Timber!

Last year, my mother and I had the brilliant idea of buying a Christmas tree earlier than usual so as to have my friends from Boston help decorate it while they were at our house for Thanksgiving weekend.  This is another of those somewhat rare arenas in which I can be very fussy.  My mom usually throws ornaments up willy-nilly in her hasty, take-charge fashion.  I, on the other hand, contemplate the traditional placement of ornaments in the past as well as the design aesthetics meticulously.  My dad prefers the finished product when I do the trimming and so I have been doing it since I was about twelve, or maybe even younger.  My parents used to work at the restaurant a lot around Christmas, so I got accustomed to doing it by myself.  My brother had very little interest.  Or more likely, since he was a smart boy, he probably knew to avoid collaborating with the “Christmas Nazi” as my family used to call me. 

Having my Boston friends help last Thanksgiving weekend worked out really well, since it usually takes me about three hours to finish it.  With my friends, we wrapped it up in about a half an hour.  Of course, one of them slipped a drink in my hand during the process, presumably in an effort to help calm me down. 

As an aside, I can tell you from experience that I am not as bad as my friend Rita’s father, John Dwan.  He willingly admits that you can find his name next to “anal retentive” in the dictionary.  One year, when I stopped by her house around Christmas, I was asked to help string the tree lights, because her father was on crutches at the time.  He ended up giving Rita’s little brother and me a small lecture about how stringing lights necessitates one person holding them in a neat “bouquet” and the other stringing them.  Too much slack from the bouquet holder would of course cause tangling, so John was regimented about that.  He further specified that the strands of lights had to be placed six to eight inches apart.  I can still see Rita’s ten year old brother obediently holding his neat little bouquet and following me as I worked.  This did not stop John Dwan from following us around and adjusting the lights with one of his crutches…

This year, with our holiday assistants again excited to help with the trimming, my mother went to the local Boy Scouts’ tree sale and simply said: “Give me the biggest tree you have”.  She did not even look at it with the netting removed.  She just strapped it to her car and was on her way.  Well, she didn’t need to look at it.  When we un-wrapped it, we could see that it was a plump and full ten foot tree and it smelled amazing.  Within an hour we finished trimming it while enjoying peppermint hot chocolate and listening to carols.  When it was finished, we sat and admired it. We decided, with its pearl strands and twinkling white lights, that it was the biggest and one of the most beautiful trees the Holden household had ever seen.  And then it fell over…

Well, it didn’t happen right away.  The girls had left to head back to Boston and the boyfriend and I were out getting a drink.  When we returned to the house around 11:00, I walked absent mindedly through the family room and then heard Brendan say “The tree fell down”.  And there it was, grotesquely bizarre, like some sort of crime scene.  I was in shock.  My parents had apparently been sitting on the couch watching the UConn game, when the tree just went down. 

The really disheartening part of the image was the pile of broken glass surrounding it.  My mom had been so upset that she had gone to bed and said we would survey the damage in the morning.  I had much the same reaction and went to bed thinking about the memories potentially destroyed under our once beautiful tree.  I knew the following day would be spent miserably finding many holiday memories shattered.  With two of us having gone to bed in disgust, I was surprised when I heard the vacuum and walked back into the family room to find my dad and Brendan had put the tree back up again. Only a few ornaments had been destroyed!  Miraculously, my mother’s very fragile glass ‘Partridge in a Pear Tree’ ornaments from her childhood had both survived the crash.  Only one of the broken ones was really sentimental.  It was a clean break though, and we are gluing it back together.

So this year has the distinction of being the only year in which we trimmed the tree twice.  My parents were running errands when Brendan and I attacked the re-decoration process in the morning.  The lights were now all tangled and the pearls were bound up with them.  Somewhere in this detangling process, I looked at Brendan and said: “I’m making an executive decision.  Screw the pearls.”  So we charged onward and Brendan got to meet my Christmas Nazi persona in full form.  He really needed work on his ‘zig-zagging’ and ‘nestling’ techniques, but he is a quick learner. 

I think we all learned a lot from the process.  The first, and most obvious lesson, is that you have to weigh down a tree stand when a ten foot tree is involved.  And the second, (and this one is mostly for me), is that no matter how meticulous you are and how steadfastly you hold onto traditions, some of that might slip away from you in the blink of an eye. Still, the important things will find a way of remaining intact.

Downward Snoop Dogg

I tried my first hip hop yoga class this weekend.  Now generally, I find yoga boring and difficult, but this class had the added bonus of also being loud and obnoxious.  Oh well, at least it was long…  

It’s rather unfortunate for my well-being that I not only hate sports, but I also hate exercise in general.  I hear people talk about this endorphin rush they get after exercise and so I keep waiting for exercise to feel like eating a piece of chocolate. This has yet to occur for me.  

Taking a brisk walk in the Public Garden during my lunch break is lovely, but going to a room full of sweaty people to get on machines that go nowhere?  No thank you.  Jogging or running?  No thank you.  Running outside gives me a coughing fit and to quote Liz Lemon on 30Rock while she was mocking the joggers in Central Park: “Look at me!  I'm gonna run around in a circle so I can live longer.”

          This all being said, I know I need to make exercise more a part of my routine.  Knowing that winter is coming up and I am not likely to trek out for a brisk walk in 4 degree weather is another reason to try to expand my horizons.  I like swimming, but the logistics of it can often be a pain.  So, if I can psych myself out into approaching yoga as a relaxing, meditative, and continual practice, (like, you know, the Easterners who invented it do), instead of a form of muscle work, maybe it will make it less painful, mentally and physically.  If I could see it as a refuge from daily life instead of as a masochistic chore, maybe it would actually work to motivate me to do it.  I actually do enjoy “Freedom Joy Yoga”, which is offered in the same studio and which also consists of a free dance break in the middle of class.  It gives me a chance to break out “The Tree”, a dance move I was infamous for cultivating in college and sadly, beyond.  The Tree involves waving my hands in the air with my eyes closed as though dancing at Woodstock.  Freedom Joy Yoga is one of the few venues at which such a move is socially acceptable.

