Catching Up

I see that I haven't written anything in about a month, which is because I have been busy with the writing contest.  I have done well so far: just mining incidents in my life and turning them into essays. I love to read novels, but when I write, I seem to find it easier to spin out pithy essays that are a combination of memoir, humor, and social commentary.  Like the OpEd pieces in the TIMES.

I have done well in this competition so far.  It started out with 50 people and now there are 13 people left.  They are going to drop 5 people on Sunday (our assignment was to write 5 pieces and the scores for those pieces will be averaged) so if I stay there will only be 8 left.  The final 4 will get some kind of money prize. My goal was to be in the top 10, which I guess won't be a "thing" because 2 people dropped out of the top 15.

I do have some news about Good Friday.  I am going to sing the alto line in the solo quartet in the "Christe Eleison" from the Beethoven Missa Solemnis and probably also in another piece that we haven't gotten yet.  So I will focus on that.  As for a solo on a festival day, I will probably either sing on Maundy Thursday again or on Trinity Sunday (June 16).  And one Sunday in August when there is an "open sing" because there is no choir and no festival days. For Maundy Thursday I may sing one of the Florence Price spirituals - "Rise Mourner", and for Trinity Sunday I suggested the Mozart "Laudate Dominum", which I haven't sung in years, so it will be interesting to see how it sounds.

I am sounding better again because I have a new strategy for taking care of my respiratory problems.  I went to get my annual physical and my doctor told me to use the asthma inhaler not just when I think I have asthma (I have the "cough variant" kind, not the wheezy life threatening kind) but also if my upper bronchial tubes feel full of mucus that I can't dislodge.  I have found that this really helps.  If my bronchial tubes are opened up, I can get rid of the mucus.  It seems to be more reliable than Mucinex.  I could really hear the difference Wednesday at my lesson and last night at choir rehearsal.

The annoying news, though, is I have not heard back from the two senior facilities that I contacted about performing.  I will have to try calling, as the people did not answer my emails.

Lastly, one source of anxiety is that my partner has a squamous cell carcinoma on her face that needs removing.  She had a biopsy last week.  When the results come back she will need to have it removed.  It is just an outpatient procedure (she had one removed from her chest two years ago) but it takes a whole day, and then she has to come back the next week to have the stitches removed.  And as the only way she can travel is on a gurney in an ambulance, we can be in the doctor's office for over an hour after she's finished, waiting to be picked up.  So I am going to draw a line in the sand and say that we can't do anything during Holy Week.  If they can't do it the week of April 1 (and remove the stitches April 8) it will have to wait until after Easter.  It is something that needs addressing, but it is not life threatening.  It is just very stressful to have to juggle these two things, not to mention that she will be put into a new Medicaid managed care plan as of April 1, so all the players that we have to deal with will be different.  And the last thing I need leading up to Holy Week is a lot of stress and time spent screaming on the phone.

2017 Wrap Up

Right now I couldn't even begin to think about making New Year's resolutions.  I can't think of anything I need to be doing (that's realistic) that I'm not already doing.  And I hope it's not a cop-out to say that so much of what is lacking in my life is about the lack of opportunities for someone with my level of talent in the environment I'm in.

As for how the outgoing year was, here's a wrap up.  (And please note, this is only about me and the people in my life. It is not about the year as a political saga.)

The Good

• My partner is finally settled on Medicaid with a package of services and a support team.  Barring her coming into money (unlikely), this can roll over from year to year.
• She is much healthier.  I am no longer worried that she is going to die within weeks or months.
• Through managing all of her care providers and coordinating services, I have acquired skills that, most importantly, give me a feeling of competence, and secondly, keep fresh the management skills I once used at jobs for pay, if I ever want to look for another one.
• I keep singing better and better.
• Through my involvement with her home care team, I have learned about many different ways to make a life, even here in New York.  There are people of different ethnicities, living in outerborough neighborhoods, with skills, talents, and beautiful souls, that have nothing to do with the world of Upper West Side successful professionals with performing arts degrees, around whom I feel like I'm the size of a mosquito.  I thank these women not just for the loving care they provide my partner, but for sharing their hearts and their lives with me.

