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.

A (Self-Absorbed) Anniversary and Reflections Two Years On

A Facebook post I saw this morning reminded me that June 12 was the two year anniversary of the shooting in the Pulse nightclub in Orlando.  One of many.  They are all sad, or horrific.

Which means it is also the two year anniversary of my being summariliy and cruelly dumped by a lifelong friend, whom I will call "LC".  I have written extensively about this here, and here, and here, in the immediate aftermath, but now I have had quite some time to reflect.

This "dumping" (my therapist told me that her email to me saying "this is my last note; do not respond in any way" was like the childish dismissive texts that millennials send when they're breaking up with a lover of a few months) was probably just about the cruelest thing that anyone I considered a "friend" has ever done to me.  I have had friendships peter out, sometimes because that was what the other person wanted; sometimes because that was what I wanted.  I have had quarrels with people (I had one with LC in 2004 or 2005 which ended with my dropping an F bomb on her). But I have never been dumped with no explanation by someone because she thought something I had said (or in this case not said), which was not personal, offended her values. Yes, values can end a friendship, but that's more in the vein of "I can't be friends with Trump voters".  Which leaves the door open that maybe, 10 years from now, when Trump is out of office, if the two people see each other again, they might pick up the friendship.

What I considered so ugly about this whole thing was that LC encouraged me to probe deeply into my psyche (it was a two-way street), asking me questions, asking me more questions, until, apparently, I said something that deeply offended her. 

Bait and switch.  I first heard that phrase from LC, as a matter of fact, several decades ago, when she used it to describe an unfortunate experience buying a car, or a washing machine, I don't remember.  I had never heard it before, but then again, as a lifelong New York apartment dweller, I don't do that kind of shopping.  But I realize now that that is the most apt definition of what LC did to me. She encouraged me to be a virtual member of her "covenant group", which used "word prompts" to "speak their truth".  I have been in groups like that in the past, in person, and one of the ground rules is that people speak their truth and they are not judged.  So LC seduced me into that activity and then broke that rule.  The word prompt for that month had been "blessings".  So I began talking about "counting your blessings." Which prompted her to ask me what I meant when I said that. So I said that I needed to remember things like the fact that I had clean drinking water, a safe place to live, healthy food, and healthcare, because in the context in which I live I consider myself "underprivileged". 

As I wrote in yesterday's post, it apparently offended her that I referred to myself as "underprivileged".  But that was my truth, which was what this word game (I am deliberately disparaging it because she so grossly and evilly misused it) was about. Then - I guess - my asking her advice about something I considered a snub (something we had each done with each other many times) the day after the shooting in Orlando was probably, for her, the last straw.

Bait and switch. She not only broke the rules of this "covenant" she was so gung-ho about, she also abruptly changed the rules in the middle of our daily correspondence, without telling me, and then made it a deal-breaker.  Not a temporary source of irritation as in "we're really not on the same page right now; I just can't listen to some of what you're writing to me about; let's take a break and catch up in the Fall", but never.  Don't respond in any way. 

Then she (obviously resentfully) sent me the promised (artificial) flowers for my birthday, then I apologized, saying if I had offended her I was sorry, then she said she was just going to say goodbye because she wanted to be kind (kind??? what planet is she living on?) and hoped we could part "on good terms". Really? Good terms?? (I suppose she meant her terms.)

Then she sent me a thank you note for a picture I had sent her daughter for a memory book and I wrote her the nastiest (but most carefully crafted, with nothing untrue or hyperbolic) letter in all caps, not an email, with no salutation and signature, asking her never to communicate with me again.

But I am still angry.  What dawned on me over a year later is that I am so angry because she deprived me of a confidante like no other.  So it was like coming home and finding all my furniture on the street with the door locked and no warning.  I can't tell you how many times I will start musing (about Myers-Briggs, about people, about politics) and say to myself "Gee I should tell LC that" and then WHOA.

She did me a lot of damage.  I guess my takeaway is that relationships based solely on what is politely referred to in therapy circles as "co-ruminating" are destined to end badly.  Sure, I still share confidences with friends, but they are usually about things that are concrete (problems with my partner, feeling isolated, artistic yearnings that are unfulfilled, quarrels with other friends) and more importantly, this is not the bulk of our interaction.  We usually share interests, eat together, even go on outings.  So there's some substance there.  And if friends live in the same city (someplace I never leave) even if there's tension, and a quiet backing away, we never know when we'll see each other in person and move closer again.

I hope writing this will help me evict LC from my head.  She doesn't deserve to rent space there.

So Why Are So Many of My Former Friends Famous?

Yes, this is just a typical Thursday morning whine, triggered by the random googlings of a bored copyeditor.

In what appears to be my most-read post, I discovered several years ago that a drugged out anorexic bar hopping roommate that I had in 1969 became someone famous (although still drugged out and anorexic).  Who knew? By the time she became famous I was sober and long gone from that scene.

Well!  The other day, I googled two different roommates from the same era (c. 1970), and found that both of them are or were famous enough to have their own Wikipedia pages, one (who died several years ago) for things that were unsurprising (although the level of her fame was quite surprising), the other for holding public office.

And it was only a month or so ago that I saw that a woman with whom I used to socialize as part of a group on holidays (before my friends' great migration to either the afterlife or warmer climes), had not just an editorial obituary in the TIMES, but a front page obituary.

For a long time, I blew off the fame and fortune of young women I grew up with, from the family physician who became a regular TIMES columnist to the female choral conductor who became one of the first female symphony orchestra conductors in the country, to a famous essayist and a famous novelist. I don't recall being particularly envious, mostly because these women were not happy.  (I don't know about the novelist; I didn't know her very well when I was growing up, but neither the physician nor the conductor ever found a life partner despite numerous failed efforts, and both they and their mothers did a lot of complaining about this. And the essayist's writing style is a melange of sarcasm, bitterness, and wit, although I have no idea if this reflects her actual feelings, or is simply her writer's "voice".)

In any event, whether I sometimes fleetingly envied these women or not, I could rationalize that they became famous because they had worked hard: going to medical school, graduate schools, yes, studying and focusing on personal development instead of on dating and romance.  So I had made a different choice.

But the three women I began this post by referencing were not that different from me.  They had all dropped out (although the politician obviously at some point "dropped back in" with a vengeance; she has both an MD and a JD degree).  So how did their involvement in various subcultures and counter-cultures lead to their making a "name" for themselves and mine did not?