          So I thought that perhaps hip hop yoga would be similar.  I imagined some fabulous, un-choreographed hip hop dance break in the middle.  There was no hip hop dance break.  There was only an interminably long hour and a half of vinyasa style yoga set to a poundingly loud soundtrack with approximately 50 sweaty people in the room.  Music that is too loud when I haven't been drinking makes me feel self-conscious that I have become an ornery grandma.  To compound my feeling of being an octogenarian, I also never seem to have the right clothes on.  Everyone else looks so put together, but I always find myself leaving the house still searching for my one ill-fitting sports bra and grabbing the nearest sweats that don’t look too much like pajamas.  Yoga pants are expensive if you can only muster the willpower to tolerate yoga approximately 5 times a year.

I was also having a frustratingly hard time understanding what the instructor was shouting into the microphone between the blaring music and my relative unfamiliarity with the terms.  Unable to focus on relaxing my breathing, with so much aural distraction and my pant legs up to my ears, I spent the first half of class wondering when an appropriate time to sneak off to the bathroom would open up.  I generally don’t engage in any activity that prohibits me from peeing for more than an hour and a half.  I drink a lot of water, (I am a singer... with kidney stones).  I found a time to sneak off to the restroom, and was then locked out of the class and had to get help from the front desk to re-enter.  In hindsight, I just should have left altogether, but my sweatshirt was still in there and my friend Rachele might have worried about my disappearance.

When we were in Warrior Two position, instead of meditating or finding my center, I noticed the room’s dozen or so beautiful Tiffany style light fixtures, and couldn’t help but think about how my $15 dollar class fee had gone toward outfitting the yoga studio’s already presumably expensive Back Bay space.  (I also love how the black stones plunked into the sinks of the otherwise utilitarian locker rooms are supposed to dupe me into believing that we've suddenly been transported to Tibet.) The second 45 minutes of class consisted of writing this blogpost in my head, until I began experiencing a pounding, music-induced headache that being in Downward Dog only exacerbated.  Yes, I am the first to admit that music is a powerful drug, and sometimes its powers are not used for good, like this time, when it seemingly refused to aid me in releasing my shoulder tension.

By the time class was over I was a ball of misery— not exactly the result I was looking for— but I can be proud in the knowledge that I tried something new and excruciating.

You gotta get a gimmick...

This upcoming weekend, I am singing an aria excerpted from the new opera Lady Orchid by Dan Shore in a variety show of sorts for Boston Opera Collaborative.  Occurring over Halloween, the program is called Opera Goes to Hell: Sin, Sex and the Supernatural.  When the composer watched me sing the role of Chastity in an informal reading of his opera, he exclaimed it was perfect for me.  The punchline of this is that it is the role of a stripper.

To explain this statement further, this is not my first foray into the portrayal of the seedy, but I have also played my fair share of ingénues.  This character of Chastity is a good blend of exotic dancer by night, while by day she comes off more like a kindergarten teacher.  She is based on a real person featured in the news as part of a murder trial in Pennsylvania.   This combined with the fact that it fits me well vocally is probably the reasoning behind the casting. 

My first unsavory character was actually performed in Pennsylvania, when I was part of a chorus of prostitutes in a modern rendition of The Beggars’ Opera in undergrad.  The most remarkable part of this run for me personally, was the night my parents came to see the show.  This night also coincided with the professional photographs that were being taken after the performance.  We were told we had to greet friends and family in the audience in costume.  So, instead of heading out to the pavilion in my street clothes as was the case every other night of the run, I had to greet my parents in a see-through top, purple suede miniskirt and hooker boots.  And of course, my mother insisted on a round of photos.  My dad kept joking about how he was going to make wallet prints out of them so he could proudly show everyone photos of his daughter, the street walker.

This leads me to another story of note.  A family friend was over one time while I was home for the summer from college.  The topic of part time jobs came up.  This friend suggested that I get a job at Hooters restaurant to put myself through grad school, saying that servers there make two or three hundred dollars in tips a night.  While I myself was objecting, we turned to my dad who was deep in contemplation.  “Two or three hundred dollars a night…” he said, “That’s a lot of money...”  Now, on the list of people who should be objecting to the idea of my getting a job at Hooters, one would think that my father would be at the top.  “Of course, you’d have to be careful not to go home with anyone,” he continued.  Let’s face it, my dad the mathematician was just being wooed by numbers in his head. 

And really, since nearly half of my stage career has been made up of playing risqué roles, what was stopping me from taking a job at Hooters anyway?  I might as well have carried some chicken wings at the same time for a lot more money.

“A house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it” ~George Carlin

I have lived in the same apartment for six years but have now successfully moved on.  I am a person who is pretty adverse to personal change.  Political change, I am all about, but ask me to relocate or give up anything I have held dear and I am overwhelmed.  The dread that I felt leading up to moving day cannot be exaggerated.  I grew up in the same home my entire life and I’m sure that that contributes in some way to my inflexibility.  In actuality, the moving in with the boyfriend part of this process, once decided, was the easiest part.  It was more the leaving of fond memories and even more than that, the schlepping of the massive amount of crap in my apartment that had me full of dread and panic. I have been doing purges of my possessions all year long. 

You might have gleaned from this blog that along with the normal amount of accumulation that occurs during a six year period, I have my mother, who has contributed a small country’s worth of clothing and knick-knacks.  Going through said things has been no small task.  When friends would come over to help me purge, the most repeated sentiment of the day was usually: “Oh, my mom gave me that”.  My mother herself maintains that she is never moving again. She says the only way she is leaving that house in Connecticut is in a pine box.

Keeping my mom from adding more items to the pile during a move is also a task unto itself.  When I first moved into my last place 6 years ago, it was the same thing.  My former roommate and childhood friend Maura, recalls that while packing up in Connecticut, my mother would ask me if I needed a particular thing and I would say: “No, I’ll never use that” or “No, I have two of those already”.  Then I would walk away and Maura would watch my mother put the item into the car anyway.  I only recently discovered that she had snuck not one, but two mattress covers on my old bed, which explains why it sounded like I was sleeping on a diaper for five years. I assure you— I have not wet the bed since my potty-training years.  This second mattress cover is just the ideological equivalent to refusing another helping of potatoes from my Ukrainian great-grandmother.  “They’re good for you,” she would say as she plopped them onto your plate.  More is more, right?