The Disappointing

• Despite singing better and better, it seems harder and harder to find a place to sing.  Outreach venues don't call me back.  If I were to pay a modest fee to rent a studio, I would have to fill it with an audience, and with all the high-level performances here (many of them free), there won't be one.  Some people will no doubt come to be polite, but they really are not all that interested.  
• Despite repeated efforts, I have not been able to create a network of similarly situated aspiring performers (older adults with a certain level of talent and skill who are eager to perform and willing to invest a certain amount of work in throwing something together). The people I meet are either younger or more experienced and are plugged into networks of their own that would not be open to me or it they're my age, they're pretty much done unless something falls into their lap.
• I realize more and more that most of the people who have the life I want began on a path when they were in their teens or shortly thereafter.  At least among people I meet regularly, I seem not only to be one of the few without an advanced degree or some degree in a performing arts related field, but also one of the few who was never in a school show or an extracurricular performing arts group. This is time and experience I can never get back.
• Despite spiritually knowing better, I still yearn for a life I can't have: a life primarily defined by the arts.  To the world I am a freelance copyeditor who is a caregiver - oh, and I have a lovely voice, sort of as an aside.
• I can no longer even envision doing anything for a living, even part-time, that does not involve some iteration of "paper pushing" sitting at a desk.

Lesson of the Year

Since I apparently will never do well, maybe I have to settle for doing good.

Miles to Go Still

I know this seems an odd title for a New Year's post, but there you have it.

My partner is home after almost three months in a nursing home/rehab.

Money is hemorrhaging out of her bank accounts to pay for a private aide.  A Medicaid application has been prepared, to be sent tomorrow, that is, if I did the "Docusign" signature on my phone correctly (when I had to sign the document, I was not home at my laptop).  I signed my own name which I think is OK because I have a Power of Attorney.

There is still more work than I can cope with and a few weeks ago I had a meltdown of massive proportions. I am trapped in a situation with two choices that are equally damaging to my mental health.  Although only one is damaging to my moral sense, which means I know my choice.  I could not live with myself if I walked out on all this.  As it is, I am under constant stress, and as for my own life, well, let's forget that, although I did manage to sing "Rejoice Greatly" yesterday morning, probably a personal best, to an "audience" of less than 20 people.

I spent five days supervising a cleanup crew taking 60 years of clutter out of her apartment.  This included 20 bags of papers and documents (some almost 60 years old) to take to an industrial shredder.  I paid myself $100 a day, which was far less than the task was worth, but at least compensated me for the lost work hours (to pay my bills, now that I get Social Security, I need to work 20 hours a week copyediting, which I can do any time, usually early in the morning or late at night because the more tired I am, the better, as the work is mostly so boring). Mostly the payment to myself was symbolic, signaling to my partner the massive nuisance that I considered all this to be.

After that I was tasked with reorganizing all her bank accounts.  I got an email full of numbers and was told I had to do about five things in 48 hours with, of course, no help, because everyone was going on vacation.  I ended up making an enemy of the case worker because I screamed at her over the phone.  Any social worker who can't deal with a distraught client shouldn't be in that business, IMHO.

There are still a few monetary tasks left, mostly setting up a trust, of which I will be the trustee, so that I can pay her rent.

If she has Medicaid she can have 24/7 aides.  She can't sit up unassisted or get out of bed unassisted.  She can walk (barely) from one room to the next with a walker and the aide behind her.  She is looking better because the aide is cooking her three meals a day of her own choosing (the nursing home food was ghastly although she ate more there than she had been doing at home).

She will get physical and occupational therapy at home.

I hope Medicaid kicks in soon or all her money will be gone paying for the private aides.

