The End of a Decade

I know I owe readers a post (I still seem to have readers, although I have had no new comments for over a year) but I haven't felt much like writing these days.  Oddly, I think it's because whether or not I'm happier, I'm more at peace with myself.

First and most importantly, I have found a singing "home": singing concerts and recitals for seniors at nursing homes and other senior venues. I have given up trying to break into the world of the no-pay opera companies.  I really am too old.  Not from a vocal standpoint, but from the standpoint that not only is my arthritis too limiting for me to run all over a stage (including using stairs and wearing heels), I also don't see myself traveling between the boroughs (or even here in Manhattan) for rehearsals that begin after 7:00 and run as late as 10 pm.  These days I wake up between 6 and 7:30 and can barely keep my eyes open by 9:30.

Also church singing.  I have decided it doesn't matter whether I am or am not Christian.  Church singing is an art form and it's one I am good at.  What's important is conveying a message to an "audience" that is meaningful to them.  A good high church service is a form of liturgical theater.  That is not to say that I am not moved by the spiritual messages (and this church is politically to the far left, so there is a strong social justice message as well).  And I have met a nice group of women my age.  I am not strictly speaking a "member" of the church, but I do give them money.  As I've often said, I feel "too Jewish" to want to be baptised but not "too Jewish" to have a Christmas tree (or to celebrate Christmas in general) or to sing church music.  I mean aside from the "star" soloists, the world is full of non-Christians who sing in the sort of big choruses that put on requiems and masses.

As for how church music measures up compared with opera, it requires the same kind of vocal technique but is not as strenuous (the range is more truncated, for one thing) and if you sing in a church you're basically singing one aria or song and the services are in the morning which is a better chronobiological "fit" for me these days.

Right now the most important thing to me is making the end of my partner's life as sweet as possible.  All the pieces are in place (Medicaid, hospice) so I just have to stay with her on this journey.  I would like to think she will live longer than two months, but I don't know if she will see another Thanksgiving or Christmas.

I am still "orphaned" and can't seem to break through that form of isolation.  I have made a lot of new friends, but I am not a priority with them.  By the time people are my age they have accumulated a multigenerational family that branches all over the globe, so it seems.  My orphan state is the result of 100 years of choices by my forebears.

My father was the only child of an actress who divorced her husband almost immediately after he was born.
My mother had one sister whom she fell out with.
Her sister had one son who isn't interested in "connecting" with me (I made numerous attempts).
His wife is not a "social" being (she is an academic who writes books).
They have one son (he is probably in college by now).
I am an only child.
I have no children.


So I am no one's "obligation".  Last year at this time when I was asked what I wanted that I didn't have, interestingly, I didn't mention singing.  I said "A birthday celebration that I don't have to plan or pay for" and "someone whose name I can put down on a form as an emergency contact".  And both those things are related.  I still don't have either. For many people it's a sibling, an adult child, or an adult niece or nephew.  They may not be close, but there is duty.

I was told I could have my partner's funeral at the church.  If I plan some music, people will come.  I don't know what will happen to me when I die.  Will I really be in a situation where there is no one left but a lawyer?

Some Moments of Happiness, and an Angry Rant with Noplace to Go

First, I need to say that my mini-concert at the new senior facility went well.  I nailed the two high As in "The Drinking Song" and everything else went well.  The people seemed to really enjoy it.  Later in the year I will get in touch with the woman who coordinates these things and see if she wants us to come back.

And I loved the name of the program: Engage Life.  In addition to having concerts, they also have outings for the residents where they take them to museums.  Once again, it was reinforced that I have a "calling" to work with seniors that I hope will extend into my future if I am left behind by my angel.

I am also really really trying to love my "little life" which most of the time I do.

As for the rant, I am writing it down here because I don't know what else to do with it.  I wrote a letter to the Times section "Social Qs" but have no idea if it will be answered let alone printed (I didn't even get an automated response, which I found odd, as I did when I wrote to The Ethicist a few years ago.  They answered, but did not print, my question.)

As I've probably mentioned numerous times before, I live in a NYC apartment building in which half of the tenants (all rent regulated) have lived for 20, 30, or more years.  For the most part we are a cohesive and supportive community and are committed to "speaking with one voice" if we have to communicate with the building management.

Unfortunately, I have a neighbor, someone I detest (he is simply a "type" that I detest) mostly because he treats the communal laundry room as his personal "man cave" and any time I go down there to do laundry he is blasting loud music.  I have no idea what it is; once he told me what he was playing was the "Velvet Underground".  There are several issues here.  First, I dislike most of the music he plays.  Second, in this era of technology, he should be using ear buds.  (I suggested this to him but he said he doesn't like them because he wants to be aware of his surroundings! He's kidding, right? He couldn't even hear if someone said "hello".)  Third, no one should be playing music in a public place.  Fourth, no one should be playing music that loud if they don't want to end up deaf.  But fifth and most importantly I see the whole thing as a form of male aggression.

