’d like to admit. But tonight, rather than sliding into my usual funk of self-flagellation, I’m trying to be more at peace with my inaction. My choices at the moment seem to be either (1) stew in guilt and self-castigation for the next few hours, making my evening pretty darn miserable and undoing whatever self-care has been accomplished by such a relaxing day; OR (2) show myself some self-acceptance, trust in the rightness of my system needing/wanting rest today, and enjoying what few hours of awake time I have remaining for my Sunday.

So, as a change of pace, I’m going to try for Door #2. Perhaps I’ll get a little bit more done. Perhaps — probably — I won’t. Either way, that’s going to be okay.

(There’s also a whole side conversation that could be had about the types of hard work I am doing these days — between the HCG journey and this gall-stones cleanse, I’ve been putting a lot of time and energy into detoxing and that level of growth. Never mind the preparations going on for this upcoming retreat weekend. Perhaps it’s okay that some more “traditional” modes of self-care are being underplayed while I put my energy towards some things that are less readily observed but nonetheless crucially important.)

* No, it wasn’t quite as disgusting as you’d imagine. Close, but not quite.

** Especially if one is a Game of Thrones watcher and needs to be ready for that come 9’o’clock.

The War of the Greasepaint

On 9 May 2014 By MezzoSherriIn Pop Goes the Culture, Self-Acceptance, The Voices in My Head2 Comments

Mr. Mezzo and I made an excursion tonight to see a high school production of the musical Once on This Island.* I know: this is either a completely bizarre or completely banal and suburban choice. Perhaps both.

But, one of the guys we sing in church choir with is a retired HS music teacher, so he’s still plugged into “the scene” (such as it is). He mentioned at Wednesday’s rehearsal that this was a really good production. And, setting aside the question of production quality, it’s undeniably a great show. So off we went.

(As far as I can tell,the production was a good one for a high school show. I realized partway through the first number that it’s been YEARS since I saw anything more amateurish than a cast that integrated college drama majors with professional actors. I know it’s really unfair to compare those shows with tonight’s, but I was quite aware of the contrast between then and now.)

But, more than any unfair comparisons between the quality of Philadelphia professional theater vs. Boston-area suburban high school productions, what this really got me thinking about was the fact that I like musical theater more than I like classical choral music. How much I love it, actually. How much I miss it, and all the ways it broke my heart and shattered my self-confidence.

I’ve always loved musical theater, and yet a majority of my performing arts training and experiences have been in classical music ensembles. There’s a reason for this. Lots of people love doing musicals, and even if I have some native singing and acting talent, I’m rarely talented enough to make it out of the chorus. (Or even to make it INTO the chorus, a lot of the time.) I’ve certainly never been talented enough to make up for all the ways I’m not conventionally attractive enough to get a “good” part.

Especially as I think back to my own times in high school productions, I recall how desperate my yearning was to have a role where I could really be seen and acknowledged, and how the comparison piece — uglier than this girl, less talented than that one — always kept that door closed.

I’ve even been thinking back on the only audition I ever deliberately tanked. A story I haven’t brought to mind for a long, long time.

———-

The high school drama teacher wanted me to read for Cha Cha diGregorio in Grease. She pulled me and the other auditioner aside to make sure we knew that, unlike the way that character was portrayed in the film, she wanted to have the Cha Cha in her production to be slovenly, unsexy, unattractive. “I need to know if you’re comfortable being really uglied up.”

I said I was fine with it. I didn’t have the awareness to see, or the courage to say, how soul-destroying this scenario felt — all the ways I was already seen as ugly and beneath notice on a daily basis, and then to somehow go uglier for the sake of the show. And the instinctual certainty that whatever “uglier” happened for the show would follow me into my daily traverse of the classrooms and halls.

I wasn’t entirely awake about throwing that particular callback. I just kind of left my body. Which, in passing, is a pretty effective way to make sure you don’t get a particular role.

———-

During college and grad school, I got more into the choral singing thing but kept a toe in the amateur musical theater world. Then, I let theater go entirely and stayed on the community chorus path for a while. In some ways, it was an easy choice to make: a major city like Philly has so many professional actors, theater companies, and national tours of Broadway shows that there really isn’t room for amateur musical theater to happen.

There’s also a lot of ways classical choral singing is safer. Fewer people want to do it, so there’s less competition. And in most cases, there’s no harm in adding another good, trained singer to the mix, so my odds of “making the cut” stay high. And since members of each section are all singing the same thing, there isn’t that same comparison charge around who got the lead and who didn’t.

And yet. I think I love theater more.

I’ve started doing some research about what community theater companies are in the area. Trying to feel into the idea of auditioning. Figuring out if my ego is sufficiently in-check for me to be okay even if I only get into the chorus of a show, or don’t get in at all. Wondering if I’m sufficiently aware of being “over the hill” that my aspirations might be more realistic than they used to be. Wondering if my sense of “loving theater more” is truly sincere or is just a deeper winding of that addictive desire towards being acknowledged or acclaimed.