Now, this time around, I did not ask my parents to come up and help.  With regards to my dad, I knew better.  The last time I moved, my dad was confounded by my mom’s idea that they needed to be there to move me in at all.  While I was indifferent, my mom insisted that they both had to come along.  Unfortunately for my dad, the move happened to fall on one of the hottest days of the summer and on a day when he also was in the throes of a nasty flu.  I remember him carrying a box up the stairwell, covered in sweat and stopping every three steps to catch his breath. That was the day he declared “Never again”.  He rallied enough later that day to regale us all with jokes about all the funny Swedish words in the Ikea instructions, but I knew that for this move I did not have to worry about my parents spontaneously descending.

That was until my mother called the morning before and said: “Now… you can say whatever you want, but I’m coming up tomorrow”.  When such pronouncements are made, it is best not to argue.  It’s like the time she came to visit me during my semester in Rome.  The second time she visited the apartment she barreled right in, fixed a dangling curtain, and then cleaned the whole kitchen.  My roommate emerged from the kitchen in shock and said: “Katrina, your mother is doing the dishes.  I tried to stop her but I couldn’t.”  Resistance is futile.  And so long as she doesn’t try to re-organize things, you will be okay in the end.

A slew of friends came to help move, which was wonderful.  One of them heard me refusing a set of blue and white dishes from my insistent mother.  The conversation went something like this:

“Helen was getting rid of these and I thought they were lovely— like toile”

“They’re fine, but I have three sets of dishes as it is”

“For parties?”

“Nope, I’m good.”

“Are you sure you wouldn’t use them?”

“Yep.”

“Not for a big dinner party?”

“Nope.”

“What am I going to do with them?”
         

Brendan’s family also helped move that day.  Brendan’s favorite part of the move-in took place when his mother, looking at my mother’s car, asked her if we had really gotten everything out of it.  He and I know better that her backseat is always down and there is almost always random furniture and a toolbox in the back.  My mom looked at her confused and said: “Yes, why?”

It has now been over two months, and yes, I have found a plethora of redundant cleaning products that somehow got past me during move-in.  During unpacking, roughly one out of every seven boxes belonged to Brendan.  Each time I happened to open one of his, I would exclaim; “Wow!  This one is yours!” 

My Ukrainian genes seem to be kicking in as I get older because I have now said to Brendan several times: “But what if the Queen comes over?”  (In actuality, he is the neater of the two of us).  As far as domestic co-habitation is concerned, it’s treating us well, but that is perhaps another blogpost for another time.

Yesterday I bought some new picture frames and couldn’t remove the remnants of the price tag on the front.  That’s when I discovered a jar of paint thinner under the sink covered in my mom’s handwriting: “Paint thinner- good for sticky stuff, etc.”  Thanks Mom.

Ramblin' On

          I had a whirlwind tour of sorts a few weeks ago. In between a wedding in Pennsylvania and a recital in the same state, I took the week in between to visit and catch up with friends and relatives that I don’t get to see very often. Being a traveler and houseguest has its own wonders and challenges.

          Sat, Sept. 10th, 2011: I no sooner opened my mouth for the "Ave Maria" at my college roommate’s outdoor wedding ceremony, than the bride Amanda’s chin started to tremble. Several times in college, I watched her unexpectedly weep in front of the television, and infamously, she would cry every time she watched “Ghost”, despite the fact that she had seen it hundreds of times. (I told her later that day that I was proud that my singing elicited the same reaction in her as a Hallmark commercial.) Fortunately, a few bars into the song, a helicopter flew directly overhead to distract us. As often happens in these situations I had to maintain composure as the caterer waved frantically at the sky in back of the crowd, pleading in vain for it to fly away. Good thing I had planned for 2 verses.

          Monday, Sept. 12th: Once Amanda’s lovely and fun wedding was over I headed to Philly for a few days to visit my friends Emma and Adam. I slept surprisingly well, probably due to a very good mattress and my own room and bathroom. The “making myself comfortable” in their home thing presented only one significant problem while they were at work. Emma received the following email from me during her workday:

          Soooo, you may want to pick up eggs on your grocery run today. I know, you are thinking that you have a new carton of eggs, but it’s a long story.

          P.S. Where do you keep your extra paper towels?


         Thursday, Sept. 15th: Now, at some point after he finished a few gigs, the boyfriend was supposed to also head south for a presentation at Penn State and then come see my recital at Muhlenberg. When I’d asked him several times ahead of the trip when he was coming and if he needed a place to stay, he had said he didn’t know yet. So, when two days before he said he needed a place to crash, it became evident that the leg of my trip that he would be joining was not at Emma’s house, but at my cousins’ house in New Jersey.

          So Brendan came along on my week as a houseguest just in time to miss a private guestroom and guest bathroom and instead found himself on the pullout couch in my cousins’ basement, surrounded by half-naked Barbies. My cousin Claire’s house is not exactly a relaxing place. With 3 adorable children all under age eight, it’s more of a circus. I was mildly nervous about whether the kids would take to Brendan or not, but within minutes he was throwing them around the living room and Benjamin (5 years old), told Brendan that he could sleep on the floor next to his bed in a sleeping bag. He then told me: “Aunt Katie, you can sleep in the basement…by yourself”.

Other observations made by the children during my stay:

1. “Aunt Katie, why do you sleep so late?”— (they wanted me to play with them at 7am.)

2. It was apparently freaky that I know the names of their grandparents


          Saturday, Sept. 17th: The recital at Muhlenberg was a success! Thanks to the music department at my undergrad, I was able to spend time preparing and performing a recital of art song. The wonderful thing about this genre is that unlike opera, no one can tell you that you can’t sing a certain kind of song repertoire. It is all available for consumption if you choose to make it yours. And on my last overnight stop in Allentown I got to catch up with one of my favorite professors and his family, as well as Brendan and I having our own guestroom once again in their home.

          Sunday, Sept. 18th: Naturally, after singing an ambitious, hour long recital program, my usual inclination is to sleep in and mostly be a useless lump all day. But why would I want to do that? Because there must be something wrong with me, to round off my week of travel and work, I instead headed to New York City for a Sarasota Opera audition.

          And what was my great reward for this busy week? I reached Boston on Sunday night and had a cup of tea in my own living room and slept in my own bed. As my dad always said; “Sometimes the great part of travelling is coming home.”

