Grieving: Is it a Bad Metaphor?

Yesterday for the first time I was really angry with my therapist.

She had told me that the fact that I was angry so much of the time meant that I probably felt sad (true), and that maybe I needed to do "grief work" about my past mistakes.

What possible purpose could that have, other than to make me feel worse?

I told her that I thought that was the wrong model.  If I were really grieving (over the loss of a loved one), the "silver lining" would be all the support I would get.  True, I didn't get much of that when my mother died, but then we really didn't like each other (she wanted to control me, I resented her) so in a way it was disingenuous for me to have been miffed that her friends didn't offer "condolences".  On the other hand I think I had a right to be appalled by their lack of manners.  Sitting and watching someone die in an environment where you get no sleep and there is no food or caffeine in the house is stressful, and deserving of sympathy however much you did or did not love the person who died.  I did my duty.  The last words my mother heard were my saying "I love you".

But I know that if my partner died (a real possibility as she is 80) I would get support.  I could cry as much as I wanted and no one would yell at me to pull up my socks and get on with it.  People would understand.  I would get invitations.  I could join a support group.

I could even do these things if I were grieving a breakup, a job loss, or the loss of my home.

But about the past????

One thing that I found shocking, but telling, was how many people got angry with me, mostly at the other blogging place (which is why I ended up deleting that blog), but also on Facebook, because I expressed regrets, sadness, and anger about all the bridges I burned regarding my talent as a singer (I am talking about between the ages of 14 and 30).  About my attempts to do something now and how almost all of them have been thwarted (except that I keep singing better and better, particularly this past year).  I don't know what it says about me, or the other people involved, but I find it bizarre that people who hardly knew me (and didn't know me at all in real life) thought it was ok to give me insulting and humiliating lectures about my expressing my sadness and anger.  I couldn't imagine doing that to someone.  I have said, in person, to numerous people (mostly decades ago when I was active in 12 step programs) that I didn't want to hear any more about _________, because they had been talking about it for [a year, two years, 5 years] and never seemed to do anything about it.  But if I get bored or annoyed by someone's blog posts, I can just skim and move on, or unfriend or unfollow them.  But a lecture??? One of these told me I had no right to complain because of all the people who had suffered real tragedies (and then she went on the enumerate friends and relatives of hers who had experienced everything from agonizing cancer deaths, to loss of limbs, to seeing a relative shot).

I don't think my own personal friends would be quite that uncharitable, but as I explained to my therapist, they would not provide any kind of support system around this grieving process.  They are for the most part extremely sympathetic about my problems with my partner, my physical challenges in dealing with bad weather, even the feeling of isolation that I have working at home.  But any time I have broached this subject (except with one woman who began singing late as well) the responses I get vary from telling me to "stay in the now" (a 12 step slogan), to politely changing the subject.  One woman even said "je  ne regrette rien" in a snotty tone (this was in writing) and blew me off about the whole subject despite that she herself was a therapist.  And there are no bereavement groups for failed performing artists, I might add.

Also, what would constitute "closure"?  When a loved one dies (or you lose a job or a relationship) you grieve, and even though you may never "move on" (particularly in the case of losing a loved one who dies unexpectedly and too soon) eventually life "happens" and you get distracted, even for a little while.  Yes, things remind you of your loss, and that may always happen, but as time goes by it happens a little less.

So where is the analogy?  I am not going to give up singing.  I have worked too hard and made too much progress, and, for example, being able now, to open up my mouth and wait out a high B flat with little effort feels too good to stop now.  I have tried to shut out the whole world of "singers on the professional cusp" (the ones I feel the most competitive with; obviously I am not competing with Jamie Barton!!) whether on Facebook, my blog feed, or elsewhere (unless they have personally been kind to me), and have pretty much stopped going to hear performances that these singers appear in.

Then there's choir.  It is my anchor right now for a variety of reasons and I am not going to give that up either.  Of course the way the director behaves with Little Miss is galling.  (The Wednesday before the "Gloria" he buzzed around her anxiously asking her to reassure him that she would be there because there were only two other sopranos.  There were nine altos, including me, so we were expendable.  I fantasized about falling into a snow drift on the way there and staying there until noon but decided that that would be "cutting off my nose to spite my face".  I actually did deliberately leave the house late, but somehow managed to get there only 5 minutes after "call" and nothing had started yet.)

So what exactly is going to "happen" to move things along after I start this so-called "grieving process" anyhow?  Nothing "happens" to stay at home freelancers who spend most of the rest of their time taking care of a loved one.  And anyhow I think it would be disrespectful of people who are really grieving to use that nomenclature.

All that being said, being a dutiful patient (or "client" as they are called now),  I looked up "grief" online.  I tried variations such as "grieving process" and "grieving over past mistakes".  (All I got from the latter was an article on things one wished one had said to or done for someone who has died.)

