When they ask you, say "Yes"

I have all of $3 to my name at the moment.  And for good reason.  I paid all my bills up so that I could go to San Francisco free and clear next weekend.  Between my get-through-the-week stash tucked away in my Nashville apartment and a few dollars my mom was supposed to give me from some medicine I'd purchased for her a couple weeks ago, I was "scheduled" to be okay.

Any time you go into a hospital there are tons of questions asked.  Medical history, level of pain, dietary choice, DNR or not to DNR.  But it's the questions asked to those who are dealing with the illness or difficult circumstance surrounding a loved one that give me the most trouble.  It's the "Do you need anything?" type of questions.  I don't know why communicating that I do actually need something when asked this is one of the most uncomfortable feelings on earth.  For me, at least.  Right now, me and my light purse need to say yes to that question as often as I can.  "Yes, " I would like some lunch."  "Yes, I do need a little cash to hold me over."  Today I said it twice and you better believe that I feel so much better with a full belly and gas money!  But why the awky process?  Pride?  No.  Fear of being demoted from super heroine to non-self-reliant?  Maybe.
My mother is in a lot of pain right now, but in her sub awareness she always says "No" when asked if she's in pain, amidst waves of whincing and grunting.  Working with the moderate coherence she does have I've been trying to prompt her each time she moans.  "When they ask you if you are having any pain, say 'Yes.'  So what are you going to say now?"  "Yes."  ..."okay, good."  That way you won't have to hurt anymore.  Nurse: "Are you having any pain, Mrs. King?" Mom: (faintly): "No..."  *whince*grunt*moan*

In other news, I made a step in the right direction and brought a couple of my opera books to the hospital with me.  Did I open them?  Ummm, that would be a No.  I am once again hopeful for tomorrow...six days until lesson time and counting.  As of right now, I'm still planning on making the trip.  I need this.  I need to feel like I am still moving in a vocal direction eventhough I'm mostly caught up in a holding pattern.  I have to say "Yes" and feel the relief, the loosening of the burden, the lifting of the veil when someone asks if they can do anything.  Now, let's just hope they ask...

My mother just said "Yes" too.  At long last, morphine winds its slow way up the IV tube...

Question of the day: Are you taking on things all by yourself that would be made easier if you would just say "YES" to help?

"Remember that you are human..."

Today's (tonight's) title...a quote from the darling and blunt JP.

I have exactly 24 minutes to write this entry if I'm going to make my midnight deadline for this post to authentically be written on 8/29.  I desparately tried all day to first read my muse's post, but constantly kept being (kindly) interrupted.  Such and so called.  This person stopped by.  It was time for the 13th medication.  The 3rd breathing treatment.

My mother is misbehaving once again, AKA - is in the hospital.  Pneumonia.  With all the misbehaving she's been doing over just the past three months, I would say she's been shopping in the wrong catalogue.  Not only did she have to get  a cancer that happens to only 1-2 per million people. (We know you're one in a million mom, but this time you've just gone too far!!)  But to add to this, she's had a pulmonary embolism, atrial fibrilation, seizures, and now pneumonia!  That's just about everything in the book, don't cha think?

So what does all of this have to do with me, the singing, and the dreams?  Nothing short of everything.  You see how far back I'm pushed with trying to get this blog entry in under the deadline.  Can you imagine if this were an application deadline when it really mattered???  But it isn't an application.  Thank God it isn't.  I talk about dreaming, but the biggest part of it is dealing with the everyday reality.  The paradoxical reality that just because I'm human it doesn't mean that I'm always to blame when things go off schedule, off track.  And it's not my mother's fault either.

I have eight minutes left.  But if I were in Florida, I'd already be an hour late, while in California, I'd still have two hours to spare.  So is it really that big of a deal?  Of course not.  Not this time.  I guess what I'm trying to say is that this weekend was supposed to be about learning and practice.  A couple of days devoted to broadening my repetiore and locking it into place for my lesson next week.  A lesson that I may not get to because flying out to San Francisco might not be the best thing right now.  I can't feel bad that my music books have been riding around in my car for the past two days, sliding about with every sharp turn and even gentle slowing to stoplights.  I brought them because my mother has a piano in her house and I don't. 