The bitter irony is that now I have the vocal technique I always dreamed of but have no time to make long-term plans.  I do practice every day, but I had hoped to do more.  I can't really make any "BabyD-centric" long-term plans about anything.  There are days when I feel lucky to snatch some quiet time in front of the tv with my cat, although one blessing to having her in her home is I can sleep over and we can snuggle.  Maybe Heaven is how I feel drifting off to sleep holding her hand.  On the other hand, Heaven is feeling the way I do singing "Rejoice".  Couldn't I have both?

I didn't make any New Years resolutions other than trying to love the situation I'm in.  Overseeing all these moving pieces so that my partner's last years are as comfortable and pleasant as possible.  Some people would love that, being a big mover and shaker, even in a family situation.  The problem is that's not my calling.  I do it because I love her, not because I want to be Big Momma.

Years ago (or so it seems) I was chastised for envying the young singers I meet who don't seem to have much to worry about other than choosing material for a recital or an audition, buying gowns, and having head shots taken.  (I actually got one for free at the church, which I will post here). They have fun with their musician friends, and probably the worst thing they have to endure is an icky day job, which at least they can leave at the end of the day.  But really, is it any wonder I wish I could click my heels together three times and be 30 (and sing the way I do now)?

How My Imagination Atrophied

In a recent post about sexism, which also included quite a bit about generational differences, I spoke of how some of my self-dislike and low spirits around my dull work life, life as a caregiver (despite passionately loving my "care recipient"), and financial and temporal limitations, stemmed from "the conversation" or "the buzz" as you will around the topics of self-actualization through work, postponing coupling (and childbearing, which for me was not relevant), and an extended period of self-exploration.  And more importantly, about how doing those things is a passport to a good life, whereas not doing them, is a passport to poverty and a lesser one.

And now we have this op ed piece, which rehashes some of the same ground.

What I found most compelling, particularly in view of my goal to "jumpstart" my imagination, is the recent belief that postponing "settling" (one of the hallmarks of adulthood) allows the imagination to blossom more fully, and (although this was not mentioned) also allows one to "settle up" (with a more interesting and more lucrative career and a more appropriate spouse) when one does settle.  The article states that the jury is still out on which comes first: the "settled, hardened brain" or the routinized life, but they do seem to be related.

I (and many others of my generation) postponed adulthood, certainly middle-class adulthood, for a period of time, and some never found it, but this was a very different trajectory from that of today's millennials.  First, we got away from our parents at as young an age as possible and never went back.  We did not take money from our parents for living expenses, certainly if we were living in a way that they would not have approved of.  (If there was money, parents paid for college and graduate school - the latter mostly for sons - but nothing beyond.)  We did not become part of the "establishment".  Aborted our education.  Some died of drug overdoses or ended up in jail for misguided "politically motivated" crimes or for God know what that we did when on drugs.  Some managed a complete turnabout and became Yuppies.  The rest (I would include myself here) settled for the lesser life that one ends up in with a tenth rate education, often too little too late, and the need to opt for short-term financial security.

Once I got sober, the first thing I did was find a mate (someone I was madly in love with, with whom I could have sex regularly - let's get real here), then a job.  With nothing but a high school diploma and no work history I was lucky that I was able to get a "career ladder" secretarial job in publishing.  I was making a pittance but had good benefits and a ladder up in an industry that I was familiar with because I had grown up around it.  But that, and my early "marriage" did not do much in the way of allowing my imagination to blossom through novelty seeking.  True, I believed that I was sort of living on the edge of danger being out when sexual orientation was not a protected class with regard to employment discrimination, and when being in big groups of gay people demonstrating (or even going in and out of buildings known to be gay-centered) might have led to an ugly skirmish, but actually my life was pretty dull and predictable.  In the "textbook" time frame my relationship deteriorated from endless lovemaking and fighting (although some of that lasted for 20 years and the fighting continues to this day when I am mainly a caregiver) to discussions about grocery shopping and laundry, and certainly very little that I did at work was interesting at all.  I mostly liked the job because it was easy and I could take an hour and a half for lunch three times a week to go to an AA meeting and talk on the phone with my AA fellows most of the day while I shoved documents into file folders.  And I met interesting people.