Bend it like Holden

I am currently wearing my klutziness like a badge of honor in the form of an air cast on my ankle and a pair of crutches.  I was on my way back to work after a lesson.  Somehow, I thought that by walking closer to the crosswalk signal, I was willing it to change from that picture of the hand to the walking person, thus making me on time for my return to work.  It was at this moment stepping forward with my eyes on that signal, that I misjudged the steepness of the curb, twisted my ankle, and fell.  Did it hurt?  Yes, but only for a moment.  Once I started to pass out, it didn’t really bother me.

Let me help restore your faith in humanity Dear Reader, and say that as many as two people on the street approached me and offered me help.  I was pleased to find that the Kitty Genovese phenomenon does not always hold water and that I was not dismissed as a raving, homeless lunatic with her head between her legs in the middle of Copley Square.  With the help of some benevolent strangers I made it back to my office where I was well attended to.  Nothing scares an HR department more than a call from the front desk that someone is “...um, kind of fainting”.

When it proved to be just a sprain after x-rays, we decided not to change our plans to visit the Cape this weekend, and I will tell you why.  For one thing, why should the boyfriend miss out on his family summer fun plans?  Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, we don’t have a couch yet in our new place.  If we had stayed home, I would have been stuck keeping my leg elevated in bed all day.  So off to the Cape with its many couches we went and Brendan’s mother admitted to really enjoying watching him wait on me every evening.  I, for one was very grateful to his family.  If I can’t go to the beach, sitting in a cozy armchair and watching TCM is a close second.  We also had lunch in Provincetown one day, where one of the beautiful drag queens, (seriously, they all have better legs than I do), offered me a wheelchair and a front row seat at the show that night.  While public humiliation has a unique appeal, I decided to take a pedicab back to the parking lot instead...

There are a few ironies regarding this particular fall.  One is that I have lived at the very top of the very steep, and often very icy Mission Hill for years without major incident, and no sooner do I move than I am downtown and have a fall.  The ultimate irony of this injury though, is that I was already signed up to sing “I Could Have Danced All Night” at an evening of Broadway melodies.  The humor of my performance with a crutch was not lost on last night’s audience.  I also sang the duet from Porgy and Bess.  If you are familiar with the piece at all, you know that Porgy is supposed to be the cripple, not Bess.  (Perhaps more importantly, it's not supposed to be sung by white people, but let's not quibble).  

Well, if all goes well and my foot stops looking like Bilbo Baggins’, I will be off my remaining crutch in a day or two.  If not, at least we are getting a couch delivered tonight.

Seventy is the New Fifty

Three men I love turned 70 this year- Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, and my dad.  We had a big party for him at my parents’ house in Connecticut.  (Bob and Paul regretfully declined).  Amidst the calls from my mother regarding the guest count, (the week before we were up to 60 people; the week of, it was 86), I had been telling people my dad’s big birthday number and many could hardly believe it.  For one thing, I am only 28 years old and so that number seems high, but for another, he doesn’t look 70.  (He certainly is in a lot better shape than Dylan, not that that’s hard to accomplish).

My dad is not the rabid fan of the aforementioned musicians that I am, but I would not have the eclectic musical taste I believe I have if it weren’t for both my dad’s genes and the influence of his musical appreciation in our house.  Twice annual car rides down to North Carolina provided ample opportunity for him to impart his musical eclecticism as well, and in this case, (unlike several others), his lessons were actually heeded.  The passenger seat is still my unofficial spot in the car because, as my late grandmother pointed out on one roadtrip; “Nope, I’m going to sit in the backseat, because Katie will just be reaching up the whole time to talk about the music”  

          So let’s talk about the music. As a 70th birthday tribute, below are a few of my dad’s more obscure favorites: The first clip, performed by Joan Baez, (also 70 this year), is a classic example of Mexican honor.  Translated, the title is “Prisoner Number Nine”.  It is the tale of a man who goes to confession before being executed for the murder of his unfaithful wife and his best friend: “Father, I do not repent, and I don’t fear death… I will hunt them both down in the afterlife”.  We love the song both for its beautiful melody and its unusual poetic sentiment.  As an adult, I am grateful that there was very little prudish musical censorship in my household, (See also: the time my dad asked me as a child if I knew the meaning of “The House of the Rising Sun”).  

         
            http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOIRxKYYmDQ

          The second clip here is the same song in an earlier rendition.  This is purely to satisfy my dad’s complaint that mariachi singers in restaurants never know the complete song:

          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sH9ULo9edOs

         

          The third clip is a rendition by Jimmy Rushing and the Count Basie orchestra- “Sent for you yesterday”.  This tune is in fact so obscure that I almost couldn’t find it on youtube.  My dad also asked me what I thought the lyrics of this song meant as a child and I allegedly didn’t know the answer to that either.  I do know that when I returned for the summer after a semester in Italy, my dad played this song on his old record player as an early morning wake up call.  He said “How do you like that Kate?  You know you’re home when you hear the songs you only hear at home”.

                
               http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsWVsp-P_UQ

There might be something to be said as well for my dad’s generation and the influences that helped shape his musical sophistication.  This article in the Times, (first sent to me in the mail by my mother), elucidates the possible cause of the many musical talents that share the age of 70 this year. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/24/opinion/24hajdu.html

Well, what we can say is that 1941: it was a very good year.

It's not "sitting Indian style" anymore...it's "criss cross applesauce"...

          This Fourth of July weekend I attended a fabulous wedding at the fabulous Liberty Hotel for my dear friend whom I have known since we were four.  It is lovely at this age, to be able to go to “the wedding of someone I actually love,” (as quote in Four Weddings and a Funeral).  And the Liberty Hotel having been converted from a former penitentiary, has a unique historical appeal.  I wore a new dress to this wedding: (cue amusing story about my mother).

          In the event that I buy a dress needing some minor alterations, my mother will step in.  We are descended from a long line of seamstresses, but sadly, I find myself at this age only able to sew a button and possibly, a hem.  My mom was en route to her 45th college class reunion outside Boston several weeks ago on a Friday and she offered to take me to lunch and to help do a small alteration on my dress.  The front of this wrap style dress just needed to be stitched so I wouldn’t flash the entire crowd at the wedding.  After enjoying a nearby sushi lunch, my mom came back to the office with me.  I showed her where the garment was hanging in the coat closet and told her I would go find a conference room for her to complete the task.  She tried to get me to try on the dress but I told her I didn’t think that would be necessary. 