It's a Clavinova keyboard, one of those you can plug a book into and play along with this symphonic accompaniment.  It was a new and novel thing, top of the line when we first got it.  I remember all of the different experimentations with rhythms and modes.  Stereo Piano 4 is my favorite.  In all its timelessness, it has been a place where my awkward fingers failed at even basic piano until the age of 10.  It's been the source of musical doting and duels where my mother's creative input bellowed from its keys to help me play my violin in tune.  And now, it's a place where note by note, I pluck away at new arias and sing them as she once did on a piano long ago. 

12:05am has just rolled around and I've missied my deadline.  As hard as it will be for me to grasp the fact that I will physically write two entries on the same day, what's fortunate is that my blog graces me and charts the minute you start, not the mintue you finish.  Hmmm, I think a quote or some profound sermon should be born out of that...

Question of the day - Are there aspects of your life that may not be going quite right where you need to "remember that you are human...?"

Happy Birthday

Because of my integrity to read JP's blog only day by day, I found today that she actually didn't title her blog entries.  Sigh...so, I'm back on my own when it comes to subject and direction for my own entries...sigh again...Wait, not sigh.  I can do this!

No, it's not my birthday...the honor belongs to my now 27 year old cousin Mark Jones, a recent graduate from Le Cordon Bleu Culinary School, Los Angeles.  Believe you me, I have had many a decadent meal complements of his talent and schooling.  YUMMM!! This time last year, I was a month into my move to Fresno and since he was just a train ride away, I went down to celebrate and had a MOST memorable time...and I'll leave it right there.  TeeHee...  This was the first of many train rides and now plane rides I've made to LA to spend time with he and his awesome girlfriend, Z.  Last I saw them, it was actually the weekend before my birthday, my 30th birthday. **cue horror music**

As bad as it hasn't been to be 30, it's been a real kick in the pants to my opera hopes and dreams.  In the world of classical voice, a "Young Artist" is considered to be in the 18-35 age range.  Well, over the past few years, go figure, this margin has decreased to around 30-32.  As in, the Metropolitan Opera national competition used to have an age limit of 33, it's now 30 and a 1/2.  This past January I was deciding whether or not to do the competition despite the fact that I vowed to myself three years ago that I would do it every year I was eligible.  Considering the fact that I will still be nice and 30 for the coming year's competition, guess what?  My birthday is outside of the 30 and a 1/2 cut off by like two months.  Sooooo disappointing.  The good news is that I went ahead and did the auditions and WON at the district level.  As for Regional, I completely chocked.  Couldn't get the voice out of my body.  One judge said, "If you can't sing in Memphis, how are you going to sing in New York?"  As offended as I initially was at this comment, this was probably the single most helpful feedback ever!

Why in the heck would I be scared to sing, AKA so nervous that the voice hides, like literally, under my spleen and behind my lanrynx?  No reason whatsoever!!  I will breathe and my voice will bellow out.  No fear.  No hiding.  My slate of auditions/competitions for the season is decided.  I'll include a list of them in my post on the 28th.  JP gave me the day off tommorow.  Hold me accountable, darling readers!!  In most cases, these will be my last shot to win career-enabling money and exposure.  No time for nerves.  I have some big impressions to make...

My mom isn't doing well today... Pain.  Swollen legs.  Falls.  Only wants to sleep.  Time is of the essence for the both of us...Tic. Toc...

Question of the day: We all should have faith that everything happens for a reason it its own sweet and perfect time.  But in reality, are there timers running down in your world that could stunt, if not cancel your dreams?

The How's and Wherefore's...

Rule #2 for this blog: Since taking on this new project, things to write about are rushing about me both day and night, I am going to title my entries according to my inspirator, Mrs. Julie Powell.  It will give me a center and help me focus the day's writing.  Hmmm...hope that doesn't obstruct some kind of copyright precept.  Well, today's title has apostrophes.  Hers does not...::shrug::

So, how will I blaze a trail in the opera world?  In a matter of months???  That is definitely something I can't answer right now.  I'm going to stop trying to answer for the months ahead.  What's best is that I gather all the cliches and quotes like carpe diem, yadah, yadah, yadah...and finally believe in them enough to alter my m.o.  Today, I can make a stride.  What stride?  Stop procrastinating about mapping out my audition plan and write the thing down!!!  Why do we always do this?  We want to do something good, noble, progressive, or just plain fun and we put it off today, off tomorrow, until it's "4-6 months." 

