Three Thoughts for Three Decades

So fine, I turned 30, it’s done, and there’s nothing I can do about it, okay? I am happy to have gotten this particular landmark over with – at least there’s another 10 years before I have something else to dread. In my early 20s my elders counseled me that that was one of the most challenging times of life; but now, every 30+ person I know speaks with a gleam in their eye of good things to come. What the heck, I’ll believe ‘em. Some thoughts:

One rainy Saturday, many years ago, I was eight years old and engaged in my favorite activity: rifling through my mother’s belongings. Silk scarves, old photo albums, two-dollar bills, cook books, perfume, hair curlers, and necklaces made her dresser drawers a knick-knack lover’s delight. I was happily burrowing through a pile of hippie beads when I stopped in my tracks. A photo lay on the table, a photo of me when I was probably around four. I sat down on the bed. I started rocking back and forth, and singing to the picture. And I started crying. Mom came up the stairs. “What’s the matter? What’s the matter?” “Oh,” I buried my face in her lap. “I want to be young again!” I remember how her stomach bounced as she laughed her head off.

Two points: 1) I’m a born discontent; 2) despite those tears some 22 years ago, my youth has managed to stretch this far, and I don’t see a good reason for it to end anytime soon…

Nearly 10 years ago, another rainy afternoon, and I am standing in a cement basement, once again in tears. (I guess that’s my leitmotif!) This particular basement is in Vienna, the home of Klimt’s masterpiece, the Beethoven Frieze. It remains the only piece of fine art that has moved me to tears. The work illustrates Wagner’s programmatic interpretation of Beethoven’s Ninth: humanity’s journey from hostile forces, to poetry, then to music, and finally to happiness, celebrated as an embracing couple surrounded by a choir of angels: dieser Kuss der ganzen Welt. From beginning until resolution, waifish genies float above each frame, eyes closed, arms outstretched. They represent humanity’s yearning for happiness: die Sehnsucht nach dem Glück.

Sehnsucht is a beautiful German word (yes, such a thing exists). The sehn means to yearn and is also related to ‘ardent’ or ‘passionate.’ Sucht means addiction, and also comes from suchen, ‘to seek.’ So much in two syllables! Since that musty day in the Viennese basement, I have kept an image of a Sehnsucht genie posted on my wall by my bed next to my pillow, letting me contemplate my own Sehnsucht before I fall asleep. She reminds me to focus on my goals and dreams, but I suppose her presence is also a bit sad. Yearning for happiness implies the present lack of happiness. As these pages reveal, I know how to find many things in life to complain about. Yet, turning the corner around this decade, I somehow have less inclination to whine, and more Lust to look ahead, and remember all the good things along the way (like a trip to Vienna).

Not long ago a friend remarked that a “transformation” happens in one’s early 30’s. He didn’t elaborate, and I’m not sure what to expect, but it’s a beautiful thought. It might be psychosomatic, but I’ve been feeling on the verge of something lately.

Schicksal is another fine German word. It means ‘destiny,’ but the root suggests it comes from the verb schicken, ‘to send,’ as if destiny not only guided but physically sent you along your path. Earlier this month, destiny sent me to read a magazine article by Milan Kundera, discussing, among other things, Flaubert’s shedding of his lyricism (and romantic prose) at the age of 30, when he sat down to write Madame Bovary. I don’t pretend that greatness is around the corner for me, I’m just curious to see how it all turns out. Ten years ago, I couldn’t have imagined that my life would look the way it does right now. Ten years from now, I will be doing things, living somewhere, meeting people, and being a person I can’t begin to imagine now. Only one way to find out what it will be.

Yonder.

A Crisis of Faith

I am about to finish my second degree in music, my masters, which I've wanted for ages. There are times when I am motivated to the core to pursue the musical path I've had in my sights since I was a child. Yet...

Now is the season when thousands of voice students and para-professionals across the country prepare applications to young artist programs and summer festivals that enable them to build their stage resumes. I am gamely entering the fray, encouraged by my teacher but soundly discouraged by the prospects. There are around 200 programs internationally. There is fierce competition to get in. A few I've looked into accept 25 singers from 500 applicants, or 1 in 20. And although there are larger programs that bring in a range of participants, they often cost upwards of $3,000.

But that's not the problem. It's the process. Who you know is more important than what you know, and you certainly still have to know your stuff. And the countless deadlines, and the fees, and the applications that bark: Incomplete applications will not be processed; Please be advised that sending an application does not guarantee an audition; and Age limits: women- 30, men- 32. Demoralizing to say the least.

This morning, I dawdled over my doggerel instead of running off to practice, as I usually make myself do in the mornings. I could picture a productive day at home, trying my hand at writing and seeing where it takes me. Writing is much like practicing music: by the time we get to the finished product, all the hard work has been done, and we are left with the result, as perfect and flawed as it will be at that time in the development of the person creating it. A musical performance involves a great deal more of spontanaeity than a finely tuned piece of prose, but also much more risk. And not just a risk of mistakes: the difference between a competent performance and a transcendent one can be measured by a hair's breadth.

