Thankful Thursday - and Musings on "Location, location, location"

First "thankful Thursday".

The church where I sing posts a "thankful Thursday" prompt, and people can respond to it.  I am a bit shy of doing that, but I need to remind myself of a few things.

First, I'm alive.  I was reading a post on Facebook from a young woman whose mother died of breast cancer when she (the mother) was 10 years younger than I am now.  I am certainly now of an age when people die and although it might be considered tragic, it is not considered unusual.

Second, however depressed I often feel because of my lack of varied stimuli (I think this is at the crux of it - the fewer hours I spend alone in the house the less depressed I am), I have long since stopped feeling depressed by the holidays.  For years I got flak about why did my mother celebrate, and raise me to celebrate, Christmas, if she was Jewish?  She never really had a satisfactory answer, which made me feel put on the spot when I had to answer for her (and me).  Now that I consider myself a Unitarian (which for me is a mix of Christianity, Judaism, and Paganism - actually they would include Buddhism, but that particular tradition doesn't speak to me) I can celebrate any holiday I feel like, and anyhow, I'm a "high art" snob, so if I can sing church music I can decorate for Christmas.  I don't particularly feel sorry for myself that I have no family and will not get or give any presents.  Music and decorating are enough for me.  If I desperately need a sweater or more opera CDs I can buy these for myself.  So I am enjoying the holiday season quite a bit, actually.

Third, I have conquered four "tech" problems basically on my own, with only the help of company personnel, in other words, sans a "foreign language interpreter"! I took care of getting a new hard drive for my laptop, downloaded a printer driver from the Epson web site, reconnected my external hard drive, and got an iphone to replace my rinky dink cell phone.  The iphone did not come with an instruction manual but I figured out how to do everything except take decent pictures of myself.  Yes, it has a reverse camera, but I hardly look "hawt" if I am trying to take a photograph.  I have one set of facial expressions and body language when I'm posing/vamping and a totally different one when I'm concentrating on looking into a camera viewfinder.

For the second subject of this post...

I was asking myself whether watching the Richard Tucker gala on tv tonight would be inspirational or depressing.

I think what I find the most depressing is that I am literally in the armpit of Lincoln Center where the greatest singers in the world congregate to perform, and their successors go to school.  What role is there for a 62 year old with a pleasant large-ish voice in a limited range who can sing a handful of excerpts from great operas (cherry picked so that she doesn't get too tired), and some church solos?  How am I relevant?  Who cares?

Someone had said a while back that I should start a "community opera group", but there are probably 10-15 of these in Manhattan (and the other boroughs, but I would not want to travel outside Manhattan at night if I was not getting paid) and I have been rejected by all of them, except one that wanted to charge me $450 to sing a role.  (I wasn't insulted, I just don't have that kind of money, and if I am going to spend money, I would rather produce my own thing as a tax deductible charity event.)

It would be too self-piteous to blame it all on ageism, but what I do think is that no one is interested in someone obviously over 45 (I don't think I look 62....I'm 62 like Bette Midler or Bernadette Peters, not like an image of someone's grandma) who has minimal experience, no music-oriented formal education, and sounds, even at best, like she still needs a little polish.  (I think if I sounded exactly like I do now and was 27, people would be very interested, although they might instruct me how and where to get more polishing, and I think if I looked and sounded like I do now but had sung 20 roles over 20 years, people would also be interested, but the mix of my skills, age, and background are a nonstarter.)

So OK.  I can always produce something myself, and as someone said "if you build it, they will come".

What I really keep hoping is that someone will be interested in my story if not in my singing.

Before the day is over I promise to write to someone I know who writes for Classical Singer and ask her how to pique someone's interest.