So now I have gone from - I suppose - grieving, to brooding about grieving.

If only someone would "get"  it.  I'm not just being a nuisance or a bore.

How Can I Compete with Total Immersion? (Reprise)

Well, yesterday was a day of "the Bitter and the Sweet" (another oft-used blog post title).

I have been spared playing backup to Little Miss; the choir director scrapped the Moses Hogan spiritual for this Sunday because we don't have enough people.  We are singing a lovely arrangement of  "Precious Lord" instead.

And I got to really rock the Argento "Gloria".  It's so nice to be able to really sing; that is, not have to either be singing soprano and trying to keep the volume down (if there are two soprano parts this is less of a problem, and I can really sing when I'm on second, also) or singing alto and barely getting to sing a D once every few pages.

So I am determined to be letter perfect with the notes next week.

But also, I was disappointed that my partner decided to opt out of going to the try outs for the Alzheimer chorus.  The weather is bad, she doesn't feel well, and she said she hasn't sung for a while.  The good news is that the director of the chorus said that the chorus year is divided into three seasons, each culminating in a concert, so we can come in in April and try out for the next concert. As for trying to get my partner to sing, as she seems to have "lost" the old Lutheran hymnal that I brought her, I will bring a book of Gay 90s songs that I have, and we can try singing those.  She loves them.

At Tuesday's therapy session I came in angry; mostly anticipating the dreaded Moses Hogan experience, Little Miss showing off (that's not fair, really, she would just be singing while the women with lower voices were grunting out notes), and the response she would get.  So my therapist said if I was that angry that much of the time (mostly about what I've called the tsunami of talented people that I feel is pushing me further and further toward the ocean floor, no matter how much technical progress I make, not to mention all the thoughtless 20 and 30 somethings who take up more than their fair share of the space in subway cars and elevators if not with their backpacks then with their loud conversations and high jinks) I need to write down every time I feel angry and what else I feel as well.  She said I probably also felt sad or hurt.  So I have been doing that.  It is an interesting exercise, because of course as soon as I stop to write something down I no longer feel angry.

She also asked me why I was still singing if it made me unhappy.  I told her that singing didn't make me feel unhappy and that in fact nothing made me happier than singing well.  Nothing! And I feel that I have made so much technical progress that it amazes me.  It's the closed doors that make me angry.  Being written off because I am old and don't have a music degree.  Because I don't move in a community of musicians.  Because I don't live on the periphery of the people who sing at the Met and perform in orchestras at Avery Fisher Hall.  The people I am talking about all do.  I have nothing except how well I sing at any given moment (and yes, my personal charisma, which is huge).  I have no resume, no names to drop, no past, and, therefore, in people's eyes, no future.

So this morning I woke up feeling really good about last night's rehearsal (I am much more appreciated in the alto section because there, you see, I am the "Little Miss", the one who can always sing that F that makes everyone else nervous, the way in the soprano section she can ace that A.)

Then I read a Facebook post by a woman in the congregation who is a lovely person, but she exemplifies who I am up against.  She is probably in her late 30s (she can't be all that young based on how long she says she has been married) and has put together a pastiche of things to do for a living in the arts, both visual and performing, as well as teaching, both for pay and as a volunteer.  Her husband has a paying job in the theater.  Now she has enrolled in all kinds of classes at prestigious institutions (I have no idea who is paying for this).  So she lives and breathes art, all day long.  And there are many of these people all around.

So it comes back, to some extent, to the Wizard of Oz, who told the Scarecrow that he didn't need a brain, he needed a diploma.  There are no signifiers in my life that I am a performer.  Lots of people sing in church choirs.  So I sing Donizetti in the bathroom.  Big deal.  Not even the neighbors care, because they go to the Met all the time.  It's around the corner after all.

That's one reason I write this blog.  It is about singing and very little else.  Occasionally I make reference to something else, but to me, other than caring for my partner, these things are not important.

I mean I think if God took away my voice (through some kind of health challenge) I would not fall apart.  I would find something else to do.  But as long as this huge voice is beating its wings inside me, wanting to soar and take people's breath away, wanting to be heard, wanting to put me front and center somewhere, no matter how tiny, I will never, never, never, stop.

Another Disappointment

My therapy "homework" for these past two weeks has been identifying when I feel good about myself and when I don't. The premise is that if I felt better about myself I would not be so devastated by various disappointments.  I think this is both true and not true.  I think there can come a tipping point when after you have one disappointment too many it can affect how you feel about yourself.

What came out of this exercise is that most of the time I don't feel anything about myself, good or bad. Probably the biggest pleasant surprise I had this period was how well I sang at my last lesson, and the biggest disappointment (I can't really call it a "surprise") was being turned down for the Handel opera .  Although that disappointment hit me harder than it normally would have because of the watershed-like disappointment of so few people coming to Carmen in the environment of everyone buzzing about "Little Miss Conservatory's" senior recital.