Any time I come down there if he has music on, he does turn it off, saying "I didn't know you were coming down here."  To me that's not enough.  That is making it about me.  That I'm "too sensitive" so he will be "nice".  The typical male/female trope of men taking space (auditory included) and then accommodating to women who don't like it rather than just not doing it in the first place!! 

I am at my wits end about this.  Actually, when the new building manager took over, they circulated a list of do's and dont's (unfortunately they attached it to people's leases, which is illegal) that covered a wide range of topics including (this is legal if posted in a lobby) that people were not allowed to play music in public places.  I mentioned it to my neighbor, who claims he never saw it, which might be true.  I was going to email it to him but decided against it because it also referred to  people not making noise in their apartments.  That's a rats' nest I don't want to stir up.  I have never gotten complaints about my singing, even the ten minutes I spend warming up at 7:45 before leaving to sing in the 9 am service once a month.  And in fairness, I have never complained about noise coming from anyone else's apartment,  which I hear occasionally: everything from loud rock music (never past 9 pm and not as loud as it is when I'm actually standing next to it in the laundry room) to a little girl and her father screaming at each other.

I suppose now with the advent of women speaking out, I have come to see the behavior of this neighbor as assaultive.  He's giving the finger to civilized adult society, like a teenager (he's almost 70).  And what I hate equally is he's always trying to "engage" with me in some way.  Once at a tenants' meeting, for example, he told me I looked like a skinhead because my jeans were rolled up (hello I'm short!!!) and I had on red socks.  What kind of idiotic comment was that? What did he think he was trying to do? All it did was make me feel aggressed against. 

I think why I hate him so much is that he thinks he's hip and cool and has committed the unforgiveable sin of thinking that I will like him because he is hip and cool.  I don't do hip and cool.  I sing Bach.

2018 Recital, Take Three, and How I Got Happy

This afternoon I sang my 2018 recital program for the third time.  It was at a new senior residence, with a room that was too small for me to invite guests, although the piano was good.  I didn't feel that I sang as well as the first two times (my highest notes didn't sound as good) but my teacher said that the problem was that the room had a low ceiling which muffled the sound, so that my voice didn't "spin".

But the audience was appreciative, except for one woman who glared and only applauded selectively (she did not applaud for "Tanti Affetti" but did for "Cruda Sorte" and "Mon Coeur"), and then left.

I certainly would be happy to sing there again.

I think this is the last time for this particular program, and I may retire "Tanti Affetti" for quite some time now.

My teacher and I are discussing reviving our 2015 concert of duets.  We may replace the Gioconda material with a duet from Favorita, which means that I will sing the aria from Favorita as well.  Actually, I should call it Favorite, because my teacher is singing one of the bass roles in French, so he will give me a copy of the music for the duet and my aria in French.

And if we do that particular concert we will do the Enrico/Giovanna duet from Anna Bolena, which I love.

Something I realized yesterday is that I am probably happier now than I have been in close to 15 years.  I was very happy for the most part in my 30s and 40s (I was not singing then, but did a lot of traveling and socializing and had one "fun" job, which, although mainly about paper pushing, had all sorts of meetings, lunches, and business trips interspersed between the dull work, which was how things were back before the Internet.  I mean I love the Internet, but it definitely drained all the "social" out of a lot of boring jobs.)  In my 50s I was happy somewhat, but my relationship with my partner definitely had begun to deterioriate.  I was working very hard at a senior management job, and coming home and making dinner because - what - she had arthritis??? And she was becoming more and more disagreeable.  Then I discovered singing, and The Mentor, and all bets were off.  I became someone else.  I don't want to rehash all that here; I have done it enough.  During that period I was often euphoric, so I suppose that was a form of happiness, but then everything came crashing down.  My relationship with him became abusive, I found the minister to be unsympathetic, and she decided to do away with all the classical music.  So I was pretty much vocally homeless.  I discovered (over a period of 10 years at least) that no matter how well I thought I sang, I would never be competitive on the Upper West Side of Manhattan where as soon as one group of "emerging professionals" moved on, another took their place.  No "amateur" opera group wanted me; they could get professionals.  And I felt beset on all sides.  If I wanted to produce something myself it was hard to get people to come (who would want to come to a homemade concert of opera scenes if they could hear real music - aka someone's senior recital at one of the three conservatories here?)