My mother has some very democratic ideals.  She believes that all work is noble and that no work is beneath her. It did not matter, for example that she was the owner of her family’s restaurant, because no filthy task at the banquet hall was beneath her, (provided she could carry out her other tasks hygienically afterward).  While very admirable, the only problem with this particular value set is that, if she is able, she will often do things like spontaneously fold laundry at the home of friends, or serve her own coffee at diners.  It is probably for this same reason that when I returned to the front coat closet, she was sitting inside on the floor, already mid stitch. Suddenly, I envisioned our high-profile clients, meeting in conferences rooms just around the corner, stumbling upon this seamstress sitting cross-legged on the closet floor where they had stored their things.  When I insisted that she get up off the floor, she said: “Oh no, I’m fine here”.  And when I insisted further, she actually looked annoyed at my interrupting her work.  Well, I escorted her to a conference room and not a minute later, one of our company’s guests walked into the coat closet to retrieve a brief case.  I think I spared him quite the surprise.

Musical Nirvana (or its rough equivalent...)

 “His influence on me was never in inflection or in voice. What drew me to him was that hearing his voice, I could tell he was very lonesome, very alone and very lost in his time. That`s why I dug him.”  ~Bob Dylan (About Woody Guthrie)

          To say that I never think about quitting singing would be to lie. It pops into my head often. It pops into my head when I have to transfer funds from my savings account to pay for a lesson or coaching. It pops into my head when I go to routinely check my email and an audition rejection is waiting for me that I wasn’t prepared for mentally. It pops into my head when I am out with friends and can only have one drink because of that perennial reason: “I have to sing tomorrow”. Sometimes it just pops into my head when I am brushing my teeth in the morning and thinking about the grueling, overscheduled day ahead of me. It pops into my head when I realize how masochistic our field really is.

          Being a classical singer involves inviting people to scrutinize and criticize intensely personal aspects of one’s being on a regular basis and it means giving up a lot to do so. I am aware that I have made compromises in my life to make this goal of classical singing a priority and I don’t always take these compromises with the grace or gratitude that I should. After all, I do have a good day job, and I have made it through what we all hope to be the worst of these economic times. I have a wonderful support system of singers and non-singers alike.

          A combination of things seems to have me reflecting on my career and its path as of late. The foremost reason is probably that I performed in three fully staged operas back to back between October and April with quite a bit of extra gigging. When at New Year’s, I might have been reflecting on my life, like many others, I was simply not. So maybe it’s this late spring that has me thinking about rebirth, or maybe it’s simply the fact that summer is my absolute favorite season and I am looking forward to savoring it and want to be able to do so; you know, like the real people do. Fortunately I think I am able to. I have a wonderful opportunity to sing an alumni recital at my college in September. This means I get a full excuse to focus on my beloved art song instead of opera for a change and it’s all a program of my choosing with no parameters.

          I had one of these “…aaaah…” moments today in my voice lesson- one of those that reminded me of why I do what I do. Sometimes even having a voice lesson stressful, because I beat myself up if my week's practice isn't effective enough.  Sometimes, if I have a lot of rep to learn, I am anxious about making sure I make the most of the money I pay for lessons.  But this wonderful moment can happen in a lesson, as it did for me today. Often in performances I can get so caught up in the extraneous influences that seem to come upon me, that it is rare for me to recognize these moments when I am really in it. 

          I was singing Richard Strauss today- a song that I absolutely love. It's a song about romance and memories set amidst a celebration and is scented with all of that sensuality. Of course, because I haven’t sung it in a lesson in a while, I had my head up my ass worrying about the placement and size of the sound. My teacher, who does in fact do a lot of talking about placement and breathing, (as she should), stopped me and had me sing everything again. She asked me for something different. “It’s a personal song and only comes across if you bring yourself to it,” she said. This is certainly a neo-Romantic sentiment, but a true one. Well, I found the moment I was looking for at the end of the song. The things in the room changed for me. The objects of the room, the piano, the pianist, and me, melted away and became song. For me this means I felt the sound of it all in my body the way I hear it in my head. It was the way I believe the poet and composer intended it. Very little can be more gratifying, and the only thing that could make this moment better would be to share it with an audience. These are the moments that keep me coming back to music. More than the technical details, these are the moments I should strive for in performance. This is a hard lesson to learn and hold onto though. As my teacher told me: “That was you. We heard you come through there and that’s how you’ll remember how to sing this."

Wack Attack

          Last night there was a state of emergency declared in Massachusetts. After an entire spring season of rain leading to a week of welcome sunshine and extreme humidity, the humidity broke in a series of violent lightning storms. Many people enjoy the austere beauty of a thunderstorm from the inside of their safe homes. For me, this is generally not the case. As a 5 year old, I became so hysterical one morning during a thunderstorm that I refused to wait at the bus stop and my mother had to drive me to school. I remember running from the parking lot to the front door of school, screaming and clutching my umbrella.

          My fear of thunderstorms is only outweighed by my fear of tornadoes. As a child, (presumably after a recent viewing of The Wizard of Oz), I asked my parents if there were ever any tornadoes in Connecticut. They laughed at me and told me that Connecticut is too hilly for tornadoes to form- that tornadoes happen in flat Midwestern and Southern territories. My dad still periodically brings this up in my adulthood and has a good chuckle: “Remember when you were little and you were scared of tornadoes? Ha ha ha.” Oh yeah, Dad, and what happened a year ago in our very own Nutmeg state? http://www.ctpost.com/news/article/Tornado-confirmed-in-Bridgeport-536870.php. Just sayin’. Laugh all you want at my childhood fears…

          So, when at 5:30 last night, lightning actually struck the other side of my office building and there was no little commotion, I became pretty frightened. There was no damage and no one was hurt, thankfully. Things seemed to clear up for the commute home and dinner. I flipped to my new favorite sitcom last night (Modern Family, for anyone interested) only to find that the news had taken over with a special report about further tornado watches after one had hit Springfield, MA. I was now in downright panic mode. Then the lighting started at a ridiculously frenetic pace and Governor Deval Patrick held a press conference urging people to stay off the roads because the storm was moving from Western and Central Massachusetts to Boston. This only sent me into more of a wack attack because I knew that the boyfriend was out in Worcester for rehearsal.