I had  hoped that when I stopped working in an office and got out of the routine I could find "something different" but I see that I have settled into another routine that is just as dull, and I don't even sleep that much later!!

It always seems to be a struggle, not just to find venues for singing at my age with so little experience, but just to diversify my life in any way at all!!  I have always felt that my brain and my psyche fight these attempts at diversification much as my soul hungers for it, and at least this article explains why,

This also explains one of my sources of fascination with The Mentor.  I envied how he was free of the two things that made my life feel like a prison: monogamy (which wasn't even that any more, when your partner is physically failing) and an office job.  I can't comfortably address the first issue in a public blog, but although I am now free of the second, and do enjoy being able to mix and match my daytime schedule (do outside errands and make appointments during the day and work at my laptop at night), I seem to have ended up in the type of work that is largely dull and rote.

So how do I get my imagination jumpstarted?? Certainly remembering everything I learned from The Artist's Way has helped.

I would also like to see some articles about how some of the choices people like me made (and I am certainly not unique) can be leveraged as assets, going into the home stretch.  I'm really kind of sick of all the coverage given to young people.

Better

I thought several times about deleting my last post but decided to let it stand.  On the other hand, I felt it would be unfair to let that hang as my most recent post, which is the reason for this one.

I am feeling a little better than yesterday.

I think I have to give some credence to the fact that yes, I do have a very depressing life, and it takes its toll.  I have many blessings, things that many people don't have: a nice apartment in a nice neighborhood for very little rent, good health, people who love me, people who like me, good looks (people are always asking me if I'm an actress, which is nice), talents.

On the other hand it is very wearing to spend all day editing medical manuscripts and then have to be constantly dealing with the problems of someone elderly, ill, and often disagreeable.

Most people I know who are my age have a lot more fun than I do and it isn't because they're more imaginative and more optimistic people.  It's because they either have another breadwinner (helpmeet) in their life or they have no one and can do what they please, they do something for a living that fulfills at least some of their spiritual needs, they see, hear, smell, taste, and experience a much broader range of things than I can right now.

But I am going to have my Requiem.  I am going to do what I can to neutralize my fear about that note in "Liber Scriptus" (it is a bear of a note: you have no set up time) and otherwise I am going to enjoy myself.  This is a huge opportunity even if it is one I organized myself.

And I am going to sing "Qui Sedes" in the Spanish Good Friday service and sing an art song called "Asturiana" by de Falla on "El Salvador Sunday".

I will live to strut my stuff another day.

Singing and Life are Such a Bad Mix - How Do People Do It?

Among the many reasons I gave up singing at age 30, along with that it was too expensive for a hobby and I needed to go to college at night so I could get a decent job, and that it was considered a "politically incorrect" choice for Lesbians in 1980, was that I simply could not manage the amount of self care required.  It was too much fun to be skinny, sleep-deprived, and hoarse after a night of clubbing (even if I myself was no longer smoking).

When I went back to singing I was 54, and took good care of myself anyhow so it was no longer as big an issue.

But despite no longer crash dieting or clubbing, well, there's life.  And most of life is not lived with the buoyantly lifted ribcage, the serene breath, and the open pharyngeal space.

Even if one eats properly and sleeps adequately, sadness deflates the ribs, annoyance constricts the back of the throat, minor depression makes it oh, so hard to give that extra lower abdominal "push" needed for those high notes to sail out.

When I was growing up, my mother, who loved classical music but had little respect for classical musicians, referred to singers as "bovine".  One of her friends (whom I didn't really know) taught voice at one of the big conservatories and when she went to his house she met several singers (and there was an up and coming young male opera singer who lived next door to us).  According to my mother, most of these people were placid, very few if any came from New York, and none of them could carry on a particularly intelligent or animated conversation about the issues of the day.