And I did an informal study once (why not? I edit manuscripts full of data) and found that approximately 50% of the people I have met in the years since I stopped working full time (at church, in my Pilates class, at women's circles) either went to prestigious colleges, have graduate degrees, or have degrees (or careers) directly or indirectly connected to the performing arts.

So where are the rest of us?

One tiny ray of hope is that I will have a "legacy project".  Right now the project is for my partner.  The senior agency we got involved with offers this option to their clients.  So I will have videos of her talking.  I desperately wanted those because I had photographs, but no audios, other than voicemail messages, which are quite ephemeral.  And bits and pieces from my recital will be interspersed.  And it will all be on the organization's web site.  And if she dies, I can become a client of that organization too.  I don't need "services" but I would sure love to participate in some group activities and have a legacy project of my own.  And if I participate in group activities there, who knows? I might actually meet some retired paper pushers who went to a city or a community college!

On Friendship

This blog is mostly about singing,  but I have written posts about ageism, sexism, gay marriage, Trump voters, and most likely a few other topics for discussion.

I want to write about friendship because it seems to be something I am not good at (or maybe I am choosing the wrong people).

For most of my life with my partner as a couple, even though I was the "femme" from a sexual and sartorial standpoint, I suppose I was the "man" in that for most of our life together, I had the job and she had the friends.  Her friends became my friends.  This is not to say that I had no social life apart from her.  I seemed to have a talent for finding companies where there was a large social and collegial component, so I had lots of "buddies".  And up until I took my last, gruelling management job, I always was involved with some evening group activity where I met people.

But nothing ever really stuck.  Once I left a setting, I only saw the people intermittently, at the odd annual group get together (or - recently - at a funeral).

I have said numerous times that since about 2007, most of my and my partner's mutual friends, people who became my friends as well as hers, have all either died, moved, or are always traveling.  I have found it very hard to make new friends although it has been at the top of my list of "projects" after earning a living, taking care of my partner, and singing.

I believe I have mentioned a friend whom I have described as "rich and stingy".  Well, sadly, I now have to add "querulous and disagreeable".  The only reason I still see her is that she feels some responsibility toward my partner and sometimes brings her supplies from a big box store (which, needless to say, I pay her for out of my partner's bank account).  She has complained about how "depressing" it is to see my partner and how sad it makes her  and is unable to see that this situation is not about her, it's about my partner.  Yesterday she came for a visit (I thought we would be watching tennis) and went into a rant about how although she attends a synagogue she doesn't "believe all that" and just goes for the social interaction.  I suppose many people do that, although they would not word it so harshly.  I am not Christian, but I continue to attend Lutheran services, not just to sing, but also to be in an environment where people are invested in being kind and supportive of each other (and toward the world at large).  To me that is different from "social".  What keeps me there isn't that I might be able to have dinner with people (I don't - I occasionally have lunch with people usually on the premises), but that people genuinely seem to care about each other and some even offer to help their fellow parishioners in their hour of need.

This friend and I were talking about fasting on Yom Kippur (which we both agreed is physically unhealthy) so I asked her if she did anything "symbolic" (if it were me I would probably spend the day drinking water, tea, and the odd bottle of Ensure) and she said no.  What struck me wasn't so much that she said no, but how hard and cynical she sounded.  Then we went on to other topics, including my distress at the lack of "community" in apartment buildings and neighborhoods, particularly where my partner is living.  It has now become a moot point as far as she is concerned, because she has 24/7 home care, but it offends me in principle.  I mean when there's a snowstorm, for example, anyone with a tv can hear whoever the current mayor is telling people to "check in on their elderly neighbors".  You don't even have to think to do it on your own.  So when I mentioned this she launched into a vitriolic rant about how the building isn't a senior residence, etc. and basically said that if I'm bothered by these things it's my problem.  Hello??? If I am offended by a general societal lack of character that's my problem??

It is really coming to dawn on me that this is someone not only who is stingy with money (she spends thousands upon thousands on luxury cruises but thinks she's being generous if she buys someone a danish), but is stingy in her soul.  I don't know if she has ever read Ayn Rand, but she seems to think everyone should just look out for themselves, and that this is OK, and that that's what she is going to do.  I was truly appalled.  When I got home I felt like I had been in some alternative universe with values that were so alien to me I didn't even know where I was.

What's ironic is that this woman in some ways has had many of the same losses that I have had; it's just that she can distract herself with pots of money (which come from her family; there isn't even the saving grace that she worked hard to earn it).  Most of her friends have either died or moved as well, including someone who just died recently.  Maybe I should have offered her condolences?

Trovatore Take 2, and Other Things

Today was the second (and final) Trovatore rehearsal.  We started from the top and included the narration.  I didn't feel that I sang as well as last time (although I was much more secure with rhythms, tempi, etc.) but that may have been because I was being more self critical. Mostly I wasn't happy with the last B flat at the end - it went straight - although my teacher said it was good, just not as good as I can sing at my best.

I will do a small amount of practicing tomorrow, then have a lesson Thursday (I am not going to choir practice) and then mostly rest.

My partner is not well.  Whatever she has is nonspecific, which is the problem.  It is not a worsening of her core illnesses, COPD and a-fib.  It is an overwhelming fatigue combined with her existence in a state that is always sort of halfway between being asleep and being awake.

A nurse is coming tomorrow to evaluate her.  I will do what I can but I really need Sunday and Monday to be blackout dates with no stress.  Whatever she has is not life threatening.  The best thing in the world would be if she could be in a rehab for several weeks where she was fed and exercised.  She does not do these things on her own.  She is also now constantly guilt tripping me about not being there.  Yes, if I seriously think about it the most important thing in my life is to cherish her for as long as possible, but if I don't throw my all into singing now, the window of opportunity will be past.

After the Trovatore performance I suppose I should have a moratorium on planning anything big (other than looking for an Advent/Christmas/Epiphany choir solo) until whatever is going on with her is sorted.

And on top of all this, I got a letter from LC.  Several months ago, I deleted a post in which I said I hated her because hate was too strong a word.  No, I do hate her.  I rarely hate people.  There were periods when I hated my mother, but really that has been it, certainly as an adult.  She wrote to thank me for a page I had made for a memory book for her 80th birthday before she slammed the door on me (and no, she does not have dementia, that is not what is driving any of this) saying in a  very high-handed way that as most of our 66 years of interaction have been good, she was going to keep it.  After hand writing (with my hands shaking) three really cruel letters to her and then tearing them up, I sat down and typed something measured and reasonable, but still filled with rage.  And I asked her not to write to me again.  Her initial smarmy "last note" email said she would "appreciate it if I did not respond in any way", but apparently she thinks that it's OK for her to write when she feels like it, which is just not on and needs to be stopped.  I had even given her an out several months ago by thanking her for the birthday flowers and offering to apologize if I had said anything offensive but she just repeated her statement that the correspondence "was not working for her" and wanted to leave it at that so that she didn't say something hurtful.  But then she thought it was OK to write again. My therapist said that the two emails she wrote sounded like childish passive aggressive breakup texts of the kind that millennials send.