And on top of all that I had taken early retirement from my job (which I had come to hate) only to replace it with working at home, alone, at my laptop hour after hour, taking breaks by reading blogs of real singers who were never in the same city for more than a few weeks and endlessly posted pictures of themselves in costume or solicited feedback on their latest head shots.  And I felt totally misunderstood. If I posted or blogged things about how unhappy my colorless life was making me, I was told to just "pull up my socks" because of all the people who had suffered major tragedies who nonetheless always had a full social calendar (I am thinking of one woman in particular who trashed me in a comment to a personal blog - not this one - when she hardly knew me). 

Things began to improve when I turned 66 and could collect Social Security.  I decided that I would never have a "dream career" (musical or not) so I just had to hold my nose, spend 20 hours a week at home copyediting, and then fill my life with nonremunerative activities that I found fulfilling.  Then my partner got on Medicaid.  In some ways, my life as a caregiver looks harder, because I am responsible for coordinating her round the clock care and managing her business affairs, but it really isn't.  I'm an unpaid Geriatric Care Manager, which is certainly a much more interesting "job" than being a full-time freelance copyeditor (being a part-time one I can stomach) and more importantly, I feel that what I do matters.  I am making the end of someone's life more comfortable and sweeter than it would be otherwise.

As for singing, ironically, despite the fact that I keep singing better and better, that singing is easier and easier, my range is wider, and I have more stamina, I have made my peace with the fact that there is no place for me in the "world" of singing as singers (I mean the "Forum Crowd") experience it.  That's OK.  I have made a specialty now of singing in nursing homes.  The audiences are appreciative and I don't have to worry if my friends do or don't come.  Some of the facilities are large enough to accommodate guests, others are not, but for the ones that are, if five of my friends come, that's enough.  And I even got some nice videos.  I don't go to the opera, even though it's around the corner.  And while I would go to something at Lincoln Center if someone bought me a ticket (or someone wanted to go and we made it a social thing), I will never go to any performances by all those opera companies that rejected me.  And except for a handful of people who have gone out of their way to be supportive and nice, I have unfriended all the singers I once friended because I envied and admired them.  My mornings with Facebook are much happier now that most of my interactions (usually with people from church or former coworkers) involve more parity and less of a feeling that I am an unwanted tagalong, only suffered if I know my place.

For now, anyhow, I am contented being a small town girl who just happened to be born in a big city and never moved.

Ditch the Sports Car

I haven't written in a while, despite having had a satisfyingly successful time singing my Bach cantata aria last Sunday.  I sang well, and had the delightful surprise of a viola da gamba accompaniment as well as the organ.  And people applauded which they never to after a church solo unless it's something bouncy.

But this article caught my eye.  It even mentions The Artist's Way, a program that my therapist recommended, which helped me more than anything I became involved in after AA and The Well Spouse.

Yes, I suppose I do fit the profile featured in this article, down to producing several charity concerts (although my takings were in the $100s not $1000s) and my current specialization of singing in nursing homes.

The one thing this article does not mention, however, is what happens when you discover a passion in midlife that you're obviously good at but not as good as the people who are really good at it, who, even if they don't do it for a living, do it as well as the people who are doing it for a living, all went to the same schools, and all know each other?

The exhilaration that I found at first realizing that I could not only sing Dalila but be Dalila at a tiny church "talent show" was quickly followed by years of rage, envy, and despair as a result of not only being rejected at auditions, but also being attacked on all sides by sharks and snarks when I tried to "join the club".  I was rejected by all ten or so "amateur" opera companies here because I was too old, too inexperienced, and not polished enough, and was alternately laughed at and ignored by what I call the "Forum Crowd" (a group of lower level professional and semi professional singers who have in common that they all seem to have music performance degrees and hate wannabees, amateurs who are too big for their britches, and anyone without their credentials who thinks she can converse with her betters like a peer.) (And as I wrote this, looking for a link, I saw that their new message board is closed and requires a log in.)

I suppose a Saturday night painter can paint alone, but you can't really sing alone.  There's only so far you can go singing arias in your living room, particularly considering that appreciation is pretty thin on the ground if you live, like I do, around the corner from Lincoln Center and have neighbors who go to the Met every week.

So I sing in a church choir, and am a church soloist.  The irony of course is that both my parents were atheists (my mother defined herself as a secular Jew) and I am not Baptised.  But it is a nice niche.  There are real professional singers who cycle in and out of there but they move on to greener pastures or have limited time for solo opportunities.  The older retired professionals (I'm thinking of one) are very "been there, done that".  Who is going to sing a solo in the summer if they can go away?

And I produce concerts in nursing homes.  I have done two since May and will be doing a third next week.  And my teacher, who is now back to singing bass-baritone again, is already thinking of  a concert of duets (some old some new) that we can do in the Fall or next Spring.

And of course I'm still waiting to be the subject of an op-ed or other newspaper story, like the singer featured today.