In the "olden days", I think singers led very sheltered lives (remember all the jokes about female singers and their mothers?).  They were not exposed to much that would make them want to scream, cry, or sink into the sort of angst that is best fed with cigarettes, alcohol, or if not those, lots of coffee and interminable talking.

If anyone is wondering why I am thinking about this now, it's that for so much of last three years, I have been stressed to the breaking point by eldercare.  Not just the sadness of seeing someone you love in decline, but dealing with the logistics of another person's life as well as your own, worrying, being deprived of sleep, arguing to get a point across with a service provider. It's draining, it makes you hoarse, it's sad, and it's extremely difficult to then go (if I can even find the time) and joyfully or pseudojoyfully muster up the superhuman, tension-free, golden throated energy balance to sing my opera repertoire.

I mean I have enough basic technique to enable me to go on autopilot and sing through a church solo that doesn't go above a G.  But nothing more strenuous.

I mean there seem to be singers who can keep the back of their throats open and speak musically no matter how angry or sad they are (is that what my mother meant by "bovine"?) but I am certainly not one of them.  (That also may be why it seems that there are not a lot of singers who were born in New York City - the way we speak is absolutely the worst thing a singer can do.)  Or maybe some people have been blessed with so much natural energy balance and stamina that they can get all that infrastructure to hold up an evening of Amneris or Azucena even if they are depressed, angry, nervous, or tired.  I don't know.  I am not one of them, certainly not now.

Some days now I so just want to wallow in all the things that are bad for singing (I think that's what 12 step programs call "feeling your feelings") like talking, eating and sleeping too little, letting my body crumple up and my ribcage collapse, and enjoying the pain of exhaustion as it mirrors the pain in my heart.

(I say pain in my heart because even if the immediate danger has passed, this is probably a downhill slope from which there is no scrambling back to wellness and happiness for my loved one.)

But I have fought too hard for what I have.

So I am going to my lesson tomorrow.

And I will see if I can squeeze in a practice some time this week.

Fight! for the Right! to Pah-tee

I suppose in some ways, this is going to be a more upbeat reprise of this post. As for the title, it is a song by the the Beastie Boys. I never listened to their music, but their leader, Adam Yauch, was the son of people who were friends of my mother's. (I knew them, but not Adam.) I say I never listened to their music, but the title song was one impossible to avoid. And, yes, in many ways it now describes my life.

First, I want to post a photo from an occasion recently when I had a lot of fun. (For the record, I cropped some people out at the right, partly for privacy concerns, and partly because I wanted to edit the photo so that everyone is wearing red.) I wish I didn't have a spot on my glasses (maybe I should have taken them off?) But I like that I am spread out like an odalisque at the right. (One of my promises to myself has been to try to elicit sexy pictures of myself from people with cameras, whenever possible.)

This photo depicts a group of us "pagans" at a solstice party in Central Park in June.  We were supposed to have another one last night, but got rained out, so we held it in the Unitarian Church where I used to sing, where The Mentor changed my life forever on that fateful Valentine's Day.

Actually, my initial interest in these Moon Circles stemmed from him.  Not that he attended them, as they are for women only, but because I thought attending them would make me more like him: colorful and free, the latter in every sense of the word.  Recently I have found them an escape from the drudgery of work, the otherworldliness of church singing, no matter how much I love it, and the burden of eldercare.

Yesterday, I literally did have to "fight for the right" to attend the gathering.  My partner was frightened that if I went out in the thunderstorm (which actually had ended by the time I went out) I might slip and fall and be unable to take her to her surgery tomorrow.

She continues to be disagreeable, which makes the idea of spending two nights in her apartment with no air conditioning (she refuses to turn it on when the humidity is high) even less appealing.  Is she so disagreeable because she's old?  Or is this a stereotype?  Not all old people are disagreeable, although my mother got more and more disagreeable as she got older, albeit in a different way.  My partner is totally unable to laugh at herself.  She is not mean, or cruel, or unkind: just unpleasant.