I really can't think of anything I could have said that would have been so offensive for her to enjoin me not to communicate with her.  One thing I said in my letter was that she does not have the moral high ground, that dumping a friendship in the trash is much more morally reprehensible than talking about your personal problems when there's been a mass shooting somewhere.

Was I also responsible for the hideous end of this friendship?  I suppose in a way.  I thought she was the kind of friend (do these exist?) whom I could speak to (or write to) about anything I was thinking or feeling unless it was personally offensive.  It was her idea to have this type of correspondence - where we delved deeply into things.  I suppose that's always a minefield.  Next time if someone wants that kind of interaction I will be wary.  Or I just won't share things.  I will save those for a therapist or for these pages.  I suppose I hate her because I feel betrayed.  She got me to open up and then hung me out to dry.  I hope she sits with that letter I wrote and has a serious think about who was the really selfish one in this interaction.  And (LOL!) a masterful touch - I had bought a book of stamps called "pets".  I was quite startled to see that one of them was a snake.  So I used that stamp on the letter to LC.  Perfect!  Her behavior to me was just like a rattlesnake attacking me by surprise from under a rock.

Oh, and one last thing about Trovatore.  I realized that October is the perfect month for it, because with all the witches and curses and ghosts, it's a great Hallowe'en piece.

Lost and Found, and More Musings on Friendship

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.

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.

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".

A Real Birthday

Well, what a difference from last year!

A friend of my mother's took us out to lunch (how different he is from, um, "clueless"; he inherited some money and said he feels he should use it to treat friends) and we had a lovely time.

And on the way home my partner bought me a big bouquet of red roses.  That was in addition to the dress she bought, which I wore, and which she liked seeing me in.

And the two women whose birthday cards came back to them in the mail last year each sent me one, and one also sent a check, which she said could be for me and my partner to have a nice meal out.

LC, the woman who said she never wanted me to contact her again, sent me a bouquet of artificial flowers.  I was totally surprised.  She had said (when we were still speaking) that she was going to send me a bouquet for my birthday, but I had assumed she had become so "allergic" to me that she had totally cut me off.  The flowers are beautiful.  I don't care that they are not real.  The note that came with them was telling, though.  It began "BabyD" and ended "LC".  No "dear" preceding my name and no "love" preceding hers.  But I am  happy she sent them.  I don't care why she did.  In fact, one of the "discussions" she and I had once was about whether it's a positive or a negative if someone does something because they think they "should".  She thought it was a negative (we were talking about office birthday lunches, and coworkers getting together and sending sympathy cards).  I said it was a positive.  Even going to the trouble of doing something you think you "should" is considerate.  Far too few people these days even do that.

In any event, I wrote back to LC saying that I had no idea what I had said or done that was so egregious that she enjoined me from communicating with her, but that whatever it was, I'm sorry.  I mean I'm not sorry if she doesn't want me communicating with her because I am more concerned with my own problems than with national tragedies.  There's nothing I can do about the big national tragedies, so what I do or don't feel versus what she does or doesn't feel is not relevant.

I did delete the blog post in which I said I hated her.  I don't really.  Hate is a strong word.  I just think she's a hypocrite and very selfish.  Also her level of lability (not in the sense of pathological mood lability but in the sense of being passionate about something one minute and wanting it out of your life the next) is not the behavior of a rational adult that I should have been trusting with personal confidences.

And "clueless" sent me a birthday card.  I thanked her for it.  I still think someone as rich as she is could make a better showing, but that's why I don't care if she's in my life or not.  I refrained from saying anything angry to her; I simply said that I was putting on a recital to celebrate my birthday because I was heartbroken that I had no celebration on a milestone birthday when so many people are given the party, the trip, or the present of a lifetime, so I was putting on a recital.  I told her I had been planning it for a year (true).

Now for the most important news: I did a little practicing and it basically went well.  The Handel is still difficult, and after singing it in church (either once or twice) next month I will probably retire it.

It looks like a friend will make a video with her iPad and upload it to Youtube to post on Facebook.

That's really all I want for my birthday.  Something to kvell over.

An Open Letter to LC: How Did We End Up No Better Than Our Mothers?

LC (the person - I hesitate now to call her a "friend" - who never wants to hear from me again) and I go way back, as do our mothers.

Here's the short version.  Our mothers met at a job and became friends.  About 20 years later, when LC was married and a mother, and I was a teenager, LC's mother decided to live in Greece.  It was during the time that there was a Fascist government there.  My mother (always politically conscious) considered it morally outrageous that LC's mother spoke about Greece never acknowledging the political situation there.  My mother called LC's mother "ridiculous" (I don't know the specifics, but know that that word was used).  LC's mother stopped speaking to my mother.

About 40 years later, after LC's having had friendships (they were quite separate) with me and my mother, which consisted of our seeing each other once a year in Maine (where LC lived) and talking a blue streak because we had so much in common (again, my seeing LC took place at a different time from my mother's seeing her), LC and I had a falling out over my talking to her on the phone endlessly (she has a degree in counseling so she is exactly the sort of person with whom one wants to talk endlessly about one's problems) about my crush on the Mentor, my general randiness, his abuse of me, and my feeling trapped. After the fifth (or the tenth) go around about this, she told me I would feel better if I went and did volunteer work.  To me at the time, that sounded rather puritanical, sort of like telling someone to take a cold shower.  So I said "F.U." to her, something I think I have said fewer than five times in my life, probably.  I just was at my wits end.  She wrote to me and said she couldn't "deal with me" any more, or some such thing.  I suppose that was understandable.  I had crossed some kind of line.

A few years later, she stopped speaking to my mother, for a totally different reason.  She had adopted a dog with whom she claimed to be madly in love (sending endless postcards with photos), but when the dog peed on the floor once too often, she gave it back to the shelter, probably to certain euthanasia.  My mother was horrified and told her that she needed to "do penance".  She probably meant it as a joke, and in fact she isn't even a dog person, but nonetheless would have found it morally objectionable to value clean floors over a life, even a dog's.  LC could have at least waited until she could find a home for the dog - someplace where people were less squeamish.

