Why the Fallout from the Falling Out Described in My Last Post is So Relevant Right Now

I, who usually post and blog mindlessly (often saying things that I later regret or would be embarrassed to say out loud to people in person) have been uncharacteristically silent for the past few weeks.

The reason is that there is a whole litany of nightmarish things that have been going on, about which I simply have nothing to say.  This does not mean that I don't care about them or don't have feelings about them; it simply means that I am not articulate about issues involving the larger world.  I am articulate about myself, other people I know, social dynamics, psychological dynamics, and maybe issues that really hit close to home, like class, but what can I possibly say about children in cages, the danger posed by a vacant Supreme Court seat, or the monstrousness of shooting journalists?

It seems that since joining Facebook, I find myself surrounded not only with superachievers with graduate degrees, but also with people who can adroitly opine about everything in the news, and who regularly post and share articles, photos, and clever justapositions of truths.  I am just not good at that.  I never was.  If I was "present" in school at all, I was the literary one, not the girl most likely to be voted class President.  In my senior year in high school (which I mostly binge-dieted, necked and petted, and played hookey through) I took an extra foreign language, not journalism or Problems of American Democracy.

I was comfortable in AA and some of the women's discussion groups I belonged to because I could be good with words describing my feelings and asking about other people's. In fact, talking about politics or anything ideological that did not involve making an "I" statement was forbidden in those groups.

Probably part of my addiction to complaining is that I write well when I have a personal complaint (or a triumph to share); less so when I am talking about an "issue".  Other people do that better.

But because of the ugly way that I was dumped into the garbage by LC, I now feel very gun shy about talking about my own life when so many things are going on the world.  I am also not that good at doing much about them.  I live in a state where my two senators and my congressional representative will vote the way I want them to in almost every instance.

I don't go on demonstrations and I don't feel guilty.  The most important thing I can do on a Saturday is be with my partner because that is what I have promised her.  If it weren't the height of hubris to paraphrase Jesus, I would say "demonstrations will always be with us, but she [my partner] is only here for a short while."

In other news: singing is going well. My solo for July 8 is an aria from a Bach cantata, which I rehearsed this past Sunday.  I love it, and am flattered that the Director of Music Ministries picked it out for me.  I also bought a book of art songs and spirituals by Florence Price.  I am very excited about learning some of these.  The Director of Music says he will look over some of the selections, to see if there are any I could sing some time. 

And I asked the man from church who made several videos before to make one of my July 8 solo.

Second Recital and Some Random Thoughts

The second recital went well.  The setting was less formal than that in the other nursing home and senior centers where I've sung, but that was OK.  Most of the "noise" came from the area near the front door of the facility.  The people in the room (including a girl who looked about 8 or 9) were very quiet.

I felt as if I sang better than before, but as there won't be any videos, I can't be sure. 

I like the new accompanist.  He is a wonderful musician and very supportive.  I will probably stay with my primary accompanist as a first choice (he charges less and lives in a more convenient location, for one thing) but it's good to have a backup.  Of course I had a tiny "ouch" moment when he said he would like to come back there and play because a setting like that is "a good place to try out" repertoire that he is going to be playing in a more formal setting.  This made me wince because it is precisely that phenomenon that has shut me out of so many of even the humblest venues. The most blatant example to me is "Sing-Through Central" (a chance to sing operas from a book with other people, for a coaching fee) which is used by professionals and emergings to learn or test-drive roles, when an outfit like that should really be for amateur "living room singers" like me who want a chance to do something they love that they will never be able to do anywhere else. Will all the "outreach" venues go that route, I wonder? 

But I can't think that way.  I am now getting back into gear to find a new place to sing. I guess singing for seniors is my "niche".  I have an affinity for the elderly, partly because I take care of one, and doing this is a chance to "give back" (although I don't really see it that way as it's my only chance to sing for an audience other than church, not something I do out of the goodness of my heart despite other opportunities beckoning) and a low-stress setting in which I can sing whatever I want to, more or less.  And I refuse to think of what I'm doing as "second best" any more than I would ever think I've settled for "second best" because the charming, funny, sweet, romantic love of my life turned out to be someone bone idle and totally unable to manage time, money, or a living space.  And now she's a frail senior.  Which makes it easier because a frail senior by definition no longer can manage those things, so I no longer resent doing them for her.  I can't see myself as a failure because neither I nor my spouse was ever an "upper-middle class professional".  Our minister said something interesting in last Sunday's sermon.  She said we as a society shouldn't only value people according to their ability to be "productive".  That the "endless cycle of producing and consuming" is not what life is about.

