Well, surprise, surprise!
Yesterday out of the blue I heard from the woman who had deleted my video(s) from her Youtube channel, and attached to her email was a link through which she "shared" one of the videos with me. Because of the format it was in, I was able to download it and save it on my computer hard drive and upload it to my own Youtube channel (which is pretty sparse in its offerings). I thanked her profusely.
Here's the bitter irony.
Over my two years or so of corresponding with LC, always deep from the heart and the gut - at her prompting; she sent me materials from her "Covenant Group" (a UU offshoot) that had word prompts that were supposed to lead to deep reflection and honest sharing - I (thinking she was someone I could trust) shared a lot of anger and resentment that I felt toward people in my life. With one exception, none of this anger and resentment constituted a deal-breaker, I just wanted to get things off my chest and LC appeared to be a willing listener. Having been trained as a counselor, I assumed that she could be adroit at changing the course of a "discussion" if something made her uncomfortable (or simply saying that she didn't want to talk about a particular thing, which would have been fine with me). Never in a million years did I assume that the things I said would make her angrier and angrier until one day she would tell me she never wanted me to communicate with her again. People with psychological savvy don't do those sorts of things, one would think. There are so many more subtle and less drastic ways to back off from a relationship that is becoming uncomfortable.
The bitter irony is that I am now back in touch (and happy to be so) with all the people I told LC I was angry with, because I vented about them to her (and perhaps one other friend), to my therapist, and in these "pages", but said little, if anything, to them themselves, although they all knew I was teed off. Much better than reading someone the riot act, or telling someone you can't tell them why you don't want them to communicate with you because it would be hurtful, which it is the same thing, really.
As I said, because I'm "talky", forbidding me to "talk" is the cruelest thing anyone can do if I've cared about them at all, or opened up to them the way I did with her. (It's like someone asking you to strip naked and then telling you how ugly you look, basically. If she had thought I had an "ugly" soul, wouldn't she have had an inkling of that long before she had to enjoin me from communicating with her?) I would rather have a screaming match, complete with insults, apologies, hugs, and tears. To me that's what intimacy is.
And as I've said about LC, I am astounded that she managed to raise four children, three of whom she is still in touch with, along with various ancillary relatives. To do that, you have to either "work through" conflict, or find a tactful way to back off. You can't just throw someone in the garbage and walk away smugly thinking you smell like a rose.
I have to say here that I don't "miss" her. All that navel-gazing that these email interchanges elicited was probably very bad for my mental health. It's that I feel angry and ripped off and I think "how dare someone do that to me?" And because she isn't part of the fabric of my life I have no one to commiserate with as in "oh, she'a a bitch. She behaved like that with me [or with so and so]; just write her off and get on with your life." I know she is estranged from one of her sons, and when she told me the circumstances, quoting herself, I can see why. He was talking during her grandson's (his nephew's) funeral and instead of just saying "shhh" and looking stern - what I would have done - she said in that smarmy way she has "Now would be a good time to be silent". So he was silent. He has never spoken to her again. I almost felt like writing to him (he has a Facebook account) but decided against it because I find his political views so odious. Of course her daughter is still a "friend" on Facebook but they live together, so I don't want to get into it with the daughter. But I have considered unfriending her (or at least unfollowing her) several times because every time she types something about "Mom" I want to either scream or throw up.
So as I said, the irony is that all the people I was angry at (mostly over last year's birthday) are now back in my life as friends, no hard feelings, even the woman whom I thought had deliberately deleted my video, and the woman I used as a confidante has dumped me.
I really wish I could just forget her. At the last Moon Circle we were each given an egg to smash on the ground and were told to have it symbolize something we wanted to let go of. So I imagined LC's smirking face. Wish it had worked, but it didn't.
Oh well, time heals all wounds.
And at my last lesson, I ended Trovatore on the best B flat I have ever sung.
Thursday, August 25, 2016
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
Azucena Deconstructed
First, about the new color. I submitted my blog for some feedback, and one thing that was said was that the black background was not a good fit. So I am trying red. As a diva, there can never be too much red in my life, right?