My mother never heard from her again, but I did.  Shortly after my mother died she apparently had seen this on Google and sent me a handwritten condolence letter.  Since she didn't have email, we were only in touch rarely by phone, but once she got email we began writing to each other daily.  We were both housebound more or less (she for health reasons and I because my employment is from a laptop in my apartment).

Ever the counselor, she is, yes, the sort of person to whom one is prompted to pour out one's heart, and often what's there is not pretty.  Or it's not grateful or it's not optimistic or it's selfish or it's petty.

But that she would shut me up (my mother in fact once told me that "hanging up" - or doing what LC did by enjoining me not to communicate with her - is, basically saying "F.U." to someone) is beyond comprehension.  So I am kicking and screaming and yelling with rage, hurt, and confusion.

If she had even written to me and said "I simply can't continue our correspondence because the fact that you [_______________] is so objectionable to me that I have to say goodbye" I would have understood it.  I still can't believe that my asking  her advice about something personal when a tragedy had happened a half a continent away was so egregious that she never wants to hear from me again. Taking a timeout, yes, I could see that. Or saying "Let's back off some of these intense topics for a while". (Of course the irony is that she once said that she didn't like casual friendships where people "kept it light".  I say "irony" because "keeping it light" is one of the best ways to avoid quarrels.)  But to throw me away like a Kleenex?  That's what it feels like.

Do I "miss" her?  Sort of but not really.  I desperately need friends, but to me that means people who are here who are available to do things, celebrate my birthday and I theirs, be available to help with something occasionally and vice versa.  LC was simply a kind of epistolary therapist, although she asked me for my advice as often as I asked her for hers.  It's more that I am hurt and angry that our friendship, whatever it was, meant so little to her.  We were just in the middle of a nice "conversation" about a novel by Barbara Pym.

Everyone can be annoying, if you get to know them.  People have opinions you disagree with, preoccupations you think are trivial, bad moods.  Is it really worth throwing the baby out with the bath water?  Was my perceived petty self-absorption on the wrong day so beyond the pale that it was worth shutting the door on our talks about books and politics, or our shared memories going back 65 years?

I think what bothers me the most is the hypocrisy of it all.  This is someone who sees herself as saintly (despite being a militant atheist).  She thinks you should never be angry at anyone unless they did or said something to be deliberately unkind.  She also said her nickname is "LC let's talk about it" because she is willing to try to talk through any conflict.  So what happened to that person?  Or did she never exist to begin with?

A Slap in the Face? No. A Slammed Door!

When I got home last night after having had a lovely day celebrating my partner's birthday and having our final choir rehearsal of the season, I checked my email to find that this friend whom I had spoken of in my last post had written to tell me basically that she never wanted to hear from me again.  I was speechless.  I have no idea what I could have said or done to prompt that.

For whatever reason, I could sense that she found it inappropriate that I was continuing to ask her for advice about personal problems (like the videos) in the wake of the tragedy in Orlando, but I wouldn't have considered that grounds for ending a friendship.  As I said, she has done this before, although last time I had sworn at her out of frustration, so the reason was obvious.  She has also stopped speaking to other people.  It was the finality of it that stunned me.  I could see her saying that she thought our correspondence had gotten a bit tense, and that maybe we should take a break, unless we had some important news to convey (people do this all the time either explicitly or implicitly) but to slam a door in my face?

Five hours earlier she had called my partner to wish her a happy birthday and sounded very cheerful, and I had written to thank her.

The only other thing I can think of is that she read something I posted on Facebook (she doesn't use Facebook but her daughter does) saying that I didn't think that "thinking" about a tragedy instead of about one's personal problems made one morally superior.  Which many people agreed with.  Or she may have read the last post I made here.

But the point is that I don't see any "hanging offenses" anywhere.  I did not say anything personally hurtful.

So many things now are up in the air, if not literally, then emotionally.  It was her idea for me to have this birthday concert, so I chose a Barbra Streisand song that she likes (not something I would have chosen otherwise although I am surprisingly impressed by the musicianship it displays).  So how can I share my joy at that with her now.  (Whether or not she sends me flowers or even a greeting is neither here nor there.)

Is she including my partner in all this?

I had said (maybe to her) that over the past 7 or 8 years I have had so many losses that it was like one day waking up and realizing that there was no furniture in my apartment.  I think that was why I was so upset about not getting anything for my last birthday. Not that I'm greedy and selfish but because it made the emptiness so manifest.  So she of all people should know that I can't afford another loss, certainly for no reason.

If there were something I should apologize for, I would certainly be open to some soul searching, but obviously she doesn't want to tell me and I am not going to ask her.

As I said in my previous post, I am not apologizing for being preoccupied with personal problems just because a tragedy happened miles away, and I certainly am not apologizing for posting thoughts and feelings on Facebook, here, or elsewhere.  Writing is one of the only outlets I have, since I don't have close friends.  I would never post anything confidential about someone, but that's about it.

OK, So What Exactly *Is* Selfish?

I consider myself an intelligent person, with a certain amount of insight, but one issue that has had me stumped for a long time is: at what point does "self-actualization" become "selfishness"?

This post has been prompted by my feeling "chewed out" (in a very subtle way) by a friend because, in the wake of the tragedy in Orlando, I am still talking about, and asking for advice about, situations in my own life.  Is that selfish?  I don't see it as such.  There isn't much I can do about what happened in Orlando other than try to get elected officials to pass gun control legislation which obviously they won't do.  I rarely feel sad about anything that happens that far away.  Is that a character flaw?  And once a tragedy is of such mammoth proportions that it attracts celebrity fundraisers, I feel (incorrecly?) that any small amount of money I can afford to donate somewhere is better given to the church food pantry, where I know that every dollar will go to buy food.

And yes, life goes on.  It wouldn't if my partner had a crisis (I would have to push the  "stop" button), or even if there were a crisis in my building, or on the street outside my building, or at the church where I sing, or on a subway car where I was sitting, but I can't stop thinking and planning and asking questions about what's going on in my life because there was a mass tragedy somewhere.