I was actually thinking the other day that "unpleasantness" as a trait seems to have increased among the general population of all ages since I was growing up.  (Of course then there's its mirror image: ludicrous "perkiness," which has also increased.)  But I don't move in perky circles, unless I'm in a shop or ordering something on the phone. When I say "unpleasantness" I mean, for example, not understanding that if a group of people go out to celebrate someone's birthday, there should be a moratorium on talking about health problems and financial problems, dietary restrictions, and minor annoyances stemming from the venue.  People should at least try to be "entertaining".  Is that a lost art, I wonder?

So, again, please everyone, send thoughts and prayers tomorrow that my partner's surgery will go smoothly and that I will keep my temper.

P.S. I will post some exciting upbeat news in my next post!

An Ode to Frivolity and a Seguidilla Surprise

This isn't strictly about singing, but it is about me, and I really need an outlet right now.  As I no longer have the pseudonymous blog, this is it.  So now to keep it honest yet discreet.

For someone who is - OK I will say it - basically narcissistic and diva-esque, I am not sure sometimes how I ended up where I ended up.  I never wanted to save the world or rescue people.  One exercise in The Artists Way asked you to list five imaginary lives/professions you could see yourself in and not a single "helping profession" was on my list. I am not a compulsive caregiver. (When I was in that dismal LGBT caregiver group a number of the members referred to themselves as having a caregiving addiction, something I had zero identification with.)

I do have a strong sense of ethics and feelings of compassion for the people who are in my life.  Well, the person who is in my life.  I haven't noticed myself jumping to help people in my broader circle, mostly because I feel like a rubber band stretched to capacity.

Although we never legally married, my partner and I did have a commitment ceremony complete with vows, and although in the physical sense when I got too lonely I chose to ignore the one about "foresaking all others" I believe that it is my duty to honor the rest: to love and cherish, in sickness and in health, for richer for poorer, for better for worse, 'til death do us part.  And I will not waver.

But when you add up limited funds, limited time, a livelihood spent at home at a laptop editing articles many of which are about people dying of cancer, much time with significant other spent at her home, doing chores, and making plans around her various health challenges it can be very wearing.

I don't know why (maybe it was my upbringing?) but everyone I know is what I would call "terminally serious".  No matter what my mother talked about, it always felt like listening to the New York Times Op Ed page.  She could take almost any potentially juicy topic and wring the lust and laughter out of it by turning it into a polemic.

Then, Heaven help us, because as a young adult I decided I was attracted to women, I got dragged kicking and screaming into The Women's Movement, which was really just a suffocating multiplication of my mother haranguing at me not to buy cosmetics.

Most of the friends I have now want to talk about politics, their health, or their money problems.

Where has all the laughter gone?

Yes, I have political opinions but I rarely talk about them, unless I start to get scared that my senior entitlement programs are going to be taken away.  I don't define myself by them.  Many of my friends, particularly from other parts of the country, define themselves as liberals in a sea of conservatives (their families and childhood acquaintances? neighbors?) whereas I have always defined myself as a bimbo in a sea of intellectuals.

So why now.

I have known for a while that my partner was having cataract surgery on the 20th, but it was only today that she found out that this means she can't bend over to tie her shoes for 10 days.  She often stays in the house for that many days, and I always go over on Friday night and do chores for her on Saturdays, but this means that not one but two weekends, the second one being my birthday, will be taken up either with waiting on her, or staying in the house with her.  She will not expect me to be there during the week.  That is my work week.  But still.  Is it childish to care about my birthday?  For a long time I thought birthdays were primarily for children.  Mine is in July and I remember being reprimanded by a camp counselor (I was 9) for, in response to her asking me what my favorite day was all summer, saying it was my birthday.  But then suddenly in the "greed is good" 80s I would hear many of my coworkers rhapsodize about the expensive jewelry they got from significant others.  Jewelry (unless it was arty costume jewelry or something ethnic) was totally frowned on in the circles in which I moved even if someone could afford it.  In all fairness, during that brief period when my partner was working she did buy me a few pieces of jewelry, but those days are long gone.  I am lucky to get an inexpensive lunch and a discounted theater ticket (we are going to see "Mary Poppins" as a joint birthday present, sitting in discounted seats for the disabled).