Writing is more forgiving, and allows so much time for the development of the writer before a "performance:" the publication or revealing of his work. It also seems to allow for broad range of aesthetic tastes. A singer with an unattractive voice faces an uphill batle with any and all audiences. A writer with a repugnant style will still appeal to some people.

I found myself in a foul mood this week, and felt immediately better when I relieved myself of its source. I had begun a book of short stories by Ha Jin, and quickly abandoned it when it filled me with despair. Story 1: public mortification and stomach-turning suicide; story 2: gang rape; story 3: a pig fight that mortally gouges the flesh of a young boy. I'm old fashioned, but I like my art to be beautiful.

I fled to Truman Capote, who I had managed to never encounter before, and I'm a much happier girl. Phrases like "bouncy bon voyage oompahpah" or simply "Holly rubbed her nose" let me paint my own pictures and imagine the characters as if they were my own creation. It's an element that music and writing again have in common: setting the audience at ease and transporting them to a different, and often idyllic, place.

So now it's 8:30 on a Thursday night, I've frittered away good practice time by sitting here writing about writing without ever really writing (this blog is little more than scantily edited stream of consciousness) and wondering if I am coming close to developing my voice, but only to discover that that voice could be better off as soundless words on paper.

And the winner is.....

I still can’t decide!! I’m making too big a deal of this, I know, but it’s fun. The majority of ya’ll seem to prefer ‘Wise,’ but my only hesitation is that I don’t wear that expression on a regular basis. Hmm. But a certain salty soprano wins the prize for putting the most amusing words in my mouth. She suggested that the ‘Wise’ photo looks as if I’m saying:

“I am seven feet tall. And I will kill you if I do not get the role I desire.”

HA!

But moving on, (because it’s not really ALL about me…) I’ve been meaning to post an email from a wonderful tenor I met in Seattle, whose big heart and boundless humor are matched only by his beautiful voice. I still choke up to read this. He touches on some of the things that I find most compelling about performing and studying music: how you open yourself to others in a way that doesn’t happen in daily life, and how the act of recreating art from an earlier time is not only thrilling, but a way of creating another world. Or rather, I feel, speaking with the dead.

Also below is Kevin’s portrait, when he miraculously matched the color of the dining room wall in my apartment in Seattle.

Dear Friends,

As I write, I am on the plane heading home. So much of me is still attached to each of you. Perhaps the only thing sadder for me than the end of the music is that awful feeling of letting go of people I have come to admire, people who have touched my life in some new and deeply meaningful way. Being a professional musician has so many glamorous benefits. There are the beautiful cities, the splendid costumes and of course, the glorious music. There is the excitement of travel and the anticipation of making those new relationships that lift us up to a higher, more beautiful level of being. What a gift it is to have music in our lives, and what a responsibility it is for us to preserve this great art, and to continually renew it either by recreating the past, or creating something new and significant for another generation.

These ten days past have been not only rewarding for me, but revelatory. I was able to rise to new challenges, conquer some old fears and most of all, to cement more than a dozen new friendships. At the moment, I confess that I am sad that time and place and art like what we have just experienced has now faded into the atmosphere. A darkened stage is the loneliest place I know. But I rejoice in the good will and the love that I came to experience with each of you, and in turn, I hope that there was something in or from me that made a difference for good in you.

I have a firm faith in the art of music as a catalyst for change. I believe with every fiber of my being that we, the purveyors of that which is good, just and beautiful were placed on this mortal coil to do good, to soothe pain, to challenge evil; to protect that which is eternal and to heal through sound. Music, like the spirit, never dies. Instead it continues onward into the cosmos on an infinite journey. Those sounds which now seem to have died have taken on a new life, and hopefully they will fall on receptive ears somewhere, somehow beyond our knowing.

To our wonderful faculty, thank you for the knowledge and the patience and for and for giving us the freedom to fly on our own. I can speak for us all when I say that your gifts to us are immeasurable.

To each of you: Borys, John, Yulia, John, Doug, Thea, Beth, Jennifer, Katy, Ilya, Amanda, Matthew, Amy and Jason; thank you for the music, and thank you for the love. Thank you for the gales of laughter and serious discussions. Thank you for the girl talk and even for the occasional admonition. You’ve all written a chapter of my story, and I have been blessed beyond measure to have shared in your lives. Perhaps it’s a bit corny to quote song lyrics. It’s almost as if I’m signing your yearbook or something. But I think that the songwriter said it well when he said: “Who can say if I’ve been changed for the better? But, because I knew you, I have been changed, for good.”

With the deepest affection,

Kevin