Speaking of church, my voice keeps getting higher and I am more and more comfortable singing even a high soprano part if the alternative is a low alto part, or in any event, one that has such a minimal "arc" that I can't get my voice to do what it does best: make a big beautiful sound somewhere between the middle and the top of the staff.  We sang the final chorus from Elijah, and the compromise was that the second sopranos sang soprano until we got to the little chunks of music where the sopranos were singing a high A at which point we sang with the altos.  Of course I got completely lost.  I wouldn't have if I had had time to rehearse, which I hadn't.  I am not a natural harmonizer, don't sightread, and know nothing about music theory, so unless I am singing the top part (which is all I hear if I listen to any kind of recording) I have to drill my part over and over, singing "against" a recording with the volume turned way up.  I probably should have just stuck with the soprano part and might even have been able to sing the high As.  At this point I am not only "reaching" but blossoming on B flats, B naturals, even the occasional C, when I vocalize.  Next week we are singing a tiny snippet of Bernstein's Mass.  The sopranos have four piano/pianissimo high As, which I can definitely sing because there is a big break before each set of two. 

As for the "random thoughts", I posted an article on Facebook about all the downsides to marijuana use.  Yes, I begrudgingly (very begrudgingly) support legalizing recreational use if only so that young people of color don't end up with a criminal record for being caught smoking it or carrying it, but I am dubious.  Social drinking is one thing; it can be considered part of fine dining.  But the only reason for nonmedical use of marijuana is to get "high" or "stoned" and to me that is such a waste of human potential (ditto for drinking to get drunk or "wasted") that why make it easier for people.  The people who will go hog-wild with it will mostly be under 25, which is the time period when young people need to be alert and at their best so that they can make plans about their future and carry these out.  I know that the tragedy of my life isn't that I drank alcoholically and abused diet pills (I was never much of a marijuana smoker - I didn't like the way it made me feel; never mind that it made me hungry which was a deal breaker) but that I did it during the years between 18 and 25 when I could have been going to college, exploring extracurricular activities, making connections with people that could last a lifetime, and charting a course through adulthood.  And I saw this with a great many of my peers.  And some of them ended up dead, in prison, or permanently psychotic from taking LSD or even smoking hashish.  Scrambling to earn a living and get a college degree at night between the ages of 27 and 40 did not allow me to accrue any of the advantages that young people are accruing today beginning in high school (at which point in my life I was so deep in an eating disorder that I might as well have been out of it on drugs).  Theater kids?  Did that concept even exist when I was growing up?  That's who I'm competing with if I want to perform somewhere.  The conservatory kids and theater kids who are now in their 30s, even 40s.  Even the ones who never made a profession out of performing have that to draw on when all I have is a lovely voice and a good ear.  And the nonperforming young people were deep into summer immersion programs when they were as young as 12 or 13.  Those things stay with you.   Which brings me back to my original point about marijuana.  Smoking it when you're young and impressionable (a phase that neuropsychology believes lasts until the age of 25) is like deliberately saddling yourself with a handicap.  The world is a harsh, difficult, treacherous, and competitive enough place to navigate.  Why make it harder for yourself?  If I remember and repeat to myself daily any slogan from AA it's "There's no situation so bad that drinking won't make it worse."   Yes, there's no situation so hard that doing it stoned (or hung over) won't make it harder.

Don't Worry; It Gets Worse

Nothing is happening on the Medicaid front.  Or rather, things are creeping along.  Will her money outlast this dawdling?  I have no idea.  Money is still hemorrhaging out paying for the private aide.  The nursing home screwed up the paperwork yet again.  The Medicaid Group that is helping us wants more money.  The money that was supposed to come from Texas on the 24th did not come.  (I called the bank manager and she is looking into it; the money comes from rents from a farm that my partner and some of her relatives own). I told the CEO of the Medicaid group that I would make a partial payment but not a complete final payment.  She is very nice and seemed to be OK with that.  My partner is confused.  OK, so she meets the textbook definition of compos mentis but she certainly can't wrap her head around all these financial intricacies and what's possible and what isn't. (We are going to try to get her free help from the city until the application is approved.)

