northern light

I wasn't raised talking about faith and the scriptures every day

We prayed before going to bed

My mother sang

I believed, as many children do, without fear

God was watching over me.

My elders instructed me in the ways of early mornings

A steaming cup of tea by a lake

And deep darkness late at night

Waiting and hoping

Ready to run gleefully out on the dock arms

Wrapped around each other

Hugging one another in the cold

Grins blinding the nights sky

The one night the aurora borealis arrived

I was twelve

It hasn't come back since.

Each day still

I prepare for its return

I have no fear

Such is my faith.

Morning laughs

Teach me

Instruct me in the methodology

Formulaic steps toward the goal

Of increasing morning laughter I fear

The prognosis isn't great

One shouldn't awaken to tears of sadness

It's jarring and sudden

Let's ease into the day

(It's Saturday, for Pete's sake!)

A chuckle, an exhale to start

A little smile, however brief

Is what we're after

Nearness is better but far-ness works too

Come, we'll work together

To make a giggly you.

6 am, on Long Island

They didn't believe me when 

I told them, gently, that I would do my best to

Be very quiet

For I knew I would wake up 

Very early

And need to occupy myself for a long time to let them sleep

I've been in the practice since I was a child

Seems I've always had a proclivity for early mornings

Needing to mull things over

Allow myself to be sad

Tears onset before it seems my eyes are open

What fears have happ'd in dreams

I know not

These days I don't remember my dreams

Sleep is short and weak

My body reveals the upset state

Of heart

The uncertainty of today

Of tomorrow

The Sehnsucht for a small piece of hope

That will not come.

Ode to the Boston Symphony Orchestra

The horn warms its bell and tubular

Copper early in the morning

I arrive to start my day

Lists agendas to-dos and not-to-dos

Questions unanswered problems unsolved

It's early.

The office is empty as I peel off winter 

Sweaters and coat scarves small gloves

Folding each neatly, one upon another

It calms my mind to smooth out

Wrinkles around me

Hands on the keyboard

Poker-straight posture

And I buckle 

Down down down

To the small corner

It's too early for violins

Violists slumber still

Me, a horn only

Our mournful morning vocalise

Rises

As you shall rise, soon.

Back to the desk

To my friends

To my family

I pause and look

Peering from the chair an old maestro preferred

And then from out of the door 

The magic ones, the heart ones, the soul 

Of the symphony

It was after the concert
a flaming crimson dress with hindemith
on her fingertips
My friend invited me out

onto this sacred ground

So simply

With a shy smile and wave of the hand 

"Come with me"

How timidly I tiptoed, hands clasped

Heart beating

Dreams and future stirrings not daring to be awakened
fluttering scurrying putting on their costumes
tuning their viols and slapping their cheeks
a vision of joining my friends
and releasing sound
to what suddenly appear to be a small group
of only the beloved ones
waiting and watching

it no longer feels impossible. 

How too must have they felt,

Those whose paths were forevermore 

Altered

The day a nice young man  looked into their eyes

Simply

Inviting them, to join him
in paradise.

for CM, TS, and me

the opera glasses slipped out of my hand
they are inlaid with pearl
they posess that certain mysterious

intermingling 
the kind also found in my
grandmother's cookbooks

the ones no one else wanted

the hats gloves shoes that fit
no one

(but me)

i will fix these--
for that is ever my task
a solemn desire for all to be well
whole, content, beloved
warm

full stomach of noodles and mushroom stew
home from a terrible bike ride in the rain
pausing
shaking the rain out of his long hair
he inhales and smiles into my eyes

early in the morning i stop to wonder why
why to care at all
it would hurt less
be 
"easier"

perhaps


the good ones
the sweet grandchildren of the world
know dearly
at what cost 
we love

our grandmothers
for they loved and cared
and instructed us 
in each their own quiet or 
particular way
to do the same

our grandmothers

yellow kitchen filling
the small pocket of a memory

borrowed from a friend 6 hours ahead
but abiding in my present

space untouched
coffee pot undisturbed

sunlight hitting the same spot
as this time last year

empty
without but with

the bus took me north of my 
usual hemisphere

the need was too strong
to hear a well-known whistle

to sit in a white kitchen
and see the yellow morning sun

stream through familiar windows
full

 

for Davina

Ginger candle and dream catcher in the weary early hour, when the rest of the world is sleeping.

The people who love you are with you, and are all around. I would, that you feel this, even though you are asleep and shall soon leave this world. 

for d.


sunshine at the desk
fixing it all with a smile
---a wonderful girl







(be strong)

the practice room

A year ---  

I don't count time

I let it hold me in its clutching embrace

Sooner or later it will release

And I'll slide quietly away, hoping it won't stir as I ease on my boots and click the door shut behind me

Toward water

Rock paper and scissors where water

Beats time

Time beats heartache

Sunrise crowned ruler over all

How many sunrises have I seen this year

How much water has bathed my frazzled limbs caressed every spot his hands 

Used to know

Held me when my heart thrashed 

Body cried

Soul ached.