The immediate trigger for this was my anger over some videos that I am sure someone (a woman who produced concerts that I sang in, and who now has gone "off" me for some inexplicable reason) deleted deliberately from her Youtube channel.  It turns out there is nothing I can do about it because they are not my property (she paid a videographer to make them) and she said she did not delete them on purpose, but it's only her word against mine.  I mean I'm sure they still exist somewhere, but knowing her,  Hell will freeze over before she makes an effort to get them to me.  What she did instead was tell me that next time I should save videos to my hard drive (which I will do, however complicated it seems to this senior citizen) and that has to be the end of it.  In any event, before I had all the details, I asked this friend's opinion about how to handle the situation and her response was "I don't have any thoughts on this, sorry.  All my thoughts are about Orlando."  So is this a slap in the face or what?  This is a very old friend, with whom I had an ugly quarrel about something very similar about a decade ago, and we have only slowly resumed a friendship since she now has email.  The previous quarrel entailed my cursing at her (I think I said "F.U." , something I have probably said about four times in my life, the other being to my partner when I was furious) because when I told her how upset I was over my unrequited love/lust/limerence for The Mentor she  told me I would feel better if I went and did volunteer work.  I suppose this is a similar kind of thing.  I am a lot more mature and less distraught now than I was then, so I have more resources at my disposal (writing in this blog, which there's a slim chance she may read).

In any event, I don't see why I should apologize for continuing to be concerned with my own life.  I have a hard life (not as hard as the lives of people struck by tragedy, although usually in this kind of situation people rally round, which they don't if you're simply stuck in a dreary rut that you can't figure out a way out of), so maybe I don't have that much emotional energy to expend too far outside it.  Right now my goals are to make my "third act" as rich and vibrant and spiritually rewarding as possible, while trying to make the end of an (often querulous and disagreeable) 82 year old's life as sweet as possible, all with extremely limited financial resources, no relatives, and almost no social support system.  So I really don't feel the need to apologize.

Ah, Schadenfreude! And Now Let's Move On

Well, Sunday morning I woke up at 3:30 (I was really wired both about the upcoming service and about some plans to do with my birthday concert that didn't work out) and then was only beginning to be able to get back to sleep when the alarm went off at 6.  So OK, I got five hours of sleep, certainly enough.

When I got to church, there were only three (second) sopranos, none with any training and really only one who knows how to stay on a part so of course the section sounded God awful.  The Director of Music was there conducting and he had to work with them separately.  There was one line (no high notes; went up to a D) that was very exposed that they could not sing at all, apparently, so the three higher altos (me and two others) ended up singing it with them.

Do I really care which part I sing on a gorgeous piece of music like that?  No.  Mendelssohn writes lovely alto parts that have a decent range.  The reason I was so angry is that it's all about perception.  I don't like being made to feel like a big oaf trampling on someone's flowers, which is so often how I am made to feel.  If that were counterbalanced by the choir director's occasionally saying something like "thank you babydramatic for holding that note without breathing!" or calling as much attention to something I did well as to something I did (in his opinion) badly that would be fine.

Also IMHO it was a wrong-headed decision to arrange the women the way he did.  If I were in charge of that particular assortment of women (I am being totally objective here) I would have kept me with the sopranos (there is already one alto with training) and told the sopranos not to sing the high A because really no one except a trained lyric soprano (not a trained mezzo with a loud voice and certainly not untrained sopranos) can sing it decently.  I could certainly hold the part together, sing the high Gs (which were all marked forte; they were not "float-y") and the balance would have been better.

Well, now it's on to the next thing, a lengthy piece in Hebrew that sounds a lot like Copeland (and it turns out that Copeland was the composer's mentor, so yes! I am developing a trained ear!).  It has eight parts and the second soprano part is quite easy to stay on (also it is written with only two parts per staff).  Sometimes there are only four parts and the soprano part goes up to a G, but it is definitely something I can sing, including one note that probably is float-y.  I just have to work on it.

As well as working on the music for my birthday concert.  A lot of it is non-classical (although I can sing it with my "legit" voice) so I want to work on style.

And a dear dear friend, the woman who gave me the idea for the birthday concert in the first place, who has very little money and lives mostly on Social Security volunteered to send me a bouquet of flowers for my concert.  She said she had wanted to surprise me but then thought she needed to know which day to send them, so I told her, and thanked her profusely.  Yes, that's what thoughtfulness looks like.

Multipurpose Post: Good but Not Good Enough (About Singing), and Insidious Platitudes (or is "Joblove" the New Skinny?)

First about singing.

Saturday I went to hear my voice teacher, his wife, and three colleagues sing a free concert in a prestigious venue.  They have a new mezzo.  Yes, she sounds better than me (her voice has a big "shimmery halo" around it which mine does not), and yes she's younger (40ish), and she's agile, although I thought some of her acting was over the top.  At my last lesson I asked my teacher how long he thought it would take me to sound good enough to sing with that group in that venue and he hemmed and hawed.  The fact that he picked someone who sings better than I do is something I can't argue with.  What I got angry about was that one of the last women he used as a mezzo was someone who did not sing better than I do but she was someone he had "known for years" and had performed with numerous times.

So there's the age barrier and then there's the social barrier.  I was thinking about the similarities between starting to sing (or really do anything) when you're older, and coming out when you're older.  When I was counseling at the LGBT center, one of the problems older women had who were coming out at the age of 40 or older was that they had a whole life infastructure in place (sometimes involving a husband and children, but at the very least involving friends who had known their "former" self) and now they had to figure out how to re-tool it to make room for their new identity as a Lesbian.  I feel very much that way about my passion for singing.  I wasn't in a college music program, for starters.  That's huge.  So even when I began singing the first time in my mid-20s, I had a totally different social circle from people who were in college music programs.  Most of my friends (and my mother) thought my interest in singing (particularly classical music) was at the very least quaint and irrelevant and at the very worst "not what politically minded 'dykes' did".  And when I began singing again in my 50s it was even harder.  My friends were polite (albeit bemused) by it and my partner was angry at me.  It has taken 10 years to get people on board, that this is what I am doing and will be doing until I can't do it any more, so that is a blessing, but it's still not the same as being immersed in an environment where you know musicians and they know you and that's where your friends come from and that's even where your spouse or your partner comes from.  I don't only have to build a vocal technique, I also have to build a network and most of the existing ones don't want me.

As a last word about singing (before addressing the second topic), we are singing a choral selection from Mendelssohn's St, Paul next Sunday at 9 am.  The soprano part sits very high, which is fine (it is similar to pieces I have sung with the choir recently) but it also has a high A in it that just sort of hangs (you go up to it and don't come back down).  I did a bang-up job with the two high As I sang in choral pieces recently but they were a little different because each was in the middle of a phrase, marked forte, and in the case of the "Hallelujah Chorus" there was brass playing.  So I am going to work on the piece and have as my goal to sing the note correctly (which means full voice) at rehearsal while sitting down (no mean feat) and if the choir director doesn't like it, and there are no first sopranos there, that note just won't happen and no one in the "audience" will know the difference.  If we still had high sopranos in the choir I would be happy to sing the alto part, which is lovely (although the highest note is a C - the ever-present annoying gap between the two women's parts) but with the current cast of characters I can't really jump ship on this particular Sunday.