And then there's Trump.  Everything he has done is so fascistic there are no words.  Other people seem to be able to discourse about these things better than I can, even though everyone always thought I was smart and I am good with words.  Most of my friends across the country went to the women's march.  I didn't.  I thought my place was with my partner, taking care of her.  Particularly if there was even a .02 percent chance I might be in harm's way.  I have no idea if these marches will accomplish anything.  What frightens me the most about Trump isn't even his assault on healthcare, but his assault on journalists and scientists.  If truth-tellers are muzzled, what kind of country are we living in?  I can't believe that Congress, even a Republican Congress, can support these things.

So am I singing.  Yes, I try to practice every day.  My upper register keeps getting more secure although when I went over the Amneris/Radames duet at my lesson on Tuesday the first high B flat sounded straight and strident.  Subsequent ones sounded better but of course the acid test is how the phrase sounds after singing the entire scene.  I don't think I want to sing it in public right now, which is fine.

I spoke to my teacher about planning a concert at the nursing home where my partner was.  I should certainly be out of the woods with all this by May.  I think I will do a variant of my birthday concert, taking out some of the numbers I didn't care for all that much and substituting them with some solos for my teacher and maybe one duet from an opera.  I do want to sing "Let Me Call You Sweetheart" and "Home Sweet Home", two simple songs that I have a very powerful emotional connection with.

Choir rehearsal last night was a dud.  We were working on a spiritual with a high soprano part.  I certainly could have sung it - or not.  The choir director asked most of the second sopranos to sing the alto part instead and asked the altos to sing the tenor part.  There are very few men, and there was a split bass part, so he split that between the tenors and basses.  I don't care what part I sing, really, if it's in the interests of the piece as a whole, but I really resent being told which part I would find more "comfortable".  No, I do not find it more comfortable to sing a part that sits around the E at the bottom of the staff.  That takes a lot of finesse, moving in and out of chest voice.  This is an important skill for this mezzo to have, so that's fine.  It was his use of the word "comfortable" that really teed me off.  How does he know what is or isn't comfortable for me to sing?  Like most dramatic mezzos, when I sound like I'm pushing my voice and screaming is when I am singing with the least tension and get the least tired.  I would have had no problem if the choir director had said that he wanted X vocal color on the top line, not Y vocal color.  That's an artistic decision which is fine.  Also I think I would have been less angry if there had been some of the trained high sopranos there.  But what he did was have one second soprano (who does have high notes, just a bit straight-toney) sing up there and then one of the other second sopranos (the only person I can think of in the choir who can barely carry a tune and can't even make it up to a G!) asked if she could "try" to sing the top part and he said yes.  As I said, I don't mind being told that my vocal palette is not right for a particular piece of music or part, but I really resent being told I need to take the easy route, like someone who is less skilled.

Maybe it's time for me to start planning another concert.

Trump Voters and Me

First, the qualifier.  No, I was not a Trump voter!!

I have never voted Republican in a national election (I may have in a local election; I can't remember) and Trump was absolutely the worst candidate the party has ever put forth.

But what struck me from the beginning was how many demographics I seem to share in common with Trump voters, starting with being a poor "underprivileged" white person.  Yet with all my grievances, it never occurred to me to blame my problems on minorities or immigrants.

I'm 66 and have seen my economic prospects dim, certainly beginning in adolescence.  When I was 14 my father (a university professor) died, which catapulted me and my mother out of the "professional upper middle class".  At first it was not really noticeable.  Really, the only things that changed were that I went to a (very mediocre) public school instead of a private school, and we stopped taking summer vacations.  Since I had hated the private school I went to, and since at 14 nothing seemed less appetizing than taking a vacation with parents, I did not miss either of these things.  My mother still took me to the theater and we lived in a very large, well-kept apartment (one thing she kept was her biweekly cleaning woman) where elaborate meals were served every night.  The house was full of books, and the conversation was erudite.

I spent what now would have been referred to as my "emerging adulthood" pretty much off the map (remember "turn on, tune in, drop out"?) so I did not go to college, squandered the modest amount of money my father left me, and abused alcohol and drugs.

