A while back I posted something on Facebook (was it as long ago as last Thanksgiving?) where I said I found it hard to tell the difference between gratitude and laziness.
People think I am not grateful because I so often feel frustrated at how anonymous and irrelevant I feel...no matter how well I sing (or do anything for that matter) I am surrounded in this city and particularly in this neighborhood by a suffocating mass of people who can do it better.
It is easy to say, OK, I have it pretty good. I have someone who loves me, however flawed our relationship is, something to do for a modest living that I can do on my own schedule, a cheap apartment in a pricey ZIP code, not to mention that I am old enough now to know that no matter who is President, I, personally, will not fall through the cracks. I spent 35 years bored out of my wits for most of the day and what I have to show for it is two 401ks and health insurance for life. And now I earn little enough that I could probably qualify for lower middle income subsidized senior housing if I lost this apartment.
But I have this huge hunger in me to be somebody and in this environment I am nobody even if I leave the house every day flawlessly made up, looking like I am going for a photo shoot or at the very least a curtain call....no mean feat at 62 when nobody cares how I look but me and my significant other. It ain't in my job description.
Lately I have just felt like giving up. One thing I learned (surprisingly) during the hurricane was how lovely it was to lie in bed in the dark (I could have done with a little heat) listening to the radio with my significant other with few pressures other than having to run home for a few hours a day to work at my laptop (I had power in the apartment, she didn't). The competition was on hold
I want to run away to Ogunquit Maine. Almost every summer we spent a week here. And this picture doesn't even do it justice. This room looks out on a Japanese garden that was written up in a magazine (I can't remember which one, now).
Just think if I lived in Ogunquit. Well, I would have to walk everywhere except in July and August when the trolley is running, which would mean walking the equivalent of ten blocks, possibly in the snow, to buy overpriced groceries at a small convenience store. Or maybe there might be someplace I could order groceries online? There would only be one church within walking distance, and chances are I would get to be the star soloist full stop. I would get bored pretty quickly...there are a few art galleries and a summer theater from which I would have to walk home the equivalent of 15 blocks with a flashlight, because it's not on the trolley route, and two movie theaters. Maybe once a month or so I could take the bus to Portland but I would probably only get to spend 4 hours there because the last bus gets back fairly early, I think. I would be bored, but I wouldn't feel like I was drowning at the bottom of a pool of talent, so far down at the bottom of the pool that no one can even see my nose.
If I hadn't been born in New York it would be easy. I could go "home", presumably somewhere where I would be a bigger fish than I am here, and I would feel less overwhelmed. But I have noplace to go home to.
I could choose to live a simple life here: just close my eyes to the mass of talented people, never go to another audition, stop reading Classical Singer, unfriend all the working singers on Facebook who don't know me and certainly don't care about me even if we met once or twice at a "meetup", and be an unpaid choir soloist and go caroling in nursing homes and sing a few art songs. But is that giving up? Is that admitting that I am a failure? Or is it being grateful?
Next week I have the first rehearsal for this Requiem that I have been planning for over a year. I will probably get flak about it from my significant other, but I will deal with it. Maybe this will be the last "big" thing I will ever do.
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