          Since Brendan was not answering his phone, I sent him a long series of texts, which I am fairly certain, made no sense but to sum up, urged him to stay where he was. Ideally I envisioned him holed up safely under a blanket in a church basement somewhere. My panic did not stop me from calling nearly everyone I know to distract myself, including my parents, to whom I said: “See! All of my paranoid childhood fears are coming true!” My dad laughed and told me about the pleasantries of his day. When he found that he could not get me to talk about anything other than the weather, he passed the phone to my mother, whom he knew could be more sympathetic. In future situations of this nature, I would probably do well to put down the remote and stay away from the media's scare tactics.

          In the end, B called me several times from the road. By the time he was leaving Worcester things had calmed significantly, and it was merely drizzling. I don’t have to tell you which one of us was the more nervous of the two for his ride home, but he was very fortunate and made it safely and uneventfully.

          There is only one time and place that finds me at ease in thunderstorms. This is a certain kind of perfect thunderstorm in the summer on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, where my family vacations. These storms are usually brief, lasting less than an hour and when they stop, the hot sun makes the steam rise off of the pavement and the world around you is filled with the most earthy and delicious smell. Maybe, it’s just that when I am there, I have no place I need to be and my worries melt away with the steam.


Footnote: The expression "Wack Attack" is not a Katrina original.  Credit must be given to my dear friend Rita Dwan for this extremely useful and particularly palatable turn of phrase.

Apparently pretty big in the 70's too...

          To add to my last post, I have been informed of another story involving my mother and hairspray that I had never heard before.  This story comes to us courtesy of my mom's dear friend and Maid of Honor, Susan.  Back in 1973, my parents had a lovely wedding.  Apparently though, my Grandma Sophie's hair had a slight tinge of green.  My mom grabbed the wrong spray can in the bathroom so instead of hairspray, the Mother of the Bride got a liberal dousing of Lysol disinfectant.  It must have gone quite nicely with her aqua satin dress.  I will have to go back to the wedding album to examine this further...

Blood, Sweat and Hairspray

          
          So as I mentally process the past weekend, a few things strike me. 

          One: I was involved in a wonderful production of Massenet's Cendrillon, with a great cast, of which I am very proud to have been a part.

          Two: Having the title role is exhausting. Never mind the memorization and rehearsal process, once Cinderella hits the stage, she really doesn't leave for more than 5 minutes- ever- and Act III is a marathon of epic proportions with approximately 1400 arias: (See also: long extended recitative in which she says goodbye to every piece of furniture in her home before she runs off into the woods). When she is not onstage, she is traipsing around backstage with one shoe on.

          Three: There is no more stark contrast than that of leaving one's house in complete disarray because of a fulltime job and tech rehearsals, and then having to go be a princess onstage that same evening. If Cinderella's house looked like mine before the ball, she would have been in a whole lot of trouble.

          And Four: "Hairspray must be much stronger than it used to be in the 80's".

          There is an explanation to that particular quotation. Our very talented hair and makeup designer could not be present at the show for our last performance, so she asked if I knew anyone who could style a French twist in my hair. Since my mother wore her hair in a French twist daily for nearly two decades, she was an obvious choice. She was coming to both performances anyway, (as with many performers, my parents are my biggest fans). So, at Sunday's matinee, my mom followed me into the dressing area with teasing comb and my hairspray in hand. After a number of people asked who my chic stylist was, my mother started getting at my hair. Once teased and situated to a sufficient height, she proceeded to spray the shit out of it. When I actually tasted some hairspray in my mouth, I thought it might have been a bit excessive, but my mother is nothing if not a bit in excess.

          It was several minutes later that the fire alarm sounded and we all had to evacuate the building. So, there we were; the entire cast outside, in full makeup, or at least partway there, waiting for the fire department to arrive. Fortunately we still had about 45 minutes before curtain. We thought that perhaps a curling iron had started smoking somewhere, but no. A few minutes later, it was announced that "too much hairspray" had tripped a detector. That's right Dana, if you are reading this; it was my mom. Try to remember how generous she has been with donations to MetroWest Opera in recent years. I offer an official apology, but must also admit that my mother and I got a good laugh out of it too.

          Even with all of the interesting snags, I am proud of the product. I think that with the help of everyone involved, and everyone who supported us, we successfully brought this story to life. Thank you.

My Mind is a Sieve...

          I have been repeating myself for weeks now. My friends have told me so. I have long had a tendency toward forgetfulness in the short term but this seems to have been exacerbated as of late. A friend of mine had to refresh my memory on an entire conversation in which I had assured her that I would give her a ride to our friend's show on the North Shore. When one of my tires went defunct, I literally had zero recollection of said conversation. Of course, there was little I could do about it at that point. Even while writing this, I had to look up the supplement my friend suggested I start taking for my memory, because I could not remember it. I think it was gingko biloba...

          If I happen to mention to an older person, the fact that I often walk into a room and have forgotten what it was is I went in there for, I will inevitably be told that I am too young to start doing that. I, however; have memories of doing that at age nine. In fact, the two things probably go hand in hand. Because I have several memories from as early as age two, and many vivid memories from throughout my entire childhood and beyond, there seems to be less room for the other stuff. It seems that one only has so much room before things just start fallin' out the brain.

          I have always noticed that some people seem more geared toward remembering things from 20 years ago and others from 4 hours ago. My mother, for example, is of the latter persuasion. If you ask her to pick up bread on her way home, she has a remarkable ability to actually remember it. If you ask me to pick up bread every day for a month, there is a fairly good chance that I would forget it every day for a month. Fortunately I have learned to write literally everything down.

          Now, if you were to ask me about something like what I wore on my first day of kindergarten, I would know. It was a striped pink and blue dress with a dog in a doghouse on it. I also carried a hand-me-down pig backpack, piggy-side against my chest, because I was embarrassed by it. And you can't say this is based on photos. I was too cautious to allow photos of the offending pig backpack, which I only consented to carry for the one day. In this respect, I am one of a few unofficial record-keepers for my childhood friends. One friend recently called me asking me to remind her of what she did for the summer after our sophomore year of college, (true story).