When I finally rejoined the human race, full weight, at, say, five years' sobriety at the age of 30, it was a very different ball game.  Reagan was now President, the tax code was skewed toward the wealthy, the city had been taken over by the finance industry, and rents were skyrocketing, so as an Assistant Editor (a job that once would have been considered "middle class" and that should have paid, in 1980 dollars, what my mother was making in 1964) I was definitely "poor".  I pinched pennies.  I couldn't afford a "yuppie" wardrobe, but mostly went to work in jeans, unless I had a meeting with someone from outside when I wore one of my two pairs of wool trousers and a blazer from the Salvation Army Thrift Shop. One night every two weeks I went to bed hungry, until the next paycheck arrived.

Fast forward to this election.  With each passing week I had new reasons to loathe Trump (and despise the Republican politicians weak enough to support him) but I immediately latched onto how many demographics I had in common with his core supporters, although there were many I did not.  I am white and poor, but rather than living in a blighted area of the rust belt, I am living in a city that once had been home to many people like me (roughly, the single, genteel poor, living - and dying - in studio apartments, including the now-demolished SROs) but that now has been taken over by what I call "the overclass": not just people in finance, but people of younger generations, who had come here to "make it", had "made it", had multiple graduate degrees, are much taller than I am which is compounded by their wearing very high heels  (I'm thinking of women), have bad manners (I can't tell you how many times I have been pushed out of the way by someone sprinting for a cab I had been patiently waiting for or racing down the subway stairs), and to whom I feel that I am mostly invisible.  Yes, I (barely) managed to get a college degree, by going at night between the ages of 30 and 40, but I am as much a nobody in the sea of M.A.s and Ph.Ds in which I am drowning as someone with a high school diploma is, say, in Michigan.

Like Trump voters, my primary identification is class, not gender, or even the fact that I am LGBT.  If someone were to ask me "who are you"? I would say a low-income, albeit college educated, single, urban dwelling senior.  Although I voted for Hillary, I did not get a surge of exhilaration at the thought of a woman president, and when she lost, I was devastated because I saw that as a blow to common sense and humanity, not because we do not have a woman president.  I don't know that if I had a little girl I would think automatically that she should think she should be President.  Nor would I think that automatically if I had a little boy.  That is a very rarefied stratum of society and few people inhabit it.  And no one, male or female, should feel like a failure because s/he does not.

As for some of Trump's supporters feeling that "feminism" (I am putting the term in quotes because it is really only one kind of feminism) has been a factor in their downward slide, I suppose I sometimes wonder about that too.  The sort of feminism represented by Hillary Clinton as role model is mostly about highly successful, ambitious, and disciplined women being able to achieve the same things as highly successful, ambitious, and disciplined men.  It isn't really about the rest of us.

And yes, maybe I do miss "women at home".  I was not married to a man, so my place never would have been in the home, and I think we should be more flexible in saying that maybe in a particular marriage the woman is more suited to a high powered career and the man is more suited to child-rearing.  But do I wish there were women at home in your average apartment building?  As Sarah Palin once said "you betcha!"  If there were women (or men) at home in my SO's building, for example, people who visit the sick, check in on the elderly, comfort the bereaved, and do the work of "caring" not for a living, but where they live, she might not be almost definitely headed for a nursing home.

And I share some of Trump voters'  nostalgia for the way America was in the 1950s.  Not because it was "whiter" but because it seemed so much less Type A.

Will I survive Trump?  Most likely.  Particularly because I live in New York, where Andrew Cuomo has already made a reassuring public statement. http://www.towleroad.com/2016/11/andrew-cuomo-new-york-gays/

So I may live somewhere where I feel poor, irrelevant, and invisible, but for now, I live somewhere where I feel safe.

Something to Try?

Yesterday I went with my partner to a concert by the choir for Alzheimers patients and their caregivers.  It was very moving.  They sang a group of familiar songs and there were little solos interspersed from time to time.  One of the women had a lovely voice (I don't know if she was a patient or a caregiver) and some others belted probably as well as some people you hear in live shows (they certainly all sang in tune).

My partner was "happy as a clam" (one of her favorite expressions) singing along when the audience was motioned to join in.

So we are going to go to their first rehearsal and see if we are considered suitable.  My partner doesn't have Alzheimers but she does have some cognitive impairment, which seems to be getting worse (she has very disturbed sleep/wake cycles and often now, if I call her at 8 or 9 pm she won't know if it's day or night).  So maybe this will be something we can do together out of the house.  And maybe this will be someplace I can use my singing talents where they will matter.  It seems that unless a group has very strict criteria regarding whom it is for and whom it is not,  it will be invaded by high level semi-professional singers who have spilled over from paying venues where they did not make the cut, whether it is an outfit where you have to pay to sing through an opera in someone's living room, or a choir that does not pay people.

