Making fun and sense of vision

Alas, my darling JP gave me a title once again!!  Just a little curious as to whether it will enable or prohibit creatively bare my mind...Let's try it out...UPDATE: I ended up completely ignoring it in terms of content so ended up going with an original title.  YAY me!!

Thanks to the vigil at my mother's bedside, I happened upon the documentary, "A Surprise in Texas" which is the equivalent to the Met Opera competition film of the same, on for pianists.  The world-renown Cliburn competition.  As much as I was goose-bumped with the shared victories of those who triumphed through each level and eventually took hope the medals, I was mostly relieved that I'm a singer instead.  Nearly all of the top 6 played my favorite Rachmaninoff concertos and I reminisced about my days playing in symphony orchestras accompanying talented singers and instrumentalists.  My mother asked me if I missed it.  I said 'No.'  And I don't miss it.  Forgive this slight boast, but I am perfectly content to leave behind my own talent and skill for string instruments.  I am grateful for the 20 years that my violin and viola wove together a series of music, travel, rehearsals, concerts, and formalities that formed so much of my growing up and early adult years. 

What I don't miss?  Sitting for three plus hours playing those dreaded pieces I could care less about.  Playing with a suckful group of musicians that wouldn't be able to play Stravinsky even after three months of rehearsals let alone the three days we had.  Playing only for a mere paycheck. 

....wait...my mom gets a little of her medicine in her and starts these hilarious (not in her right mind, of course) rants based on things she hears and sees on TV.  Having just watched David Letterman, she woke up after the lightest of sleep and started talking about how she is an instrumental part of the building of the Ground Zero mosque.  Said she'd kept it to herself until now because she wanted to let Donald Trump have is time in the sun...I video'd it...will make for most comedic viewing...maybe I should make a web series out of it..."The Musings of a Sundowner"  Okay, okay...maybe just a book.  I could even find some other patients who have similar "episodes" and write 'em all down!!  That's IT!!  Millions, get ready to be made, babeh!! And nobody steal my idea, got it!  HAHAHAHA!

So, where was I?  Ah yes.  What I don't miss about my former symphonic life.  The biggest thing I don't miss is playing for singers while wishing it was me standing at the front of the orchestra whispering tempo requests to the conductor.  How many times I've practiced my future right-kind-of-diva decorum.  Most people would be embarrassed to be caught picking their nose, and so would I, but if someone ever walked in on me shaking invisible hands and singing towards the, likewise invisible, orchestra during a first rehearsal, Id be all too mortified!!  If only my mother and my apartment complexes past and present never knew how many times I erected concert halls within their property walls, I think they'd try to commit me!

But you know, I think that's what defines many of the 'made it' stories we hear from those who have ascended to the ranks of fame and good works.  They envisioned their greatness far before it ever happened.  Hopefully, that's what I'm doing too...

Question of the day:  Setting aside the "it hasn't happened yet" part, aren't visions of greatness fun??

"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...?"