Saturday Soul Searching

Sometimes I just cannot believe the ways the universe sends me little messages, to keep going, that every thing's going to be okay, don't give up the ship, you don't totally suck, etc. This week, my message came in the form of the Amazon.com preview to Kelly Cutrone's new book "If You're Going to Cry, Go Outside." Oddly appropriate.

I like bad ass women, the kind who are brutally honest and sometimes yell at people for being stupid. Okay, well, I like reading their books and watching them on TV, maybe not living with or seeing them on a daily basis, that might change my tune. But I think it's because there is a part of me that wants to believe I could DO that if I were ever in a position to need to do some ass-kicking. I don't like to have my own ass kicked, really, but it would be cool to be so evolved that you felt like you were wise enough to do it to others.

At any rate, after reading the beginnings of a couple of chapters, I'm pretty sure it's a book I need to own, and unfortunately, it also looks like her show is another I'll be addicted to on Bravo. But for once, I might actually learn something from TV, besides random facts that I can never use and people just think I'm weird for knowing. Like last night I was talking about the Saxe-Coburg family and hemophilia in the royal families of Europe and Russia, and then went off on a tangent about the mystical monk Rasputin, and only the people who had seen Anastasia knew even remotely what the hell I was talking about. It was embarrassing, but, again...true to form, I digress. The point I was trying to make is that Kelly, my new hero, has written a book about women, our intuition, our inner voice-- the soul that tells us what we REALLY want, versus what is expected of us by society, by family, by friends, and how to listen to it. It's not about being the smartest, the prettiest, or the most talented-- it seems like it might be about having the courage to TRY to do the thing you really love doing. That having the fortitude to give it a try, knowing that failure is a very real possibility, is as much a part of building yourself to the point where it can happen, as believing that it will. That also, failure, if it comes, is often the death that leads to the rebirth you need to point you in your next direction, and that you will know what it is when you see it.

Maybe people don't care as much as I think they do, and it is my own neurotic brain telling me stories (another voice I need to stop listening to), but I have always felt that everyone at large would feel better if I married a rather well-off man and settled in for a life of teaching and singing here and there and having three kids and a dog and all while living in an upper middle class suburb in a lovely house with landscaping. I totally get that. It actually sounds like a great life. Financial security sounds really awesome. I know lots of people that have that, and I love them, and I love it FOR them. At least I would know I was safe, and relatively taken care of, but I doubt it would make me less crazy. And I know I would have regrets.

But what I'm starting to realize is that having doubt about following a path is not a sign to go in a different direction. It's a natural feeling to have sometimes, to wonder what the hell am I doing getting on this bus for the fortieth time this year. I don't REALLY want to do this right now, do I? I'm tired. I just had rehearsal for something else, and getting dressed and made up and putting my ass on a bus for an audition is the last thing I feel like doing at the moment. Would I like to spend my money on going to get a massage and my nails done instead of a bus ticket and practice room and a slice of pizza on the way home? Yes! But the fact that I don't is a sure sign that I'm not ready to to go back to grad school and get that psychology degree (mental health-- now that would be a hell of a profession for moi). I don't want to. I want to keep singing, even when I don't want to keep singing. Being a singer may hurt a lot sometimes, but I'd rather have it in my life than live without real passion for something, and I can't think of anything else I feel this way about.

So for now, I remain, your soprano who steps out. Once in a while. Mostly I just go to work and go to auditions.