In any event, I don't think I particularly dislike myself (I know people who do - dislike themselves - and whatever it is I feel is not that.)

I think I wasted a large part of my life and made a lot of the wrong choices.  I don't totally blame myself, because most of these stemmed from having squandered my "emerging adulthood" when I was drinking, after which it was in many ways too late to turn around and change course (I needed to earn a living, and chose the option that provided the most short-term financial security, for starters.)  And sometimes I feel I am trapped with dull work because I am a dull person, but I don't dwell on that 24/7.

But these disappointments have made me very angry.

As for the latest one, the woman who produced the September 11 concert spoke about "outreach" events over the holidays.  Last time she did this it was a sort-of concert in a nursing home that had a theater.  There were 5 or 6 women and we each sang one or two solos and then did some caroling and sang some Chanukkah songs.  I sang two songs in Spanish.  Well, it turns out that what she is doing this time is only group songs, with little solos assigned from some of the songs.  I would not mind participating in something like that, on an ad hoc basis (if she asked me about it a few weeks prior, and I came to one or two rehearsals) but there is no way in Hell I am paying to come to a "meetup" to sing group songs!!!  And in point of fact, I think her asking people to pay for sessions to go over group songs shows major chutzpah and quite frankly I don't think she will get very many people who would be willing to do this.  If we are volunteering out of the goodness of our hearts we shouldn't have to pay to do it!!! It's one thing to pay $20 at a meetup so that I can get coaching for a solo that I will be singing somewhere (singing it in an "outreach" venue is fine, even singing it at one of this women's "musicale"s in her living room is fine).  But if there's nothing in it for me, I think it takes a hell of a lot of nerve to ask me to pay!!

So now this means there is nothing on my calendar again.

I am going to order the piano score of Verdi's "Ave Maria with Strings."  It is unlikely that the choir director will want me to excerpt something from it, but who knows?  I also found a Bach solo hymn called "Advent".  It is not all that interesting in that it has four verses that are all the same, but I can offer that as an alternative.  Or go back to something I had sung in the past, maybe Saint Saens' "Patiently I Have Waited for the Lord".

But I am stumped for ways in which I could feel better about myself that would make these disappointments less devastating (well, the second one, involving the holiday events, wasn't really "devastating" it mostly made me angry).

Someone who commented on my last post said "it isn't that people aren't interested in you, it's just that they are more interested in other people."  Well, so how does that translate in real-world terms?  It's not just about ego (basically, I know that living where I'm living - forgive me for inconsistent math, it's not my strong suit - I am like someone who nationwide is in the 88th percentile among classical singers who nonetheless ends up in the 20th percentile here).  It's about being cheated out of a chance to do things that are "fun".  For me, singing opera scenes is fun.  Singing art songs on a program with other people singing art songs, where we all get our chance to shine, is fun.  So I am cheated out of these chances to have "fun" even at the lowest level.  I wouldn't call the singing I do in church "fun", unless I am singing a part where I can stand out (like being one of two second sopranos in a very difficult piece, or singing an alto part with the odd F or G in it that none of the other altos can sing).  Singing church solos is spiritually fulfilling, but rarely "fun" (singing Erfreute Zeit was an exception) because I am singing during communion and always have to choose something quiet and unobtrusive, although I do get compliments.  Getting compliments and applause is fun.  Dressing up because the occasion is "special" is fun.  So in addition to being made to feel mediocre and unimportant, I am deprived of "fun".  And if I try to plan something myself, people don't come (except for a few friends who want to be supportive) because, as this commenter said, there are always things to do that are more fun, where they can hear world class musicians.

So is the only "fun" I'm going to have on a regular basis going to the grocery store in my low cut top and my stage makeup, knowing that people looking at me think I'm some kind of performer?  Or singing opera scenes (sometimes gloriously) in my bathroom for my neighbors, one of whom is a music critic who goes to Lincoln Center three times a week, one of whom is a Juilliard trained coloratura (she actually was quite complimentary to me on several occasions), and many of whom go to the Met once a week when it's in season?

Homework

One of the things my therapist has been doing is giving me homework, which stimulates my imagination in much the same way as the exercises in the back of The Artist's Way did.

Because I spend so much of my life (really all of my work life) in one dimension, looking at text on a screen, and making left brain microchoices, and the rest of my life dealing with an elderly person's pedestrian needs, I really sometimes think my imagination has atrophied.  I mean it didn't happen overnight.  Thirty-five years working in highly regimented environments (whether I was at the bottom or the top of the hierarchy didn't seem to matter much) contributed to this also.