Now for the second part of this post, which I have named, Insidious Platitudes.

Today a woman whom I am very fond of (and who is quite "sensible" in the best sense of that word) posted what I would call a bit of "twenty-first century guilt-trip fodder" on Facebook.

This type of guilt-trip fodder has now become as common as diet guilt-trip fodder used to be; you know anyone can be thin if you just [eat this, don't eat that, don't deprive yourself, do deprive yourself, just set aside 15 minutes to exercise, wake up at 6 to run, blah, blah, blah].  Now the guilt-trip mantra is if you don't immediately leave a boring job, spouse, neighborhood, or, to quote Neruda "change your life when you are not satisfied" you are a loser.  Whom is this addressing?  A single mom with two low-paying jobs?  An average person whose boring office job keeps them from being homeless, gives them health insurance, and, possibly, some money to retire on?  A family caregiver who has to arrange their work schedule around a loved one?  Or you're a loser if you don't change your routine.  For some people a routine is all they have. Sure, you can tweak the edges a little bit, but sometimes that's the best people can do.

What ever happened to (another platitude) "love what you have"?

Manifest Me a Grounded Groundling

These days I (we) are very blessed by all the help we are getting.  My partner has a regular caseworker whom I also see once a month, and she now has "help" once a week: a cleaner comes on alternate Wednesdays and a home attendant comes on alternate Tuesdays on the opposite weeks.  She only has to pay for one visit by the home attendant.  Also, an agency that helps "the elderly who hoard" is sending an intern to try to shovel the place out, on alternate Wednesdays.  No one has ever succeeded with this in the almost 40 years I've known my partner, but hope springs eternal.  She also now has a "medical navigator", that is, a nursing student who takes her to doctors' appointments if they are not serious enough for her to need me there.

But the most recent blessing is a caregiver group that is just getting started, that meets once a month.  I  had gone to a weekly group at the LGBT senior services center but it was full of unmotivated depressives of both sexes, and bi-phobic "angry dykes" whom I am just so done with.  I felt like the mentally healthiest person in the room (with one exception), which led me to conclude that I was in the wrong place.  This new group is a mixed group, and the woman who runs it is a former opera singer, who was married to a famous opera singer, and is now an interfaith minister.

Yesterday, no one showed up, so it was just me and her.  We talked a lot about singing, first.  She told me about herself (because I had asked) and I told her my singing story, in chronological order, something I really have never done except in these "pages".

I also told her about what had been going on lately, most notably (I have not written about this here) an episode two weeks ago when I thought my partner was dying, because she made no sense when she spoke and kept going to sleep.  I said that this, as a more serious manifestation of the gut-wrenching upset over my non-birthday, underscored that I (we) simply do not have close friends.  Anyone I am close to emotionally doesn't live here any more, or is always somewhere else, and other people are, well, to be blunt, acquaintances. Not the sort of people you'd call in an emergency.   I had called her cardiologist, but he told me to take her to an emergency room, which she refused. So, yes, it would have been so comforting to have a "family member" (don't have those) or equivalent to use as a sounding board, even someone who might come over and make an assessment. Finally I did call a professional home health aide from the church (who did things for my partner prior to her getting all this free help) and asked if she would take a look at my partner. She said she could do it Sunday after church (this was a Friday) so that was where we left things (my partner didn't look like she had had a stroke, and upon closer inspection didn't look like she was dying, so worse come to worse I would sit with her until then, or if she got really bad I could call 911). As it turned out, by the following morning, after having slept for 24 hours, my partner was back to her normal self.  We figured either she had accidentally taken an extra allergy pill (she takes two at night that make her sleepy) or that the new generic the pharmacy had given her didn't agree with her (she is now back on the old generic). But again, this just underscored my need for close friends, and I haven't a clue where to find them.  (I meet tons of people all the time, but as I have stressed, they are always busybusybusybusybusy either with family, work, or their endless time in the air galivanting hither and yon.)

When I mentioned this to the minister/counselor, she said "why don't you pray for a friend to manifest?"  Then she added "be sure it's not someone needy who wants you to take care of her!"  I wouldn't have thought of that, but what I did think of is that I need, first and foremost, someone who has time for me, and that's what no one  has.  (I don't mean "me" in the personal sense; these people don't have any time for anyone who is not a family member - some are now awash in four generations of these - or someone to "network" with.)  So, we see each other when we see each other and exchange pleasantries, and even some sympathy where it's needed - and I get a lot of the latter on Facebook - but then everyone scurries home, or to another job, or a concert, or a meeting.

So I think the friend whom I want to manifest is a "grounded groundling".  Not a loser (I have met quite a few of these at various groups), but someone who is looking to fill their life, rather than pare it down.  Another groundling.  Someone who doesn't have children or grandchildren, or money to travel (except maybe once a year for a vacation).  Someone who is here.  Who will be here tomorrow, here next week, here for lunch, here if I call and need help because well, they don't have anything all that important to do most of the time, certainly not after work hours.  I think this health aide fits the bill. Of course if she takes care of my partner I will pay her (I have my partner's power of attorney so I can do that with her money, whether she "wants" the help or not.)  But she said that I can call her any time.

The Eye of the Needle Part 2

In my last post I quoted this Bible verse:

"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” (Mark 10:25)

This post could be subtitled, "And yet some can."

In an addendum to my last post I mentioned a friend of mine and my SO's who has terminal cancer.

My heart is very heavy.  She isn't really my friend (as she herself once said!) but is a friend of my partner's.  But I am feeling her loss so keenly because she was one of those rare people who brought joy to everyone she met.  Running counter to type, and oh, so antithetical to the woman I described in my previous post and called "Clueless", L. (my friend who is dying), felt it was her moral obligation to use her large unearned wealth not only to give to charities (she gave money and land) but to treat her less fortunate friends.  No matter where she was (and she spent quite a lot of time out of the country) she always remembered to give my partner a membership to the Museum of Modern Art as a birthday present.  Not only was she ever generous, she also never let my partner's birthday pass unacknowledged.  She renewed this membership every year. If she was going to be gone during my partner's birthday month, she hand-delivered a card with the new MOMA card in it the month before. This membership has brought us countless hours of enrichment and pleasure.

Several times L. gave us a check when we went on vacation.  And if she met people for lunch, she always picked up the check and left a large tip.  No dickering, no bickering.