Of course diddling around with anything techie makes me nervous, so I tend not to change things once that aspect is taken care of. Surprisingly, though, I am much better at handling technology that I think I am and am much better than most people my age. I installed Windows 10 by myself, for example. I think one issue is simply that I am not photographed very much and therefore have very few visuals to add here.
But now to the import of this post. I have a date to sing the Azucena scenes from Trovatore at the LGBT senior center on Monday October 17. I know what scenes I'm singing. I couldn't find a copy of the original play in English, so my teacher's wife can read from the libretto.
For all things Trovatore, go here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Il_trovatore
The amazing thing I discovered when telescoping the opera is that the entire romantic story between Leonora and Manrico can be removed and you've still got the story!! It's really about Azucena, her mother, the count who sentenced her mother to death, his brother, and Azucena's son (and which is which).
So I'm now wondering if the readings should fill the Leonora story in, or if it can just be omitted entirely and instead the readings will set the scene for what the audience will be hearing (like speaking the words to Ferrando's opening aria, for example).
In any event, I am really singing this very well, including the B flats. I thought the breakthrough in early 2015 was "it", but now I seem to have made another. I not only now can attack a B flat or a B natural off the cuff, I can do it full voice!! In my last two practices I sang two off the cuff B naturals that were truly O Don Fatale worthy! Is that in my future?
And when I started looking at Act 4 something interesting happened, which surprised me. Looking at all the opening recitative and imagining a woman sitting in a prison cell, knowing that she is going to be burned to death actually gave me the creeps. I mean I could actually feel what she was feeling. Now, OK, I know once I actually sing that music I can't do that (The Mentor once said "You are not supposed to feel anything; you are supposed to make the audience feel something") but it was interesting that I was that moved. I was not moved that way by the Act 2 music, probably because in that act she's having flashbacks not in terror about her own future. I was going to write that nothing like that had even happened to me when I was working on a role, but that of course is not true. If singing Dalila or Carmen always ended up making me horny, it makes sense that singing Azucena would take me to a very dark place, existentially. According to my teacher, she has PTSD from having spent her life in an intergenerational world of violence.
So now I'm all fired up!! (no pun intended) and am really looking forward to the next two months!!
Of course diddling around with anything techie makes me nervous, so I tend not to change things once that aspect is taken care of. Surprisingly, though, I am much better at handling technology that I think I am and am much better than most people my age. I installed Windows 10 by myself, for example. I think one issue is simply that I am not photographed very much and therefore have very few visuals to add here.
But now to the import of this post. I have a date to sing the Azucena scenes from Trovatore at the LGBT senior center on Monday October 17. I know what scenes I'm singing. I couldn't find a copy of the original play in English, so my teacher's wife can read from the libretto.
For all things Trovatore, go here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Il_trovatore
The amazing thing I discovered when telescoping the opera is that the entire romantic story between Leonora and Manrico can be removed and you've still got the story!! It's really about Azucena, her mother, the count who sentenced her mother to death, his brother, and Azucena's son (and which is which).
So I'm now wondering if the readings should fill the Leonora story in, or if it can just be omitted entirely and instead the readings will set the scene for what the audience will be hearing (like speaking the words to Ferrando's opening aria, for example).
In any event, I am really singing this very well, including the B flats. I thought the breakthrough in early 2015 was "it", but now I seem to have made another. I not only now can attack a B flat or a B natural off the cuff, I can do it full voice!! In my last two practices I sang two off the cuff B naturals that were truly O Don Fatale worthy! Is that in my future?