Most of the homework involved making lists of things I enjoy, things I feel passionate about, things that have made me feel elated and optimistic, etc.

Today I came up with something of my own, which I actually put into a spreadsheet (but it does not contain any numbers!!)

It is a list of "Things I Yearn For", with columns going across labeled, "The Last Time I Had That Thing," "Roadblocks to Having That Thing Again," and "How to Have That Thing." Surprisingly, the last column had fewer blanks than I had feared.

Just because, I will precis some of this here, with some of the less than G rated items expunged.

So the first thing on the list was

Star in a performance.  OK, so this I did as recently as last month.  Why don't I do it more often?  Mostly lack of money and lack of access to venues.  I already handle the money issue by not spending money on other things (vacations, clothes, things for the house, entertainment).  As for finding venues, I just need to do more networking.

Be perceived as a star in a group, no matter how small.  This is one of the places I came up empty.  There simply isn't anyplace small enough. I suppose the last time I felt like that was the first few years I was a soloist at the Lutheran church, but the place is now crawling with young conservatory students/graduates.  I am not going to move.  It just is not feasible.  I have ties here, my family has lived here for three generations (I'm the only one left, but it's an urban lifestyle that has been passed down), and I have a rent controlled apartment.

Dress up and attract attention.  This is something I love, love, love, love to do and have never had enough opportunities to do.  Coming from a New York secular Marxist family we didn't have weddings (if people got married it was so that they could start families - they certainly didn't wear expensive white gowns or have bridesmaids), bat mitzvahs, sweet 16 parties, or even proms.  If my high school had a prom no one I socialized with went to it.  I wasn't a wallflower, but the crowd I hung out with was too bohemian for stuff like that.  Then of course there were my years in the Lesbian community where getting dressed up was anathema.  I suppose I had my delayed "prom experience" the last time I went to the Lesbian Pride dance (probably in the early 90s) and was one of three women out of 100 wearing a dress.  It was a long dress that my partner had bought for me and displayed quite a bit of frontage.  So what reason do I have to get dressed up now?  Practically zip.  Something I may do is go to Ricky's and buy some wigs (I have a gypsyish one that I wear for my Habanera turns).  They cost about $15 apiece. If I got a long platinum blonde one I could dress up as Dolly Parton.  I have the same type physique and hey, she's about three years older than I am, so there! Maybe I can throw together an outfit and wear a wig with it.  But go where??? I can't go to parties at night for no reason and the handful of parties I do go to wouldn't be for that type of thing.  What's interesting is a woman I know online who is quite ill, and a lot more housebound than I am is having a party themed around a movie and made herself a dress.  I just don't know people who do those things.

Have an online photographic presence.  Maybe I should design myself a web site or a Facebook fan page (I actually looked for instructions for how to do that and couldn't find any).  It's sort of like the Wizard of Oz.  I don't need a big opera contract, I just have to promote myself as if I had one. In this era of the Kardashians maybe I'm trying to do things wrong way round.  I can just be in people's face because I've got chutzpah.

To have "work" that involves deconstructing personalities and personal relationships; especially if you're talking about sexual and romantic relationships.  This took me by surprise.  One of the exercises my therapist had me do was make a list of things I'd done at jobs that I'd actually enjoyed and they all had to do with people: reading and vetting resumes, hiring and training people, having brainstorming sessions with my bosses or other managers about what people were like and what tasks they were best suited for, doing performance evaluations.  I also did quite a bit of this when I counseled at that LGBT center.  People would talk about relationships they were in, dating, lust, longing, limerence, identity, etc.  I remember dressing up and giving a workshop with another woman about being butch and being femme.  I don't get to do any of that now.  Any problem solving I do for a living has to do with language, punctuation, or type fonts.  One of things that I know I envy working singers for is all the time they put in deconstructing characters and their relationships to each other (which often seem to involve a lot of flirting, if not groping!), and playing around with costumes (mentioned earlier).  If I didn't have to take care of my partner (or worry that she would disapprove) I might try to get a job in a store that sold cosmetics or lingerie so I could be around pretty things, and some frivolity and silliness, even if I were only making a minimum wage.  If I only did it 8-10 hours a week I could still do my other work and it might be a nice change.

And last but not least....

The "Wow" factor.  That is, doing something in a group of people and having them respond "YOU can do that???"  That was the response I got when I sang a few bars of "Mon Coeur" in the dressing room at the Port Aransas Community Theater when my play was produced.  And I probably got a reaction like that from the people at the Unitarian Church the first few times I sang something there.  This is the reaction that any soprano who walks into my current choir gets if she can sing above an A.  Alas, there's nothing mezzos can do that seems to elicit that.  No one seems to care how loud I can sing, how many measures I can sing without taking a breath, or how fast I can sing. The last column for this entry came up a total blank. I need to find something...