an extended meditation on presence (we also have chickens)
My 2.3 readers may remember I spent the summer doing Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way. One point she covers throughout the 12-week process is "synchronicity," or the idea that when you're on the right path artistically, things just sort of line up for you.
Every week's reflection questions included "did you experience any synchronicity this week? what was it like?" And every week my answer was basically the same: "stop talking to me about synchronicity, this question annoys the crap out of me."
(Sidebar that really should be its own post: the reason this question annoys me is that I grew up with a mother who drank the entire A Course in Miracles punchbowl and who used it as an excuse to talk me out of everything teen me was discovering about myself, so no, I don't want to hear The Universe(TM) has some Mysterious Plan(TM) for my life.)
Anyway, enter this morning, where I spent my Morning Pages
(Sidebar 2: Unlike "synchronicity," the Morning Pages have been incredibly helpful for me and I will probably never not do them again unless the world runs out of paper)
writing about how I am, for the first time in my life, heading into a holiday season with no performances on my schedule. None. And I mean for the FIRST time in my life. I was Baby Jesus my first Christmas and it was downhill from there. (Demoted to sheep for the next two, got a free upgrade to Angel Class in the fourth, and then it was choir and/or musician henceforth, forever. Christmas and Easter are the two holidays where classical musicians can count on getting paid.)
A tiny part of me likes not having my evenings scheduled with rehearsals. The rest of me Cannot Deal with the idea of not performing anymore.
Before my husband died, we'd talked about joining a community choir together, but COVID and then an SUV ended those plans. So on a whim, I looked up community choir options around here.
I found one holding rolling auditions. They require what they call "sight reading" but they give you the piece in advance so ???? They also require an audition piece prepared ahead of time, byo sheet music.
Acquiring sheet music isn't a big deal for me, but I haven't auditioned for a choir in ages, and the last time I did I was given the piece (it was "September" from The Fantasticks). So I figure I'll go ask the school's choir director for help.
I walk into her room, she's nowhere in sight, but on the piano is a copy of "Tell Me On a Sunday" from Song and Dance, a song I know by heart but haven't thought about in twenty years and which, on perusal, lies EXACTLY within my comfortable range. Also she's happy to let me run as many copies as I need, so I don't even have to order sheet music.
Said choir rehearses in an evening slot I have open anyway, in a location I know well and have done lots of "music stuff" in before, an easy ten minute drive from my house. And they're doing Carmina Burana later this season - Husband's favorite and the thing he wanted to join a community choir again in order to perform.
I still don't want to talk about synchronicity. But I know what it looks like when the pieces align.
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