I don’t know yet what I’m feeling. And I don’t yet know what I’m going to do.

* Shall I confess the amount of thought and research that went into the question of whether or not the “this” should be capitalized?

Dueling Detoxes

On 8 May 20148 May 2014 By MezzoSherriIn Detox Journey, Self-Acceptance, The Pressure to Fix Myself, The Voices in My HeadLeave a comment

I continue to make my way through the final phase of the HCG protocol and its food restrictions (1 week down, 2 to go).

I am also at the midway point of a 5-day process (Tuesday through Saturday) for a liver/gall bladder flush. And, as I mentioned in passing a few days ago, that process comes with its own list of food restrictions.

Where it gets a little interesting is when you compare the two lists.

For HCG (this final phase): Foods to prioritize: lean animal protein, eggs, nuts, dairy, fruit, and veggies. Foods emphatically to avoid: grains, legumes, carbohydrates.

For the liver/gall bladder flush: Foods to prioritize: grain, legumes, nuts, fruits and veggies. Foods emphatically to avoid: any animal product (meat, dairy, eggs).

The attentive reader will notice that, with the exception of nuts, there’s no real shared protein source between these two mirror-image exclusion lists.

So what’s a gal to do?

Well, first off, this gal is going to have a quietly self-contained freakout about it all.

I mean, the inner opera was pretty much Wagnerian in its epicness. The teenage frustration about having just crossed the finish line with my shots, having just “earned back” the chance to have full eggs and dairy and real salad dressing only to have to “give all that freedom back.” The identity who so strongly wants to do things properly, with care and attention, who feels completely undone by a structure where the self-contradictions ensure that one set of guidance is going to be disregarded and disrespected. It’s a cast of thousands in my brain, sometimes…

Okay, most of the time.

———-

This is the part of the story where it’s good to have coaches and supports for one’s detoxing movements. Which, luckily enough, I do.

Someone at my center has actually done this gall bladder flush in the midst of her own HCG cycle, so I was able to get the immediate reassurance that yes, indeed, it is possible to do both of these things together and do them “right.”

My coaches also helped me get a clearer mental context around things. The gall bladder eating suggestions are designed for people who have been eating the customary fat/oil/salt/sugar laden stuff. So, as a quick way to lessen the fat and oils you’re taking in (which is necessary for the flush to work), it makes sense to call that 5-day halt to eating animal products. For someone like me, who hasn’t actually HAD any fat or oil for the last couple months, I’m starting in a different place.

So my approach for these few days has been simply to revert to the eating guidelines I was using during the shots: lean protein, egg whites, produce — and a few cashews, just for variety’s sake.

I’m grateful to have found a solution. But I am also really looking forward to a time where I’m not wasting so much brain space thinking about the food I’m eating (or not eating). I don’t want to be asleep to how I (don’t) take care of my body, but I don’t want to be obsessed like this, either.

Not quite sure when and how I’ll pull that next transition off, but I had best to find myself a way. Because I am getting truly bored with myself for all this obsessive food talk. And if I can hardly stand listening to myself, I can only imagine how tiresome this is to my near & dear.

———-

Tonight’s soundtrack: Goldfrapp, Supernature

Lead Me Not Into Temptation

On 6 May 2014 By MezzoSherriIn Self-Acceptance, Stuff about Stuff, The Pressure to Fix Myself, Uncategorized2 Comments

I’ve done a halfway double down on the 5×5 goals tonight. Not on account of choir tomorrow. (Which I do have. I’m just hoping I’ll still manage to get tomorrow’s “quota” handled on tomorrow.)

Let’s call tonight’s double down a combination of playing catch-up and covering my ass (in case tomorrow’s rehearsal does throw me off-track).

Anyhow, one of the things I tackled tonight in the “everyday cleaning and clutter management” category was to get a (partial) handle on however-many days of accumulated mail. (Checkbook-balancing and bill-paying are definitely on the agenda for tomorrow morning or during lunch break.)

Now, one of the biggest categories of mail these days is the mail we call “junk”: advertising mailers, credit card offers, and lots and lots of catalogs. I’ve gotten pretty good at discarding the first two categories with ruthless efficiency,* but the catalogs have ended up having a slightly different ritual of their own.

Here’s how the system works. I put a basket in the living room specifically to hold catalogs, and as new ones arrive, I just keep adding them to the front of the “stack” until such time as the basket is full. Then I sit down and weed out all the duplicate catalogs until the basket holds just the most recent catalog from each company.**

I’ve been doing it this way for a number of years. Why? I wish I had a better answer for that question. At this stage of the game, the pattern has become so unconscious and unthinking that it’s hard to recapture whatever reasons I may have had to do this in the first place.

