Postpartum Depression

I don't really know what else to call it.

The Good Friday service went well.  It wasn't as exciting as I had expected (nor as well attended as usual) and when I got home I felt sandbagged by something I can only call "depression".

Is it because I am grieving over Abbie?  I have not really felt like crying over her loss.  Abbie was not a poignant, sympathetic, tragic figure, similarly to how my mother was not those things.  Abbie really was all the things my mother was, only nicer: cerebral, direct, not suffering fools gladly, hating sentimentality.  She was also someone who would always turn up and "do" if you needed her.  My mother was all those things but she didn't know how to "make nice", which Abbie did.  (My mother would have contemptuously dismissed that as "Southern").

In any event, the loss of Abbie is a loss and somewhat of a shock, but I don't feel sad.  Since she had moved to the Left Coast about four years ago we had not seen her.  And one blessing I now have is, after telling a church friend about my feeling of loss, particularly that I have now lost someone whom I always assumed would be there to be helpful when my partner died, this friend said that if she was "alive and mobile" (she is about 6 years older than I am) she would go to Maine with me to scatter my partner's ashes.

But I am feeling other losses as well. Yes, the Good Friday service went well, but once again it made me realize all the talent I am drowning in.  Although there was one thing of note, a situation in which I surprised myself.  The "boy soprano" woman I mentioned (she is not young; probably close to my age) sang really well, probably the best I'd ever heard her, and I was genuinely happy for her.  I told her it was the best I had ever heard her sing, which is true.  And she had the perfect voice for the plaintive "Agnus Dei".  I think the issue is that however bitter and envious I often am, I am happy when someone my age, who is still working on her art, does well.  Everyone kvells over the young talent.  They breathe up all the air in the room whether they want to or not.  So us older folks, who are by no means done and by no means a "finished product" want our moment too.  Of course the new dramatic soprano was the star of the evening.  Just because of her talent (she is certainly the opposite of a prima donna).  The tenor with whom I have had a relationship that runs hot and cold (I was stunned last year when he complimented me on singing Maundy Thursday) made a fuss over her, talking with his wife on the street afterwards.  On the other hand, her path forward may not be easy.  She has a much bigger and more impressive voice than Little Miss, but she is less versatile and less surrounded by a clacque although she does have a supportive voice teacher.  She is going to be singing a secondary role in a Wagner production somewhere.  I just so yearn to be special, which I will never be.

Easter will be a vocal anti-climax.  I opted to sing the alto part in "Worthy is the Lamb" from the Messiah.  It is a bleeping octave below the soprano part.   I think my teacher was right that the part was written for countertenors, not women.  I probably could sing the soprano part (particularly since we are not doing the "Amen" at the end which has a phrase that starts on a high A) but I didn't have time to sing it into my voice and the dramatic soprano will be there singing it, so to coin a metaphor, it is stupid to put the two heaviest people on the same side of the boat.  So, ironically, Easter, which is supposed to be a high point, will be a low point for me both vocally and otherwise, but then it will be over and I can go back to working on the "Drinking Song", which has a high A in it.  And when I show up for warm up on Sunday I will make sure I have warmed up at home to an A just because I can.

In a more intellectual mode, I was interested to read a quote from Nadia Bolz-Weber in which she said that the message of the Resurrection is that it is an opportunity for people to be resurrected from the graves they dig for themselves.  For me (someone who is totally skeptical about the "Risen Christ") this really resonates.  Maybe I can rise from the grave I'm always digging for myself? I can never turn the clock back and be a teen or a 20something with a clean, glorious voice undamaged by cigarettes and alcohol, making my way undistracted. So I need to "get over it".

Sad News, and Life Goes On

A few days after I wrote my last post, my friend Abbie died.  I didn't hear about it until the following Friday, from her older daughter.  It is all a shock.  I decided to wait to tell my partner until Sunday (Palm Sunday) when I would be at her house.  She took it pretty well.  And she will forget.  There are days when she doesn't remember that my mother is dead, or that her sister is dead.  It turns out that the cancer Abbie had was in the liver and pancreas, which rapidly becomes fatal.  When she wrote to me she used the word "abdominal" which I took to mean "stomach cancer", which is why I was surprised, because that is a type of cancer that many people survive.

Less important, but to me shocking, is that no one has done anything about submitting an obituary to any news outlet.  I have Googled her every day and there is nothing.  Abbie had written three memoirs, a novel, numerous magazine articles, and had a Wikipedia page (I don't know who managed that).  I also am surprised that she hadn't written her own obituary.  My mother (who was not a "personage" like Abbie but thought she was) had one at the ready at least a decade before she died, so that I could send it to the TIMES.  All I can think of was that Abbie was modest and perhaps her daughters (one lives on the Left Coast, the other deep in Trump Country) aren't interested in their mother's legacy.