And when I started looking at Act 4 something interesting happened, which surprised me. Looking at all the opening recitative and imagining a woman sitting in a prison cell, knowing that she is going to be burned to death actually gave me the creeps. I mean I could actually feel what she was feeling. Now, OK, I know once I actually sing that music I can't do that (The Mentor once said "You are not supposed to feel anything; you are supposed to make the audience feel something") but it was interesting that I was that moved. I was not moved that way by the Act 2 music, probably because in that act she's having flashbacks not in terror about her own future. I was going to write that nothing like that had even happened to me when I was working on a role, but that of course is not true. If singing Dalila or Carmen always ended up making me horny, it makes sense that singing Azucena would take me to a very dark place, existentially. According to my teacher, she has PTSD from having spent her life in an intergenerational world of violence.
So now I'm all fired up!! (no pun intended) and am really looking forward to the next two months!!
Thursday, August 4, 2016
Values Voting
I guess this topic is particularly a propos in view of the current presidential campaign, but that's not what has prompted this post.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around the "breakup" with LC. I am less hurt than left wary. How will I know, next time, if I confide in someone about how I am feeling, that they won't see that as a violation of their values in some way and decide to dump me because our correspondence isn't "working"? How can I trust anyone again?
I will have to say that this has never happened to me before. Friends and I have drifted apart. There have been people I have made a point of interacting less with, if I felt we didn't have much in common (not really true here) or if I found that the more I knew them the less I liked them, but letting go was a process, not a violent act. Slamming a door is a violent act.
My mother was a "values voter" and in fact, referring back to this post, all the ruptures between my mother and LC, and between my mother and her mother, were about values. My mother didn't like the fact that LC's mother appeared oblivious to the political situation in Greece or the fact that LC cruelly sent a shelter dog to its death (one she had claimed to be madly in love with) rather than mop up after it for a few more weeks or months. My mother "voted with her feet" to end other friendships over values as well. With one woman it was because she had voted for Reagan and read Commentary magazine. With another it was that she bought expensive shoes and didn't donate money to PBS.
I would like to think that I don't operate that way. To me, there is nothing more important than a friendship, and I only judge people based on how they treat me, or perhaps as well on how I see them treating others. I can't imagine totally cutting someone off because of what they say they think or how they say they feel. If I cry over a deleted video and LC cries over a mass shooting, that does not give her the moral high ground. Neither one of us has made the world a better (or a worse) place based on what triggers our tears.
Or maybe she didn't like that I referred to myself as "underprivileged". Yes, I know, context is everything, and that's why I scrape together money from time to time to give to the church food pantry. However underprivileged I feel living in a sea of highly paid professionals married to highly paid professionals who go away four and five times a year (or every weekend!), I have enough food and I have a (very nice) place to live. But why should someone else care how I want to benchmark myself? I could understand her being upset if I had been stingy with her in some way as a result of thinking that, but why was that any of her business? I think abruptly ending a friendship is much crueler than anything a person might opine (or not opine) about.
Maybe it's a UU thing. Even though I consider myself to be a UU (or more accurately, a nineteenth century Unitarian like Susan B. Anthony and Louisa May Alcott), I never cease to be amazed at their smarmy sanctimoniousness. In addition to dispensing with a lot of the "magical thinking" of Christianity (what I like about UUs), they also seem to have dispensed with the Christian notion of charity, not just toward the poor, but toward the "sinner". So if LC thinks I am shallow and selfish (I can't imagine what else it is that caused her to end our friendship that she doesn't want to tell me) shouldn't that be a reason for her to pity me and be charitable? (Only half said tongue in cheek.) And was my selfishness so egregious that she couldn't just say something like "We don't seem to be on the same page right now, so why don't we take a time out?"
What I said to her in my final response is true. I don't care if she doesn't like me as she is not a part of the fabric of my life. But I am angry. She got to dump me and feel self righteous and there's nothing I detest like self righteousness. Really good people don't talk about how good they are all the time.
And no one who has done all the things I have done for my partner in her declining years can be considered selfish. I have a clear conscience if nothing else.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around the "breakup" with LC. I am less hurt than left wary. How will I know, next time, if I confide in someone about how I am feeling, that they won't see that as a violation of their values in some way and decide to dump me because our correspondence isn't "working"? How can I trust anyone again?
