It's not often I get to use my shoes as a way to describe my thoughts, so here they are! Black, heeled and oh so purdy. White, somewhat comfy and wearing the wrong laces.
I wore the black shoes this Saturday. They went well with my black dress, the one which seems to be the costume for singing the serious stuff. Singing was serious yesterday, even though it's quite joyful in parts.
Some of it is massive, other bits are very subdued, but all of it is beautiful and very unlike our usual repertoire. Of course we're not the first (or the last, beating Eindhoven to the post) to perform this, so youtube provides some great performances, like this one, which is Movement I of the Queen Symphony
I wouldn't dream to suggest I could sing to that level, but not for lack of trying. Trying is made a lot easier because of the enthusiasm and, dare I say Charisma (such an awful word, but quite correct here) of the people we're working with. The fact that the choir conductor was pleased(!) during practise can be called quite a miracle, as he never seems entirely happy at regular choir practise. There's always room for improvement, quite a bit of room to be honest... After the try-out he still seemed quite pleased "with some bits which turned out quite beautiful" which may possibly have been the bits we didn't sing. I'm not sure he specified. Anyway, we'll take the sort-of-compliments when we can, won't we?
The other conductor, who is actually in charge of us all seems to radiate joy in what he does, it's quite addictive. He got me thinking about having so much joy in what you do that you infect other people with that positive energy... Be honest, how often do you get to experience that? I don't, not often.
Are you that person? I'm not.
I moan a lot about a job which does little more for me than pay the bills and keeps me from not leaving the house. The people around me moan about their jobs too, because we share the same lack of enthusiasm. My mentor finding joy in his latest nickname "Rain man" isn't quite the same thing. He just remembers a lot of useless facts and can do numbers in his head.
Anyway, if you've been keeping up, you know that enjoyment doesn't come easy these days but I try very hard, which brings me to the other side of the coin.
Before, I unconsciously decided that there was no point in starting new things because it meant there was only going to be more to say goodbye to. And since I had very little going on, that worked, kinda. For a while, until it didn't any longer. So now I enjoy a lot more things, allowing the entire experience to "enter my head" (which is not a medical term, obviously, ahem). But oh boy, trust my head to bugger it up again. Besides having the best of times singing and experiencing and quietly enjoying the fact that I still think this conductor is my DH's long-lost-twin-brother-from-another-mother (I've got people agreeing with me, I'm not crazy), there's this nagging little voice in the back of my head reminding me it's going to be all over in 2 weeks and nothing is going to replace it. Besides that, I'm moving to a place which seems to be a bit of a cultural black hole (no offence, really, it's a numbers thing) so even in the very far of future, there won't be anything like it. Granted, there is a music hall in Dallas, but lets be honest, I won't be singing for Jaap van Zweden, if he's even still there.
So, in order to stop this voice from nagging, plans have to be made, once again. All this energy has led to me plans 1004 through to 1006. Ehm yeah, not really counting, I just make a lot. But, piano lessons aren't so hard to come by, and maybe even some voice training? Who knows, but music is good for the soul so why not, eh?
On to the white shoes...
We did this one today at a shared concert with another local choir. The general feeling lacked a teensy bit of enthusiasm. Only a little bit, honest. It's just not quite the same, is it? Hilariously, we managed to get the number of chairs wrong again, which I might just blame on the little gnome sitting in the row in front of me at the Queen stuff. She turned up with a chair she brought in, which might possibly have come from the selected stack which was painstakingly counted out up to 3 times before we needed them. So what do you do when the awfully loud music combo is not where it was supposed to be and therefore in your way with fewer chairs than bums to fill them? Uhm, I'll leave it to your imagination to come up with the answer.
Instead of being bummed out, I did manage to enjoy the day, grinning at the valiant attempts of our own conductor to stay awake (he didn't leave the try-out after-party until 2.30 am, rockstar that he is), being happy with the outfit I didn't feel much for at first but turned out to be much more me than many others, and my red fingernails! Hurrah!
What does this have to do with Scottish Sundays, or even the lack of WIP Wednesday earlier this week, I hear you ask!
Quiet down, even you in the back of the class! (I still imagine people actually read this). I've been going on an average of 6 hrs sleep for about 3 weeks now. This article explains what that does with your brain. For now, I'm happy with my language centre working, somewhat...
Now, please excuse me while I keel over. (If only)
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