I've never asked my mom if there were things in life she wanted to do, but never did...maybe I should.  I mean, from my eyes, I can say that she's had a great life with the same share of heartache as anyone else.  A plucky childhood with loving parents and close siblings.  Marriage.  Divorce.  Birth of children.  Teaching children.  Adopting a child.  The death of a child.  Losing a husband, a sister, friends...I still remember the day I did the math and realized that she had been a teenage mother.  It was a revelation about her life and why she finished college in her late 30's and a master's degree at 41.  And then it made sense to me why she was so "cautionary" about me ruining my life by being a baby having a baby!  One summer, at 14 years old, I came back from a music arts camp and was welcomed back by grilling about about alleged "trouble" I'd gotten into with boys.  "I'll take you to the abortion clinic," she said.  OMG to the absolute MAX!!!!!!!!!!!!  I certainly believe in at least one immaculate conception, but an immaculate abortion???  I've still not let her live that down...in love, of course.  I asked her a short while ago about what it was like telling her mother about much too soon bundle of joy.  From her account, her mother seemed rather disappointed, but calm...she and the father married.  She finished high school through a home program of some sort.  Her life was altered, but far from ruined...

I talked to my mother yesterday she asked me a question of her own.  She said, "And what about your voice?"  For some reason, I got so sad and even bothered.  Why?  Because all I could tell her is that I'm going to San Francisco next week for yet another lesson with my far away voice teacher...but that's not sad.  It's a good thing, kind of.  No, it is sad because this very well could be my last lesson.  I'm at an impasse where I want to do things that my teacher doesn't agree with, as in summer programs for young artists.  And I think she disagrees to the point of not supporting me in writing recommendation letters and the like.  She says I'm "above" these types of programs and instead I should do her summer institute program once again that for one, does not offer any pay and two, has not gained me ANY exposure.  So, this will be a hard one. 

But as I said up top, I cannot drag myself down with something happening even as little as a week from now.  I will make my map of auditions and competitions I want to do, and the repertoire that goes with each!  That is, wherefore, what I can do TODAY on my trailblazing quest!

Question of the day: What are you putting off for tomorrow what you could be doing today?

New Direction...The Sammie/Julie/Julia Project...

It's Blog Relaunch Day!!!!!

Okay, so I'm an abandoner...I began this blog a year ago upon anticipating my move to Fresno. What I wanted: A courageous tale about a young woman finally reaching her dreams!! What it turned into: Endless droning about the awfulness of central California and my depressing internal state!! BUT!! I now have a plan. On August 14th, I watched the movie Julie & Julia three, no four, times. Coincidentally, I found "The Juile/Julia Project" actually still in its raw form on salon.com. Read along with me here: http://blogs.salon.com/0001399/2002/08/25.html

I think Mrs. Powell and I have a lot in common. Well, that is, when she first started her life-altering project. Likewise coincidental, she began on August 25th, 2002. So, eight years later, I link up with JP in an attempt to change my own life with only one simple rule: For every day that she wrote about her journey through the Julia Child cookbook, so shall I write about my quest for full-time operahood.  So no, I won't be cooking, with the intent to write about it, anyway.  I'm a good cook and I love doing so, but here's my take.  My mother is ill. Cancer. "There's nothing we can do." 4-6 months they say. HA! Only GOD has the final say!! Knowing her, she'll be smiling and kickin 4-6 years from now!!! Reality sets back in...

I'm an opera singer. She wanted to be an opera singer. She wants me to be all the opera singer both she and I were/are supposed to be. So, I have the rest of her life to sing my way into some opera grandeur - whether landing a contract, winning mega opera competition(s), encountering a magical moment when that particular career-enabling someone just happens to hear me.  Oh say, during "borrowed" time in a Blair School of Music practice room at Vanderbilt or some other random juncture that would make for good storytelling!

Audition season is upon thousands of singers with the same objective (hopefully without the ailing parent part.) So, applications are going out, new arias and art songs being researched and memorized, cross country treks to lessons are being booked. I'm just going to sing. If they want me, great. If not, don't ask me what I'll do then, but this process is not about that. It's about the one and only opportunity I have to make my mother's final resting pillow plush with the news that her daughter has plenty of places to sing...

Aaaaannnnddd..ACTION!! Buona voce!!

(The one thing I am keeping from the old blog format...) Question of the day: Don't you think it's time to relaunch some things in your life?