Anyhow, recently I have had a paradigm shift (at least for the moment) and I realize that nothing is as important to me as making the end of my partner's life happy.  As she is failing, she has gotten sweeter and less irritable, and I realize that I can not take one single day with her for granted.  Yes, I would never want to live there  (the place now looks like a cross between a hospital room and the Collyers Brothers, not to mention that there is not only no Internet access but not even an outlet that I could plug my laptop into) or comingle our finances, but I would not trade one day of her precious life for anything, not the biggest singing gig in the world.

Now this does not mean that I will not go ahead with my Spring concert (I need to keep singing this challenging opera repertoire the way I need food or water), just that I realize that I don't need to be endlessly looking for singing opportunities that could tie up large chunks of time, and for what?

It also helps to avoid "triggers" (a friend of mine was writing about that online yesterday, in another context).  For me these are polemics that disparage "amateur" performers, or that imply that anyone who doesn't have a fulfilling career (or a partner with one) is a loser. One good thing about the national focus on all the tragedies that have happened lately is that the country (at least the part of it where I live) has also had a paradigm shift away from all the silly "self-esteem" talk; you know,  as in "if you had self-esteem you wouldn't be a copyeditor sitting at home taking care of someone who never bestirred herself to get a good job" which is what the Op Ed pages are always making me feel.  Our country really has some very serious problems to deal with that can't be solved by "abundant thinking" about me me me.

Ups and Downs

Sometimes I wonder if it's even worth writing anything here - no one comments. But maybe someday my luck will turn and this will be "discovered" (much more likely than that I will be "discovered" as a singer).

I had a reasonably good lesson Tuesday. My teacher said yes, he would be interested in doing a concert of duets at the nursing home, maybe next Spring. We could do things from Aida, Trovatore, and maybe Gioconda. I will see if the woman I interfaced with there would be willing to have me back.

He also thinks focusing on some of these Bach alto pieces is good. There's less stress involved and it will enable me to perform "chamber music" which is a less crowded market than opera and also it's part of the mission of the Lutheran Church where I sing to produce chamber music concerts.

As for choir happenings, I'm definitely on for the Tiffany Windows service, probably with the Mozart "Laudate Dominum" but I'm open to other ideas. And the choir director said yes, it would be nice to squeeze in the Duruffle "Pie Jesu" during Lent with his wife on the cello.

I do think, however, that I may have to scrap the idea of trying to sing the top women's part in "Abendlied" (Rheinberger). There are 3 women's parts but they're marked SAA not SSA so he didn't automatically put me on the middle part. It doesn' have any high notes - only goes up to a G - but the whole thing sits between the C above middle C and that G and is sustained pianissimo (what kills me is an E flat that you have to hold for 10 counts). The middle part involves sustained singing from the G above middle C to the C above middle C, which is easier. I tried singing the top part yesterday and my throat got very tight. I will learn both parts and ask my teacher. It's funny. In opera I am perfectly happy to be a mezzo (although I wish I were one with an easier B flat and B natural). I don't have "soprano envy". But in the choir it's always the high soprano(s) who get attention. They are the stars because particularly in an avocational setting, people are wowed by the fact that anyone can sing up there. The untrained sopranos struggle with an A, for example, which is probably why I was put in the soprano section to begin with. But for example in a piece like "Abendlied", those women with smaller voices can take breaths in the middle of notes and no one will notice. I either have to sing a note or pass on it but if I take a breath in the middle of that E flat, for example, everyone will hear it. I suppose what I mean is that in a choir if you're not either a soprano or a tenor singing a very high note or a bass singing a very low note there's no "wow" factor. And I'm a "wow" factor kinda gal.

I'm writing here about singing but I'm also in a state of mortal terror because on June 12 the State Legislature is voting on rent stabilization again, and with a Republican-controlled senate it is very scary. I could be out on the street when my lease is up, now when I'm so vulnerable with a seriously reduced income. On the other hand I will be 62 when my lease is up so I may have some protections. Or maybe New York City (which would renew those laws easily but doesn't have the power) will threaten to become the 51st state, which might not be a bad thing.