As I've said, I believe that people with unearned wealth start life with a large moral deficit, and L. more than made up for hers, and then some.

Even as I am writing this, she will be boarding a plane to spend her last months in the MidWest with her sisters.  She had a mutual friend call up my partner to say goodbye.

Even though L. and I were not close friends, I will miss her a lot.  She loved life and brought joy to so many people.

The Eye of the Needle

"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” (Mark 10:25)

This was the subject of last Sunday's sermon and I must say, yes, I believe that.

Like all Americans, I can respect an entrepreneur, but inherited wealth is something else.  In my book, people with inherited wealth owe the universe a lot in order to redeem themselves morally and spiritually.

The first thing I would tell them is that "Charity begins at home, and screw whether or not it's tax deductible" for starters.

The impetus for this post, in the interests of full disclosure, came not from the Bible reading, but from my strong feeling that I should end a friendship (or ease out of it to the extent that I am still in it).

There are three people whom I feel acquitted themselves very poorly on the 65th birthday that I never had, and I will hold their feet to the fire for quite some time.  These are all "friends" sort of, but are they?

One woman is primarily a friend of my partner's.  She says she sent me a birthday card but that it came back because it had the wrong ZIP code.  If that had been the only snafu, I would probably blow it off, as she is primarily my partner's friend.  On the other hand, this woman (at 70) still snivels like a child if a friend forgets to send her a birthday card, so doesn't she know about the Golden Rule?  If a card is important to her, shouldn't it be important to me also, especially on a birthday when many people I know have gotten expensive trips, parties, flowers, and jewelry.  You can read more here.

As I said, I am not going to hold onto a killer resentment over this, but this friend will never get another birthday card from me (or from my partner, because I am the one who buys them).

Another woman actually has been a very very very good friend, although she is bristly, and I never know when she is going to take out after me.  She has done many generous things for me and my partner. Now she has moved across the continent, and I am at a point where I need friends here for a whole variety of reasons.  Rather ironically, she too sent me a birthday card which apparently came back because it didn't have an apartment number on it.  So she wrote to me and told me and asked me what should she do??? Send it again or save it for next year!!  Kidding, right?  If I had screwed up like that (particularly on a special birthday) I would not say boo, but would take my fingers to the Jacquie Lawson web site (she was actually one of the people who introduced me to it) and send a big flashy "happy belated birthday" card.  I mean if I were singing and I made a mistake, I wouldn't stop with egg on my face and ask the audience "oh no, what should I dooooo?"

But these are small matters.  As time passes, I am not going to stay angry with either of these people although I will never acknowledge their birthdays again. (As an aside, the second woman was having some minor surgery so I sent her a get well card from the Jacquie Lawson site, by way of "modeling" good behavior.  She thanked me.  Whether she "got it" is anyone's guess.)  I think my anger at this woman stems mostly from my having confided in her before my birthday telling her  how depressed I was that I had gotten to be 65 and didn't know anyone with the wherewithal or interest to do anything to see that I had a special day, even something small.

But here's the worst.  There is a woman I have known for over 30 years who is independently wealthy.  She was, yes, a friend, and we spent good times together both one on one, with my partner, and with other friends, but, knowing how wealthy she was I was always horrified at how stingy she was. For example she would dicker over a restaurant tip, or count pennies when dividing up a restaurant check, even knowing that the other five people at the table probably had one twentieth the amount of money she had.  Tacky.  After her mother died she became even wealthier and at one point she said she had no idea how to spend all that money on - herself!!  Hello???  Now, true, she gives a lot of money to various charities, but charity begins at home IMHO and it can start with picking up the check in a restaurant if you are having a meal with two people whose incomes put them in the second to the bottom quintile, for example . Or giving someone a theater ticket that you can't use.  I remember her offering me a ticket to a Broadway show, telling me it cost $60.  When I said that was too much, I could see her eyes clicking like a calculator seeing how much she could get for it.  So I bought it from her for $40.  But the point is that IMHO the whole thing was "unseemly" as my  mother would have said.  My mother was relatively poor, but she would never have tried to sell anyone a theater ticket.  If she couldn't use it or exchange it for a "rain check", she would give it to someone, either someone who didn't feel they could afford to go to the theater, or maybe someone well off who had done her a favor that she hadn't yet been able to repay.

So to cut to the chase, this woman did not acknowledge my birthday in any way. She knows when it is and in fact was always one of the people who would come along when we had lunch in a restaurant (and she usually made a scene about the service or about the tip).  She was traveling.  That's what she does now: segue from one  luxury cruise to another.  So OK, I didn't expect her to interrupt her travels to come join me and my partner for lunch but a Jacquie Lawson card (ah, love ya, Jacquie!) wouldn't have gone amiss if she wasn't near a card store.  Or she could have spent what she would have spent on lunch and wired me flowers.

This has come up again because she found a moment between travels (the first she's had since July!!!) to visit my partner. They had lunch.  I didn't even ask if she paid for the lunch because believe me, if she didn't, she is even sleazier than I thought she was.  On the other hand she was very helpful to my partner about various legal and financial matters, so that's something

This morning I got an email from her asking if I could have dinner on Thursday and she said if not then, sometime soon.  I wrote back and said that Thursday was now choir practice night, and I thanked her for being helpful to my partner.

I am not saying here that I am writing her off forever and ever, and at this point I don't want to read her the riot act.  But I'm not up for dinner right now.  Maybe after she squeezes herself through the eye of a needle.

Oh, and that reminds me, I really need to try to catch hold of the woman at the Senior Home where I want to do my birthday concert, so that I can put the date on my calendar.  When I invite people I will tell them it's my birthday and that the only "presents" I want are for them to come, preferably with a cell phone camera to make videos, and that flowers are always appreciated.  What diva doesn't want flowers?