What are all these young people giggling about in all these pictures on Facebook?  One of the nicer readers of my pseudonymous blog said I probably was envious of people having a good time, which is absolutely true.  Maybe I have "a good time" once a month if I'm lucky.  How do I define that?  Doing something totally frivolous where I don't have to be constantly poised to take care of someone else's needs, worry about their well-being, slow my pace, go gently, not overdo, take lots of breaks, cut out early,  be home before dark....something where I am not worried about money or time, where I am by myself without my partner (whom I sometimes laughingly refer to as "the cleavage police") censoring what I'm wearing.

I will try to do something for myself over these next few weeks. I will have to give up a trip to Giverny in the Bronx and one to a concert at the Met Museum, but maybe I can go to the women's Moon Circle (a place I can wear bright colors, engage in sacred play, and honor my pagan self).  (My love for this activity is one reason that no matter how much I love singing Bach and respect the social outreach at the Lutheran church, I am not converting to Christianity any time soon.  Also pagans can be nonmonogamous.)

On a more cheerful note, I am finding the Seguidilla much easier.  I just had to sing it into my voice.  I can do the ending up to the high B well enough to keep the role in my repertoire.  I mean it's one note and that's not really what the role is about. (God would I love to sing this role in full costume!!) And FWIW, I was just listening to a recording of Carmen with Grace Bumbry, and she transposed the Seguidilla down a half a step!

ETA: Right after I posted this I spoke with my partner.  She is really quite frightened about the cataract surgery (it usually goes smoothly, but she had to sign a waiver that mentioned blindness and death) and I want to be there for her.  I suggested going this weekend to get her another pair of sneakers that has a velcro closing instead of ties, that she can put on with her reacher.  In addition to the cataract surgery there is also the issue of her having an artificial hip replacement and not being able to bend into certain positions.  She also cried and said it hurt her when I invited her to go with me to do things at night.  One thing I have very poor judgment about is when I am being unreasonably selfish and when I am being unreasonably self-abnegating.  I grew up thinking I was much more selfish than most people (the kids I grew up with, even the rich ones, were punished if they acted greedy about, for example, wanting an expensive birthday present) but as we moved into the Reagan Era and beyond, I continue to be surprised at how selfish and self-absorbed many people are, regarding wanting presents, treats, etc., even middle aged adults, who expect expensive birthday presents from spouses, etc. or the younger performers who endlessly post photos of themselves in various outfits.  So I have no benchmarks that I trust.

A Timeline You Won't See on Facebook

Maybe it's The Artist's Way or maybe it's that my therapist is on a three-week vacation, but yesterday, suddenly, a lightbulb went off in my head about why, even after 8 years of therapy, I feel just as stuck as I ever did, albeit in a slightly different locale.

I had made a lot of changes.  I started seeing this therapist in the summer of 2004, when I was suicidal over the Mentor, my relationship with my partner, my dreary apartment, my wardrobe that made me look totally sexless, you name it.  By 2007 I had begun "dating", had a spot as a volunteer soloist at a Lutheran church, had one operatic concert under my belt, had gotten away from the Mentor, but had allowed his influence to linger inasmuch as I now had red walls, red sheets, and some new clothes that fit my curvy figure attractively.  And I had plans for the future.  I was going to produce a concert version of Samson et Dalila the following spring, and my play was going to be produced in Texas that fall.

Since then, here is what has happened:

September 2007: My partner, with whom I had not been speaking other than to be the recipient of nuisance threatening phone calls and hate mail, had a hip replacement.  Whatever she felt about me, I determined to not only be there for her the day of the operation, but also, when I came back from Texas and she was out of the hospital, to spend Sundays "doing for" her.  I considered it would have been inhumane not to.  It did not make us a "couple" again.