I will have to say that this has never happened to me before. Friends and I have drifted apart. There have been people I have made a point of interacting less with, if I felt we didn't have much in common (not really true here) or if I found that the more I knew them the less I liked them, but letting go was a process, not a violent act. Slamming a door is a violent act.
My mother was a "values voter" and in fact, referring back to this post, all the ruptures between my mother and LC, and between my mother and her mother, were about values. My mother didn't like the fact that LC's mother appeared oblivious to the political situation in Greece or the fact that LC cruelly sent a shelter dog to its death (one she had claimed to be madly in love with) rather than mop up after it for a few more weeks or months. My mother "voted with her feet" to end other friendships over values as well. With one woman it was because she had voted for Reagan and read Commentary magazine. With another it was that she bought expensive shoes and didn't donate money to PBS.
I would like to think that I don't operate that way. To me, there is nothing more important than a friendship, and I only judge people based on how they treat me, or perhaps as well on how I see them treating others. I can't imagine totally cutting someone off because of what they say they think or how they say they feel. If I cry over a deleted video and LC cries over a mass shooting, that does not give her the moral high ground. Neither one of us has made the world a better (or a worse) place based on what triggers our tears.
Or maybe she didn't like that I referred to myself as "underprivileged". Yes, I know, context is everything, and that's why I scrape together money from time to time to give to the church food pantry. However underprivileged I feel living in a sea of highly paid professionals married to highly paid professionals who go away four and five times a year (or every weekend!), I have enough food and I have a (very nice) place to live. But why should someone else care how I want to benchmark myself? I could understand her being upset if I had been stingy with her in some way as a result of thinking that, but why was that any of her business? I think abruptly ending a friendship is much crueler than anything a person might opine (or not opine) about.
Maybe it's a UU thing. Even though I consider myself to be a UU (or more accurately, a nineteenth century Unitarian like Susan B. Anthony and Louisa May Alcott), I never cease to be amazed at their smarmy sanctimoniousness. In addition to dispensing with a lot of the "magical thinking" of Christianity (what I like about UUs), they also seem to have dispensed with the Christian notion of charity, not just toward the poor, but toward the "sinner". So if LC thinks I am shallow and selfish (I can't imagine what else it is that caused her to end our friendship that she doesn't want to tell me) shouldn't that be a reason for her to pity me and be charitable? (Only half said tongue in cheek.) And was my selfishness so egregious that she couldn't just say something like "We don't seem to be on the same page right now, so why don't we take a time out?"
What I said to her in my final response is true. I don't care if she doesn't like me as she is not a part of the fabric of my life. But I am angry. She got to dump me and feel self righteous and there's nothing I detest like self righteousness. Really good people don't talk about how good they are all the time.
And no one who has done all the things I have done for my partner in her declining years can be considered selfish. I have a clear conscience if nothing else.
Monday, August 1, 2016
Concert
Overall, the concert went well. I sang well. Of course I wasn't singing anything all that vocally challenging other than the Handel. I made some (probably unnoticed) mistakes in the two most musically challenging pieces: the Jake Heggie/Sister Helen song "Love is" and "Evergreen".
The biggest distraction (other than the piano being out of tune, which I didn't know because my accompanist couldn't come with me on the day that I was looking at the room, and anyhow I couldn't get to the piano that afternoon because someone was plunking on it) was a woman with Alzheimers, probably a former singer, who, like a dog responding to a whistle, sang along with me every time I hit a "high" note (meaning an F or an F sharp). What she did, mostly, was sing the note an octave higher. She really got going with this during "Love is", which was unfortunate, because I was having enough trouble. She also did this all during "Mon Coeur", which annoyed some of my friends, but in that instance it didn't faze me because I could sing that aria in my sleep.
Several people sang along during the Gay 90s songs, which was fine, and my partner sang along during "Let Me Call You Sweetheart", which was what I wanted.
All the people who told me they were coming did come, and some have made videos, which they will get to me soon.