The day after I heard that Abbie had died, I sang the Schubert "Ave Maria" at the funeral I mentioned.  It went well.  The Good Friday music is going well.  As an aside, it seems that after three months of struggling with asthma and experimenting with how to treat it, it is gone.  Perhaps it is seasonal.  I was at the point where I was using the inhaler every day. I would say that I had some kind of upper airway distress almost every day between December 27 and April 10.  Fingers crossed.  In any event, that underscores why it is a good idea for me not to plan concerts during that period.  And other than florid pieces like "Rejoice Greatly" I think it would be a good idea for me to stay away from singing anything with exposed high notes in public during that period. 

I have the alto line in two solo quartets from the Missa Solemnis.  I was disappointed not to be given the third (and in some ways the loveliest) solo part, which was given to a woman in the alto section with a pretty, small voice (sort of like a boy soprano).  I suppose the choir director wanted that kind of sound at the very end (she is singing "Agnus Dei" which is the last thing we sing).  I do love my solo quartets, particularly "Christe Eleison".  And of course the new dramatic soprano is singing all the soprano solos.  She sounds fabulous.  Having her there doesn't get under my skin the way having "Little Miss" there did.  Dramatic Sop is enough older (she is 30 or 31 and conducts herself like someone older) that I can sort of look at her as a mentor (if I feel like) not an irksome wunderkind.  On the other hand, of course I am green with envy.  There is nothing that assuages the heartache of wishing I could go back and do it over.  1964 would be a good place to start.  Don't smoke, don't try to be "hip", ignore your mother pushing you to be "with it", and honor your talent.

In other (good) news, I finally heard back from the two places I had contacted about putting on a concert.  One is someplace I have sung before.  So I need to get back in my high dramatic mezzo groove.  My teacher will be singing with me and we will probably sing the Anna Bolena duet.  First up is the little mini concert in May where I will be singing the "Drinking Song" from Lucretia Borgia. 

And on a totally unrelated topic, I may be a media spokesperson for events to do with the 50th anniversary of Stonewall. 

A Sad Shock, and Life Goes On

I just got a terrible, sad shock this past week.  A friend (actually my partner's college roommate, who has known her since practically the year I was born - 1950) just found out that she has stomach cancer with only a few months to live.  Everyone was just blindsided by this.  I have had friends die of cancer (and I have friends who have survived cancer) but usually even the ones who eventually died had at least a year or more between diagnosis and death.  This was especially shocking because this friend was very healthy for her age (84) and had only been in the hospital once in her life (other than to have children): to have a hip replacement a few years ago.  And I am sure she went to doctors regularly.  I am sad for everyone.  For her, because she was such a vibrant, busy, productive person, and for her adult daughters, who are only forty-six and forty-nine, respectively, and for her three grandchildren, who are 13, 8, and 5.  I was thinking that they are the "grandparentless" generation because they are the first generation I know whose mothers and grandmothers did not give birth until their late 30s or early 40s.  My mother was 35 when I was born but her mother was only about 20 or 21 when she was born so I had grandparents until I was 28 or 31 (my grandmother died when I was 28 and my grandfather died when I was 31).

I have no idea if my friend wants social contact or not.  I am assuming that she does not want phone calls.  I find phone calls to be a nuisance generally because the person calling has no idea if it is a convenient time or not.  She sent me an email with the news, I wrote back, trying to be as supportive as I could, and she wrote me a thank you.  She hadn't wanted me to tell my partner (who has dementia) but I felt that I had to otherwise she would wonder why this friend hadn't called.  I also called another friend and told her.  I think I will write again to Abbie (my friend with cancer - not her real name) next week and just say I am thinking of her and that my partner sends her love.  If she responds fine, if not not.  I also thought I might send her an Easter card.  My partner is well enough to sign it (she doesn't sign any official documents any more; I sign all those) and we always used to visit Abbie on Easter Sunday in the early 90s when she lived on Long Island.  We would paint Easter eggs and she would make a big lunch.  I think her younger daughter was still living at home.

I am also sad for selfish reasons.  I had always assumed that Abbie would outlive my partner and that she could be helpful (even though about 5 years ago she moved across the continent) and supportive in some way.  Abbie was the last person about whom I felt that in a dire emergency, I could call on at any hour of the day or night.  There is no one left now.  Possibly my friend in Massachusetts although she has not been well (she is younger than I am).

As far as singing news is concerned (it hardly seems to matter now) I was asked to sing the Schubert "Ave Maria" at the funeral of the mother of one of the men from the church.  I was very flattered that he asked me.  Being asked to sing is such an "up" for me. Singing because I've asked and been given is not as sweet as having been asked.

On Good Friday I am singing the alto solo line in the quartet in two selections from the Beethoven Missa Solemnis. I still don't know if I'm singing on Maundy Thursday, but I have something ready so it can wait until the last minute.  If not I will probably sing on Trinity Sunday and in the summer.  And I have a little mini concert with my teacher in mid-May.  I am still working at following up with the two major venues that I hope to be able to sing in in the Fall.

Lastly, because I mentioned it in my last post, I got the biopsy results back about my partner's face, and what is there is not a squamous cell carcinoma.  They called it an actinic keratosis and she is going to get it frozen off on the 30th.