          My mother, on the other hand, seems to have forgotten entire years of her life, (and I don't mean the 1960's). I just mean that she has almost no memories before age five. As a thirteen year old, when my mother said she had very little recollection of what it was like to be thirteen, I attributed this to the fact that she was an older mother and that thirteen was so long ago, she couldn't remember. As an adult, I realize that she actually can't remember a lot of things from two years ago, or certainly not in the detail that I can. This acute long-term memory of mine is quite useful in terms of many things, like this blog for example, but not so useful when trying to remember whether I put on deodorant this morning, (fairly certain I did today).

          Now, as for this more intense bout of premature senility of late, there is very little that can explain it other than a complete temporary lack of free time and the necessity of pounding a four act French opera into my brain. I don't mean to complain. I am completely thrilled and excited to be singing the title role in Cendrillon. It's just that when I am in the thick of rehearsals, I am so consumed with, say, the drama and excitement of the first act ensemble or the beauty of the third act duet, (it rips your heart out of your ass), that I find myself wishing that the other stuff would just go away- you know, like the laundry piling up next to my hamper, the dishes, the car tire that needs replacing. Then we head into the opera's tech week, (on top of my 40 hour work week), and I wouldn't have time for those chores even if I tried. As I become frazzled by the chaos around me, many of the other details, like that ride I promised you or that thing I said I would do, also seem to fall by the wayside of my mind.

          It's also that... Even now, upon leaving this half-finished entry for a few days, I realize that I had started the previous sentence and now have no recollection of how I intended to finish it! Friends, I beg you- if you run into me in the next week or two and you have something important to tell me, repeat yourself ad nauseam until I write it down. I only have myself to blame for your repetition.

The Essence of Subtlety

          As an adult, it becomes clearer to me just how many years it takes to get used to the embarrassment caused by one's parents. I say this because maybe one forgets over time and isn't reminded until said parents actually start embarrassing others outside of the family.

          For me, this threshold for embarrassment was very high at a young age and needed to be maintained for survival. By the time junior high hit and everyone was just starting to identify their parents as freaks set out to destroy their social lives, my mother had already been humiliating me publicly for years. She was notoriously unfazed by the unwritten rules of a snooty Connecticut suburb. She is probably still the only person in Woodbridge with a clothesline in the backyard, for example. Throughout my entire childhood, my mother had no problem making her presence known- frequenting school and making odd donations and requests. Often, it seemed that she would materialize when least expected for the express purpose of my discomfort. In first grade I remember hearing the distinctive sound of my mother's giant wad of keys coming down the outside hall. I shrugged and figured it must have been the custodian when my mother appeared at the door. She obviously thought her unscheduled errand important enough to leave the restaurant and interrupt the classroom. There weren't too many other mothers dropping by in this way.

          She certainly did not dress like or own a car like other Woodbridge mothers either. Don't get me wrong, my mom can be quite style savvy. A particular image from childhood though, that comes to mind, was one of standing on the side of the road in six inches of snow while my mother changed a flat tire on her used Chevy Celebrity that she had bought from the Boy Scouts. She was wearing a fur coat, beret, knee socks and clogs. Let's say that with her, certain rules of etiquette, entertaining and housekeeping are paramount, but many other types of conformity are not a priority. The idea that it might not be smart to wear animal fur on the campus of Yale, for example, was never a concern for her. It was just her companions in New Haven who were in constant fear of red paint. (With a wave of her hand, she would say that the animal on her back had already been dead for decades).

          There were other instances when she would not even make an attempt at following established protocol. When my mother picked me up from band practice in the fourth grade, she embarrassed me weekly. Parents would drive by the school entrance via a rotary. It was a very simple process. There would be a line of sorts: parents would stop and kids would get into their respective cars. My mother, on the other hand, would drive past me every time. I would walk up to the car handle and the car would keep moving- every time! Then she would drive to the end of the rotary someplace and finally stop as I chased after her with my flute and giant back pack. Even after I asked her why she couldn't just pick me up at the front entrance like the other parents, she told me she didn't like stopping. She was certain that people weren't meant to stop like that and make all the other parents wait. This was especially ironic considering that she has always been very happy to let people wait when a traffic light turns green and she is still balancing her checkbook behind the wheel. "People are just so impatient!" she will say. It seems that at band practice, she was ok with me being singled out as the kid chasing after her mother's car week after week.

          In junior high, the string of humiliations continued. She made a habit of calling into school and torturing front office secretaries with her ideas about how the "pre-teens" should be able to sleep in more, because studies show that teenagers need the extra. When they explained to her that school started early to accommodate sports teams, she argued with them that her daughter shouldn't have to suffer on account of it. In fact, her daughter should be excused from gym class entirely because it was first period and interrupted her much needed sleep! Who cares that it was a state education requirement!

          Let me be clear and say that my parents were not the type to always assume that the school system was in the wrong- trust me. They were once teachers, so I got my fair share of probing before they came to any conclusion about my education. My mother just got attached to certain ideas, which no person with a rational thought pattern could willingly follow, and would have trouble letting go of them. So I was not only known throughout the front office, but my classmates knew that that woman in the beret and multiple scarves was my mother, marching in to make some more irrational requests.

          Even now, there are few members of Boston Opera Collaborative, a group with which I am involved, who do not know my mother. At one performance, she heard from a family friend that we did not have enough sparkling beverages and she drove up from Connecticut with a cooler full of donations. I mean, no one was complaining, but after she practically took over the concessions stand during a run of Carmen, they definitely subsequently remembered who she was. (Most also recall her brownies with Coca-Cola frosting, which are admittedly remarkable).

          I say that it takes time to get used to one's parents because I seem to have almost forgotten what an energetic force they, but especially my mother, can be in a public setting, such as a concert. This is particularly apparent when you are not the only one taking the brunt of their, shall we say, enthusiasm.