I think I wanted a rich collection on hand to give me ideas whenever a holiday came around where I needed to buy a gift for someone. I think I wanted sources of inspiration as I lived surrounded by parental hand-me-downs hoping someday to have/create a home environment that was more authentically expressive of my soul and passions. I think I hoped that being able to glance through catalogs and imagine having things would allow me to develop a deeper level of discernment around which desired-for purchases were items that would actually enrich my life and which were more passing, addictive, covetous moments.

That last thought/hope certainly never came to fruition. Not that I’m trying to suggest that my ongoing shopping addiction is caused by having catalogs in the house.*** However, I don’t think it’s been a great help to have them around. Better than nothing insofar as having a way to (somewhat) contain the paper monster, but still: probably not a great help to have them around.

So tonight, as I went through the accumulated mail, every catalog went right into the recycling bin. Over the weekend, when we’re gathering up paper for the recycling run, I’ll probably make a good dent in the basket, too. And, as new catalogs come in with the day’s mail, I’m going to experiment with tossing them straight into recycling with the rest of the junk mail.****

Will it have any great effect on my shopping issues? Who knows?

Will it have an immediate effect on the amount of paper clutter in the house? Why yes, yes it will.

And I’ll celebrate any win I can get.

* Except, of course, in stretches of time when I let the mail pile up unexamined. Like now. (Also, for the record: “ruthless efficiency” as regards credit card offers includes a trip through the shredder. For the offer paperwork, not for me.)

** There are, yes, a few companies that just go straight to the discard pile rather than being part of this whole ritual of commerce and covetousness. But not as many as you’d think, and definitely not as many as there should be.

*** After all, who needs catalogs to spark temptation when there is the Internet and the corporate media machine?

**** Or tossing most of them, if there turns out to be a catalog that is honestly timely and relevant to some purchasing decision of-the-moment. Hey, this is all about practice, not perfection…

———-

Tonight’s soundtrack: Gipsy Kings, Este Mundo.

Image credit: http://www.organizedhousewife.com/2012/11/02/practical-solutions-boundaries/

Fall Down Seven

On 5 May 20145 May 2014 By MezzoSherriIn Self-Acceptance, Stuff about Stuff, The Voices in My Head, UncategorizedLeave a comment

My 5×5 ritual fell a bit by the wayside last week. Knowing that choir rehearsal would pull focus on Wednesday, I “doubled down” on my goals last Tuesday as preliminary compensation — but somehow, that day’s interruption in routine caused a general halt in momentum. Said halt was, of course, further perpetuated by the number of hours this weekend that were devoted to matters choral.

But, as the old saying goes,

Fall down seven times, get up eight.

[Word-nerd digression.]

There’s part of me that’s always wondered about this saying. To my sometimes overly-literal way of filtering words, the scenario’s math just didn’t work out. If you’re choosing to demonstrate perseverance in a circumstance where you fall seven times, then you need to stand up only and exactly seven times: one for each time you fall.

I’d even wondered is maybe the saying got mistranslated along the way, but today’s office hours with Professor Google suggests that the common translation of the phrase is pretty accurate:

this Japanese proverb reflects an important and shared ideal: “Nana korobi ya oki” (literally: seven falls, eight getting up)

So now I’m simply telling myself that the first time one stands in this proverb is when getting out of the bed in the morning and prior to the first of fate’s knock-downs. I find linguistic comfort in that notion.*

[End digression.]

So, in yet another round of the “practice, not perfection” movement in my life, I’m re-engaging in the nightly rituals of house care.

Even though I had yet another choir rehearsal tonight, I have already met my daily quotas for folding laundry and addressing the clutter. Now it’s time for some unpacking and putting away of things.

Persistence.

* I know: none of this demands the level of thought and attention I have lavished upon it, but this is how my inner nerd operates.

———-

Image credit: http://calvin12345.blogspot.com/2010/07/blog-marathon-post-failed-failed-failed.html

Respect or Complicity?

On 4 May 2014 By MezzoSherriIn Pop Goes the Culture, Practicing in the Heart, Spirituality, Topics of StudyLeave a comment

The concert went well. My packing tape hem didn’t deconstruct itself, the choir kept itself together and stayed attentive to our conductor, the soloists were fantastic, and we all muddled through some, er, “imperfections” in how the organist handled her duties.

After we were done singing and we’re listening to the Widor Toccatta that closed out today’s program,* I found myself reflecting on the many ways that involvement with classical choral music so often creates some tight interweaves with the Christian church tradition. After all, so much of the repertory, even up into the 20th century, was written to be a part of the church music tradition. And then there’s all the times community choirs use churches and cathedrals as concert locations.