March 2008: Our best friend "DJ" died.  She was a huge support system to my partner, in that she called every day and helped my partner (who was beginning already to show signs of mental disorganization) "orient" herself.  She was also a friend to me, in that she helped me tread the fine line between being "humane" to my partner and taking care of my own life.  And she was the only person who could keep us from fighting.

May 2008: The day before my concert of Samson et Dalila, some unpleasantness surfaced at work, which was to haunt and torment me for the remainder of my time there, which thankfully was only another 18 months.  I was not allowed one nanosecond to savor my turn as Dalila.  Not one!  This unpleasantness was front and center on everyone's radar screen.  I don't even think anyone asked me how it went.

May 2009: My 93 year old mother fell down the stairs of her Brooklyn (rent controlled) walkup apartment, due to landlord negligence.  I now had to spend two weekends a month "doing for" her. She had a cleaning lady, but would not, for example, trust her to use the ATM.

October 2009:  I was blessedly liberated from the job I loathed, with a "retirement package" including health insurance for life and a year of career counseling.  No sooner was I in a state of jubilation over a chance at a second career than my mother was diagnosed with bladder cancer.

November 2009-October 2010:  While trying to have some "me" space to reinvent myself with the career coach, I was taking my mother (whom I didn't even particularly like, God forgive me) to a medical facility in Washington Heights, which meant getting up at 6 and picking her up in Brooklyn, and often not getting home until after 11.  I now spent one weekday "doing for" her in addition to spending part of the weekend "doing for" my partner.  During this period my partner was hospitalized for sinus surgery and upon returning home had a hemorrhage necessitating a repeat hospital visit via the emergency room.  In late September 2010 my mother took a turn for the worse and the Visiting Nurse Service set up a hospice in her apartment.  She died on October 10, with my holding her hand and telling her I loved her.  Whether I really did or not is not relevant.  I wanted to make sure those were the last words she heard.

I could see that there would be no exciting "encore career" for me.  I was lucky to have health insurance and be able to work at home as a freelance editor, squeezing paid work in the nooks and crannies between caregiving.  Other than my daily practice, my biweekly voice lessons, and my occasional choir solo, I really had no time for singing at all, except for a brief concert in a nursing home.

November 2010:  I had been cast in a tiny role in an opera production with an orchestra (for which I paid $450).  Despite coming there perfectly prepared to sing three pages of music that was not difficult, and having perfect French pronunciation, I was torn to shreds in front of a group of singers most of whom were less than half my age, for no reason that I could fathom.  People were sympathetic - they had no idea what was going on either, but it left such a bad taste in my mouth that I have not really "ventured forth" to do anything I don't plan myself since.

Spring 2011:  In addition to handling my mother's estate business, I now had to deal with my partner's huge decline.  I was actively working with three or four social service agencies to try to get her help, preferably a place to live that was cheaper and where she could have help. The latter came to nothing but she did get food stamps, meals on wheels, a free life alert system, and a free air conditioner. She is now better, but it was hardly an environment in which I felt free to pursue my bliss and let the chips fall where they may.

So there you have it.  Is it really a surprise that I've had no energy to milk my muse?  I speak about having little time and little money, but I see that I also have very little energy and I'm speaking here about emotional energy.  I just feel drained.  I can't put singing first, or even second after my editing commitments. It's just way down the list.  (When I speak of singing, I don't mean the act of singing I mean chasing and creating opportunities.)  All I have energy for some evenings is snuggling with my cat and watching reruns of Downton Abbey.


It's on days like this that I wish I still had the pseudonymous blog, but I am just going to post this and turn it over to the universe.

No wonder I was musing about whether singers as a group (certainly the ones under 40 who write about nothing but their gowns, their onstage flirtations, and their latest headshots) are self-involved. They are, and I wish I could be too.