          Recently, they were coincidentally in town for one of my boyfriend's performances. What I should have done before the concert, was given the parents a pep-talk about how it wasn't really a big deal- just a recital in a church where he sings regularly. I should have told them to keep this enthusiasm in check, because we wouldn't want to shatter his image as a professional by implying that this was something he had invited his entire social circle to, because in actuality, he hadn't. Their attendance was a "lucky" coincidence. I suppose I was laboring under the delusion that it was possible for my mother not to draw attention to herself in a group of strangers.

          Before I had arrived at the concert, my mother and father apparently followed Brendan into the room where the singers were preparing and started conversation. Most people consider this time before a concert begins to be private meditation and preparation time for the performers. Apparently my parents live under a rock. Before long, my mother got out her camera and asked to take pictures of all five performers- not that she knew any of the others or anything. Well she didn't quite ask so much as say: "You all look so nice! Everybody get together and let me get a few shots of you!" (She does this all with her point and shoot camera, because she refuses to buy a digital. Hello 1999, it's nice to meet you.) And although I wasn't there, I am sure that she probably interrupted with this request in the middle of an ongoing conversation, as is her habit. So it seems that just when you are immune to their antics, they start embarrassing the poor unwitting souls whom you have invited into your life.

          Meanwhile, Brendan's parents hung back from the rest of the church community, as is appropriate in this case. My mother, on the other hand, flitted about while making friends with several parishioners and loudly extolling the virtues of the soprano soloist's well-behaved son. I think she may have even taken some pictures of the boy. My dad was too busy monopolizing Brendan with a conversation about skiing to even notice. I remember a show a few years ago when Brendan's parents came to see the performance and had barely even made their presence known. At the time I had said to him: "What, they didn't want to run in and cause a scene?! They didn't want to comment audibly on whether or not your costume is flattering?! They didn't follow you backstage to take your picture in the green room???"

          My coping mechanism in dealing with a constant stream of awkwardness in public has always been similar to what it is now I suppose. As a child, I churned out and handed in several creative writing pieces based on my mother's idiosyncrasies, (highlights include ruminations on how she will eat anything: my third grade "book" entitled Olives and Cheese and a sixth grade song The Woman with no Tastebuds). I am certainly not the first to write about an embarrassing mother. Carrie Fisher practically made a second career drawing upon the wonders of her mother's eccentricities onscreen in Postcards from the Edge. Putting a comedic spin on things has always put things in perspective for me- that ultimately I have a great mom even if she is a "character". I have learned, via many examples, how not to be concerned with peoples' perceptions of you. Laundry does smell best when dried on a clothesline after all.

Skiing combines outdoor fun with knocking down trees with your face. ~Dave Barry

          Despite my clumsy nature and near non-existent athleticism, I am a skier. My parents are skiers, which is how this happened. They used to ski all the time until they had kids and then a few years later, it seemed that they woke up one morning and said "Oh shit, we never taught the kids to ski!" So I was eleven when we headed up to Bromley in Vermont for our February vacation. This is fortunate, because given my track record in other sports, (and quite literally my track record), the chances that I would have independently thought it would be a good idea to impale myself down a steep incline on plastic boards would have been slim to none. If I had not started at that age, I would certainly not be the competent skier I am today. I am fairly secure on the mountain, skiing black diamond trails with relative elegance for someone who is only able to get away to ski about once a year. At the very least, I believe most of those embarrassing beginner's skiing accidents to be behind me at this age.

          I was recently proven wrong on this count.

          The boyfriend and I had cleared our schedules over a month in advance to get a ski weekend in with his family last weekend. Never having downhill skied before, Brendan promptly signed up for a lesson. A friend asked why I couldn't just teach him, but fortunately, B realized that that probably wouldn't have been good for our relationship. Besides, when I am lucky to get one ski trip in a year, I don't want to spend the whole day on the bunny slope.

          So, with the boyfriend in ski school, I was out on the slopes with his family. The weather wasn't so hot. At the top of the mountain, there was a lot of wind and fog and a light, but sharp sleet that was partially blinding. Seeing as I get to ski so infrequently, I decided not to give up for the day, but to be a trooper in spite of the less-than-ideal conditions. Getting off the gondola at the top, we were carrying our skis down a staircase to the trail. A cold and brutal wind suddenly picked up and threw off my balance. I must have overcompensated against the wind by leaning forward because the next thing I knew, I was falling face-first toward the seven or eight steps that still lay in front of me. After a few contortions and ricochets, I knew I had landed safely but just needed to register a few things.

          Like a baby who has just fallen and takes that critical moment to decide whether or not to cry, I was mentally assessing my possible injuries when I heard a woman say "That lady just fell down the stairs! Are you ok?" I was fortunately able to confirm that I was fine. My boyfriend's brother turned around to find me flat on my back at the bottom of the staircase with my legs splayed in a straddle across the steps. He assisted me back up and I was able to ski four more runs after that, including one with Brendan on his new ski legs. Of course later, my wrist was not terribly happy, I had a bruise on my thigh that could have been straight out of that scene in A League of Their Own, and my shin swelled up to be the size of my face.

          It seems that, like my mother, I don't do much falling while on the slopes, but rather, while doing something mundane like walking to the chairlift. My mom always whips past everyone with perfect form on the trail and then manages to slip at the bottom of the mountain while adjusting a mitten.

          I suppose this particular weekend could have been worse though. My dad did teach me how to fall properly at a young age. True story. When I was about eleven or twelve, I slipped and fell in the hallway of our house, (my battle with my coordination having been a lifelong one). When my dad saw it happen, he immediately launched into an enthusiastic lecture about how to fall properly- how to protect one's face and head etc. It lasted about twenty minutes, included demonstrations and trials, and ended with me agog. I thought, and still think that protecting one's face during a fall is probably instinctual, but then my father has rarely taken pleasure out of anything unless he is able to methodically analyze it. (See also; my skiing form, which he persists in criticizing, even though I view the sport as pure recreation in my adulthood). I suppose some people never lose the teacher in them, mid-life career changes or not.

          Not all of my dad's life skill lectures have been in vain in my profession however, (and you would be correct in inferring, Dear Reader, that there have been many similar lectures over the years). I recently performed as "The Cock", (no joke), in The Cunning Little Vixen, an opera by Czech composer Janáček. In staging the scene in which my character is killed off by a fox, the director asked if I knew how to fall properly. Fortunately, I was able to answer: "Yes".