My teacher and his wife were there and he said he was "proud of me" for not letting the distraction of the woman singing break my concentration. He called me a "pro". And then started talking about Trovatore, which made me happy. He said he couldn't find a copy of the play in English that was reasonably priced (he found one online for $100) so he is going to see if he can find one in Italian and then his wife can translate it into English.
And before the concert started the whole room sang "Happy Birthday" to me because I had said that the concert was for my birthday.
So this was the special birthday I dreamed of, and it certainly makes up for last year.
The only fly in the ointment was I got an answer to my thank you note (in which I apologized for whatever I had said that had put her off) from LC that was incredibly smarmy. She said her two most important values were being honest and being kind, but that she didn't feel she could tell me why she didn't want me to write to her without being hurtful, so she wasn't going to say anything, Then she had the unmitigated gall to say she hoped we could part on good terms. I wasn't going to write back, but I didn't want her to think she had "won" that battle; saying in a high-handed tone that she wasn't going to say the unkind thing she was thinking and then saying she hoped we could part on good terms. I wrote three responses to her, each of which I deleted, before sending a final answer. I basically said that she had already been hurtful, that I really didn't care if she disliked me, as she is not an integral part of my life, but that no, she can't have her "cake and eat it too" and no, we are no longer on good terms. I felt that by encouraging me to do a lot of intimate sharing and then dumping me she had done a lot of damage. So she can sit with that. I deleted every email exchange we had had over the past two years, except for some Jacquie Lawson cards that she sent me, and of course I will keep the flowers. So now it's time to move on.
I had a good solid practice session singing through "Stride la Vampa" and "Condotta".
The biggest distraction (other than the piano being out of tune, which I didn't know because my accompanist couldn't come with me on the day that I was looking at the room, and anyhow I couldn't get to the piano that afternoon because someone was plunking on it) was a woman with Alzheimers, probably a former singer, who, like a dog responding to a whistle, sang along with me every time I hit a "high" note (meaning an F or an F sharp). What she did, mostly, was sing the note an octave higher. She really got going with this during "Love is", which was unfortunate, because I was having enough trouble. She also did this all during "Mon Coeur", which annoyed some of my friends, but in that instance it didn't faze me because I could sing that aria in my sleep.
Several people sang along during the Gay 90s songs, which was fine, and my partner sang along during "Let Me Call You Sweetheart", which was what I wanted.
All the people who told me they were coming did come, and some have made videos, which they will get to me soon.
My teacher and his wife were there and he said he was "proud of me" for not letting the distraction of the woman singing break my concentration. He called me a "pro". And then started talking about Trovatore, which made me happy. He said he couldn't find a copy of the play in English that was reasonably priced (he found one online for $100) so he is going to see if he can find one in Italian and then his wife can translate it into English.
And before the concert started the whole room sang "Happy Birthday" to me because I had said that the concert was for my birthday.
So this was the special birthday I dreamed of, and it certainly makes up for last year.
The only fly in the ointment was I got an answer to my thank you note (in which I apologized for whatever I had said that had put her off) from LC that was incredibly smarmy. She said her two most important values were being honest and being kind, but that she didn't feel she could tell me why she didn't want me to write to her without being hurtful, so she wasn't going to say anything, Then she had the unmitigated gall to say she hoped we could part on good terms. I wasn't going to write back, but I didn't want her to think she had "won" that battle; saying in a high-handed tone that she wasn't going to say the unkind thing she was thinking and then saying she hoped we could part on good terms. I wrote three responses to her, each of which I deleted, before sending a final answer. I basically said that she had already been hurtful, that I really didn't care if she disliked me, as she is not an integral part of my life, but that no, she can't have her "cake and eat it too" and no, we are no longer on good terms. I felt that by encouraging me to do a lot of intimate sharing and then dumping me she had done a lot of damage. So she can sit with that. I deleted every email exchange we had had over the past two years, except for some Jacquie Lawson cards that she sent me, and of course I will keep the flowers. So now it's time to move on.
I had a good solid practice session singing through "Stride la Vampa" and "Condotta".
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