I count time maybe then by sweets

Made for friends

Birthday cakes

Sparkling frosted cookies

Pieces of my brokenness

Made lovely again

I count it too by the strain of my calves 

After a long morning's walk by the river

Through the snow

To arrive back, somehow, 

Here

The murmur and lone horn 

Warming his lungs in the hallway obscured

By stacked tables and chairs and serenading me 

To this little room

Where maybe here, myself will allow myself

heart mind and soul to sit and hold hands. Speak softly of dreams

Willing body to fuse into one sound---

Alleluia.

Auditions and things

This past Sunday I auditioned for an orchestra for the first time in 4 years. 

It felt great. 

Not perfect, but I was dizzy from the performance high for the rest of the day. Cooking couldn't even calm me down, which truly says something. 

Tomorrow I'm auditioning for another thing, a project where I would sing Schubert Lieder in a museum to a solitary patron seated in the middle of people wandering, lingering, instagraming, feeling uncomfortable or disinterested and probably, for the most part, actively ignoring the lady in the big flowy costume singing loudly in German. 

I'm not sure I want to do the gig even if I get it, but I know I want to audition. The preparation has been more than just time spent in the basement of Symphony Hall banging notes and figuring out how to hold long Schubertian notes in the middle of my range as quietly as I possibly can. I've walked all over Cambride and Somerville with these Lieder in my ears, allowing them to enter my world. Inviting my world to enter theirs. I've turned each syllable over and over in my mouth, finding the best spot for the rolled R and the allided "d" and "t". The melodies have intertwined with grinding of subway trains and screeching of the tired of awful boston drivers and melted into twilight on my dusky walks home and across town. It's good cold weather music, the kind that makes you want to hug your mom and cook your best friend a cake and talk long into the night. Instead I've mostly been talking to this cat Marcus who I'm cat-sitting and watching rom-coms. Well, when I'm not practicing.

Each time I go to sing "Du bist die Ruh", I try to have something or someone different in mind for the "du". Sure, I could pull out my musicology texts and look at the influences for this time period or perhaps there is someone specific Schubert had in mind, but maybe I'll do that after the audition.

For tomorrow, I've sung this song, this surprisingly simple lullaby of a song, with at least 20 or more different personas for the "du". I wanted to prepare myself to sing this intimate piece to the curator of the museum, to my coworker, to my oldest friend, to an ex-boyfriend, to a small child, to an old man, and so on. I don't want there to be any person who would be more of a challenge than another to sing for. Though it is something different entirely, to sing looking into someone's face. There's not much you can to do prep for that in the practice room. I've learned, the only thing you can ever trust in performance or auditions is your breath. Your heart and mind will both fail you, but the breath wil always sustain and allow you to keep singing. We practice to get the technique in place, so we can focus on the breath and let the sound blossom out naturally. If you rely to much on either your heart and mind to sing, you're never going to make it through singing the important piece of music for a difficult funeral in the morning the day after you've been dumped. Only breath gets you through that--- no thinking or feeling allowed.

---

Oftentimes when I'm sitting on the T or the bus, I notice people who seem familiar to me. A few minutes pass and I'm gladdened by this small moment of recognition for it feels good to know people in the world--- but then I realize I only know them from seeing them before on my commute. I don't, well, actually know them.

There must be a couple dozen people in this city who have no idea that seeing them every other day or every couple of weeks is for me, a moment of peace and joy. Is that strange? Or is it kind of what the artist doing all of these performance pieces about intimate interactions with strangers is trying to get at?

Depending on what happens in the audition, and whether it's actually going to be a paid gig (still unfortunately unclear, but they want each singer to do a lot of hours over the run of the piece, so one would hope there's decent compensation--), I would imagine myself inviting the strangers on my commute. Could I do that? Hey, nice blonde guy with the knee brace who prefers to stand even when there's a seat and who's been wearing that knee brace for months on end, come let me sing for you, you can stand, I know sitting sucks for your knee. Hey lovely woman with the best velvet hats who gets on the bus to ride only three stops each time I see her, please take a seat and let me tell you that you, to me, are full of something deeply beautiful. To the Junot Diaz look a like who teaches at Berklee, from the apparel and occasional instrument bags, I would quietly say hi, check out this thing I'm doing. It's not really about me; it's actually about you. I want you to accept this offering. Consider it; let us have this moment. 

---

After weeks spent now living with these Schubert Lieder and picking my one to sing tomorrow, I blow-dried my hair, and ended the final prep night with some soul-rocking arias from Herr Kaufmann for inspiration to open my lungs and let er rip. 

And we're off.