This was all very present to me as I sat in a pew after singing an oratorio depicting the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, standing on a choral riser right next to a big wooden cross adorned with a crown of thorns and a white linen cloth.**

I am not a Christian. If I had to name my spirituality, I think the closest I could come right now would be to call myself a “UU Buddhist witch.” And yet, here I am, reclaiming my place as part of a musical tradition that is very much Christian.

Not all of it, of course. This particular choir I chose to join caught my eye because they’d programmed a setting of Mary Oliver’s poems by a composer whose e.e. cummings settings I have performed and deeply admired in the past. That greater breadth in programming is one of the things I look for in a choir. But even in a group that looks to widen its programming choices, there’s no escaping a heavy dose of Christianity in the music programming.

And I am so of mixed feelings about it.

On the one hand, much of this repertory is what I “cut my teeth” on since I began training my voice at the age of 9. There’s memory and affection tied up in here. And a lot of it is legitimately beautiful and moving — showing once again how something rooted in authentic creativity can often cross boundaries of historical, national or ideological separation.

And yet. I remain deeply concerned at the ways the narrative of Christianity is still so predominant in the USA. Just a couple of days ago, Alabama’s Supreme Court Chief Justice declared that the First Amendment of the Constitution only protects Christians, because “Buddha didn’t create us, Mohammed didn’t create us, it was the God of the Holy Scriptures.” Now, this is, obviously, both a legal and a historical fallacy, but I find it rather terrifying that a state supreme court justice (chief justice, no less!) would take such an ignorant and narrow-minded position publicly. (And without any negative repercussions, so far. That detail alone should be enough to show the ongoing cultural hegemony of Christianity in the states, today.)

So, in re-engaging with the classical choral tradition, to what degree am I re-opening to my own creativity and expression? To what degree am I showing respect to past composers and their creations, understanding the historical moments and context in which they worked?

And to what degree am I simply complicit in reinforcing the suppressive nature of dominant cultural structures, rather than engaging in resistance or offering counter-narratives?

I don’t know the answer to these questions. But I think I’ll be studying them for some time now. There’ll be another choral season starting in September, and in the meantime, I’m considering trying out for a local music theater production next month.

If I choose to do that (and if I were to get a part), there will be the chance for a whole new study around cultural narratives of gender, love and marriage.

* This organ piece went fine. The bitchy Mezzo in me wonders if the organist spent more time preparing her “spotlight” piece than her accompaniment for our oratorio.

** The crown of thorns I get, but I gotta admit, I’m rather clueless about why the white cloth gets draped there. The shroud he left behind in the tomb?

———-

Image credit: http://www.transformingeveryguest.com/2012/09/sermon-work-in-progress.html

Working in Concert

On 3 May 2014 By MezzoSherriIn Practicing in the Heart, Self-AcceptanceLeave a comment

This evening, I am hemming my chorus dress with packing tape. It arrived too late for me to be able to find a seamstress and get it done the right way, but the concert is tomorrow and something has to be done so I don’t trip myself (or anyone else).

It’s been a long time since I was involved in a choir or concert where we were striving for the level of artistry and polish we’re attempting here.

The last couple rehearsals have been hard ones as we try to get all the pieces to come into place together. Today’s dress rehearsal was especially high on the stress factor.

New location with entirely different acoustics, the first time all the players — us, pianist, soloists, organist — were all together. Lots of logistical challenges: figuring out where the soloists will be, trying to get visual communication between the conductor and all the limbs of this messy musical octopus. And never mind the whole rigmarole of transitioning the church from worship space to concert formation back to worship space again under very tight time pressure.

This is nothing new. There’s a reason there’s so many cliches and truisms about rocky dress rehearsals. I have had similar experiences before, and if I continue this re-engagement with music and performing, I am sure I will have similar experiences in the future.

But it’s an interesting exploration to watch myself in this setting now and reflect on the ways I used to internalize the stress and perfectionism of these endeavors. Now it’s kind of as if I’m holding it a bit more loosely.

And by that I don’t mean at all to suggest I’m slacking off. As in years and choirs past, I am still doing everything in my considerable power and training to model exceptional attention to the conductor and strong musicality, especially with the dynamics and diction that are so needed in this particular concert locale.

But where in the past, I would feel a certain level of pressure and superiority in that — feeling as if I needed to be extra “on point” to make up for my peers’ inattention — now there’s a softer feeling to it.

For better or worse, I’d be lying if I denied having some ongoing awareness of ways in which I am often more “on point” than some of my peers with the technical details. (After the years of choral experience and formal training I’ve had, that’s kind of inevitable.) However, there’s not the same tone of judgement that I used to hold with that. Instead, the focus is more towards being the best piece of the texture I can be, trusting that my little contribution will organically aid the whole.

It’s good to be singing in a group again.

But now I need to finish “hemming” that dress.

———-

Image credit: http://www.icare4autism.org/news/2012/09/medication-study-for-adolescents-with-autism/