ETA: I need to add a few things here.  First, I just found out that a friend of my partner's, who is primarily a friend of the first woman I mentioned here, has terminal cancer.  Obviously, devastating news like that, and the effect it has on everyone, trumps small concerns such as what I wrote here.  I am taking note, and mean to be grateful for what I have.  Second, Clueless Rich Lady sent a second email to me asking when would be a good time for her, me and my partner to have lunch.  I am just going to let it sit.  I will ask my therapist (seeing her Tuesday) what to do.  The issue is less that I never want to see Clueless again, but that right now I am too angry and worry that if I go to lunch I will just lose it, which is something I don't want to do. Obviously this is not just about this birthday.  It is about my anger in general at rich people who are stingy, and has been building for a while.  And lastly, lest people think I'm just a shallow spoiled princess, my meltdown over this birthday fiasco was one of those watersheds that people have in their lives from time to time.  It was about feeling like Cinderella surrounded by rich, befriended people whose friends and families throw them parties and take them on vacations (material things I care less about); feeling that, I suppose, because of choices I have made and chance, I managed to reach the age of 65 without knowing the sort of people who have either the wherewithal or the interest in making a special day for me (and considering how little money I have and how much time I spend caregiving and how few treats I have other than singing, which is something I provide for myself, I deserve one); and ending up with a loved one who would rather have a tantrum about my cleavage than see me happy.  So it was if nothing else a wakeup call that I need to make changes, and maybe letting my relationship with Clueless chill for awhile can be one of them.

A Ghost from the Past

It's a new year.  This year I didn't make any resolutions....couldn't think of any.  I am of course continuing with my promise to always have a singing project as well as a church solo on the horizon.

And I feel that I grew a lot in 2012 as a result of my involvement with The Artist's Way. It has given me a way out of a life that is too quiet, colorless, and mundane for my taste. So I suppose my New Year's resolution is to "do something colorful and fabulous every day", something that engages with the senses.

It seems also that this is going to be the year of self-esteem.  The first thing I have done, after three years of blogging, is turn on the "moderate all comments" function.  That means no comment will show up here without my seeing it first.

Please note: This is not meant to discourage commenters.  I am eager to have more readers and more commenters!  I will accept most comments with a few exceptions.  I will not tolerate "lectures" that are meant to "shame" me out of one my funks, which I can get into frequently.  Helpful suggestions are welcome, as is advice about vocal issues. And I will not tolerate cruelty. I have begun screening comments because about a year ago I posted some sound clips here, hoping for some honest constructive criticism, by which I mean this sort of thing, from voice teachers, coaches, or experienced singers (who would all know what "flaws" might be the result of the recording process), but what happened instead was I was ripped to shreds (not just told my singing was horrible, but that I probably didn't practice enough!!) by someone with less experience that I had.  As you can see from the referenced blog post, someone I respect very much said that this person meant to do damage (he had read her comments before I deleted them), which I guess is rather sad.  I would have long let this go (I have sent the clips to other people and gotten the sort of combination of compliments and constructive criticism I had been looking for) except that this woman keeps posting comments here, not nasty ones, but she continues to behave like a bratty child trying to get my attention.  I would not even give her the time of day by writing about this, but I want to alert most potential commenters to the fact that they are welcome and that their comments will be read, answered, and appreciated!

Second, something very strange happened yesterday, which has led me to want to devote a blog post to the topic of a ghost from the past.  The strange thing also involved an assault on my self-esteem, which I put a stop to.

Someone I had known in childhood and adolescence, a heterosexual male who had always been a friend, but never anything else (the feeling was mutual), "friended" me on Facebook yesterday.  A lot of what our past friendship had been about was his attraction to a friend - no, a "frenemy" - of mine, a girl named Beth (not her real name) who was a stuckup princess with a heart of ice.  I need to make it quite clear that despite being attracted to women, I was never attracted to Beth, only envious of her. More about Beth in a minute, but first I want to mention that after this man friended me, we exchanged several emails most of which were about his continued obsession with Beth, whom he had found on Facebook. I realized after a few exchanges that this man's only interest in renewing a friendship with me was to talk about Beth, so I "unfriended" him and told him frankly that I didn't want to continue this type of interaction, that I might not have had much self-esteem as a teenager, but I did now, and that as a woman who liked to think she was attractive and interesting in her own right, being used as a shrink to hear about a 40-year-old obsession with another woman was extremely insulting.  I got a brief email back from him saying that he was sorry, so now I can close that door again, thankfully.

I want to take time to mention Beth, though, because probably she was one of the three biggest influences on the "self" that I created over all these decades (the others were my SO, as she was when I met her, and the Mentor).  What they all had in common was that life, for them, was primarily an aesthetic experience.  And they were all snobs about aesthetics.  Beth actually came from "old money" but until I was much older I had no idea her family was rich, or I wasn't sure.  She had very expensive dolls and "party dresses" but often she would show up for class (we both went to an exclusive prep school - my father was a professor and when he was alive there was money for that) without some item that everyone had been told to bring (like a notebook), saying that her mother couldn't afford to buy it.  Later I realized that the family had plenty of money, her mother was just scatterbrained and disorganized.  What I envied about Beth (aside from the fact that she was ectomorphically svelte, had long hair like a storybook princess, and moved gracefully) was that she seemed to care only about things that were beautiful, never about anything that was practical, and that this was encouraged by her mother.  She studied ballet, and she drew, but she did poorly in school and her mother seemed not to care.  She was well versed in the nuances all things fashion and decorating, and seemed to think her purpose in life was to be decorative.  Whether there was a connection between this and her family's money I don't know.  Not necessarily.  I knew other rich girls at the school, and many of them were neither pretty, stylishly dressed, nor charming.

I don't know whether or not Beth liked me.  We spent a lot of time together and had many things in common (an interest in the arts, a love of cats, a total ignorance of sports and popular culture), but being around Beth made me feel fat and coarse, not unlike how Pip felt around Estella in Great Expectations, only sans the romantic attraction.  I suppose Beth was sort of a cross between Estella, raised to break men's hearts, and Gigi raised to be a courtesan, well versed in all things fashion, decorating, and fine dining.

The friendship with Beth continued until I was about 18 or 19, then I made a conscious decision to drop her.  She got married (she never went to college) and I took up with my SO, a butch woman who treated  me like a princess.

But I always knew it was because of Beth that I loved all things Victorian: she personified the entire Dickensian landscape, being both a princess and a waif. And it is because of Beth that I will always choose what is beautiful over what is practical.  And it is probably because of Beth that for good or ill, I have always been totally indifferent to what I did for a living.

My SO had many of the same qualities.  She was always poor, but she loved beauty. She would eat canned soup and buy an expensive item of clothing at a thrift shop.  Or something pretty for the house.

And of course then there was the Mentor, with his orange walls and open vials of patchouli, unmade beds with brightly colored sheets, vintage china in a kitchen where the dishes hadn't been washed for a week.

Well, there you have it.  This post is a strange one to begin a new year with, but maybe not.

There is a lot of "Beth" in the life I've learned to live from The Artist's Way.

P.S. I snuck a look at Beth's Facebook photo and she certainly is no longer pretty.  Here's my latest self-portrait.  Eat your heart out.