We are, collectively as humans, in a tunnel. Can you feel it?
Here I am, just turning 32 this weekend. Somehow, it feels more significant than the big "3-0" did.
In a hotel room this morning, packing up after a lovely birthday night away (courtesy of the World's Greatest Husband, C.), I happened upon a documentary ("
The Last Truck") about the workers who lost their jobs when the GM plant in Dayton, Ohio shut down in December 2008.
An employee who had worked many of the plant's operating 27 years was asked, "what will you do now?" She tearfully gazed away from the camera and whispered, "I don't know."
I have much in common with this person. You see, I am an opera singer.
(If you have decided to continue reading this)
I have chosen an unusual profession which, at worst - in the scheme of things, is probably useless on a practical level, nothing like putting someone's car together.
But it is, like all art, still the "
Necessary Angel" (we love you,
Wallace Stevens).
At its best, opera is a vehicle by which those who share the human experience might vicariously purge the emotions we cannot express (either because they're taboo, or cause us discomfort, to do so).
Not to wax "the misunderstood artist", but I did not choose opera (as opposed to musical theater, pop, or jazz). My voice did. And my voice resides at my core, so I continue to obey.
When I think about my own career timeline, I have been singing for about 10 years - i.e. I have been getting opportunities to perform, solo, in the context of an opera production or classical music concert for audiences since I was 22.
During that time, I developed my skills and honed my singing and acting talents. I shunned the idea of a Masters, because A. I hate school (I don't want to talk about singing, I want to sing), and B. I am rebellious at heart and hate the idea of following a template.
So I learned "on the job". With each accomplishment, my standards and goals adapted.
At first I was happy just to sing anything, anywhere, whether I got paid or not. Then, practicality and self-respect demanded that I narrow my "yesses" to opportunities that paid. Over the years, the gigs have gotten a little more "legitimate", albeit local to where I live - some pay more than others, and some are more fulfilling than others (these two aspects don't always go hand-in-hand, oddly enough).
Something shifted in me this year. I can't say it was a sudden thing, or triggered by any one identifiable event/person, etc.... it has felt like an inner renaissance, a renewal that has been lying dormant within me until now.
Not sure where it was leading, I began to make some changes, starting with the physical. I went off all prescription medications, determined to find better mind-body balance without the invasion of synthetic chemicals.
I shed weight. I began eating and exercising in a spirit of mindfulness.
I began to observe the areas of my life where I tend to let fear win, and began to make a conscious and absolute effort to be brave.
I began to talk more lovingly to myself.
And as I traveled through these changes, it became so clear to me that the singing opportunities that were on my calendar at the time, no longer fit.
My goals and standards are again shifting. Pragmatically, I will head into this audition season with all the "gear": the website, the audition clothes, the appropriate audition repertoire - I will network and scour the internet and snatch and grab every opportunity that hints at a step up. And I will work at the balance required to leave all of that at the door, so that during a 5-minute audition, I can open my being and be the artist I work to be in my practice at home, and in my teachers' studios.
But the big question will loom: How will I define myself within a business (opera) whose rules of engagement, politics, and definition of success, are so solidly etched, so unchangeable? How does my life, the person God created me to be, fit into that machine? And perhaps a followup to that question is, MUST I fit into it?
But like the woman in the documentary, "I don't know."
This is a tunnel. A dark one.
Have you noticed that we are ALL there? Have you noticed that everyone you talk to is there? I mean, sure. The economy is bad, people are losing jobs and homes - the things that give us an outward sense of security and continuity. But is that really the cause? Or is it the other way around - a physical manifestation of an inner awakening that's been due in the collective unconscious? Chicken, egg...
From where I sit, I see two options: 1. back out of the Tunnel and go back to that which we already know, and with which we are comfortable; or 2. stay faithful to the part of us that knows we must keep moving forward, with assurance that something really good, beautiful, enriching, and Right is at the end of it.
I will blog on this for a year, from age 32 to 33. I will post my Tunnel Travels, and I will not hide the times that I will want to back out - I will also not apologize for, nor shrink from, the glimpses of bright light that I see ahead.
Because I think that what will keep us all traveling forward, is the encouragement that comes when we realize we are not alone.
