Last Night in the City

I started this blog to give insight into this strange, disjointed life that I lead. This world of crazy career, far-away home, coming together and falling apart. Keeping this up is harder than I thought it would be. Partially because there are so many things I want to talk about that aren't always appropriate in a public forum (memoirs someday...when I don't care anymore) and partially because when the most interesting things are happening I become too busy to sit down and write.

We opened Agrippina today. I wasn't sure how to react, as usual, to the end of my work. I loved watching everyone on stage. I got to bow, which is always an exhilirating experience, and I have a great time when I can dress up and mingle. On the other hand, I felt like my foot was partially out the door. I stood around after the curtain fell and watched everyone bustling around. For them this is the beginning of a run and so their priorities in the moment are different. I had a friend tell me I looked sad which was really not the case at all. I was more....well....I think I had already moved on. It's the only way I know how to survive these frequent transitions. To survive living out of a suitcase and leaving people I care about every few weeks.

Because I haven't written in a while and I have to pack now, I'm leaving you with a journal entry from the summer. I wrote this sometime in late July or early August. I don't know why it seems appropriate right now, but I think it reflects my feelings about life and the way I am living it.

I've got major goals right now. For the first time in my life I'm feeling like my future (or the one I want) makes sense. But I think we never stop searching for the meaning behind it all...

I went to the grocery this evening and as I walked back into my kitchen I had this sudden feeling of claustrophobia and panic. I had to get out. I dropped my bag and purse on the counter and jumped onto my roommate’s bicycle, sliding out of my flip-flops, wide-legged jeans flapping against the chain, ballcap pulled low.

I rode around the block and down a side street, over a creek I spent hours peering into on a late, thundery afternoon and into the glassy, gravely driveway of an abandoned factory I’ve been drawn to lately. There was an eerie quiet there. A tree rustled greenly against an old propane tank. A bird flew through the broken panes of glass to a hidden roost in the depths of the decimated building.

I was tempted to ride all the way into the back of the grounds but looked at the falling sun and felt that female twang of fear that comes from being alone and unprotected. That missing father syndrome that women fall prey too when their entire childhood is predicated by an understanding of their comparable weakness.

I peeled out of the loose stone and cigarette butts to ride back up the hill, calves squeezing out every last pinch of oxygen as I passed the boarded up bowling alley, the shingle-free dive with the fish-fry sign flapping about over the front door, and a green house that always has the strains of a sad country song creating a desolate wrinkle in the surrounding airspace.

As I passed the firehouse, origin of a strange, wailing horn Richard and I’d heard several times over the past couple of weeks (turns out it was a call to volunteer firemen throughout the area), I looked up and saw a flock of large birds flying towards me. Hawks. Beautiful brown hawks with majestic, pointed heads and large beaks, riding the wind space over my head. One flew so low I could hear the air compressing downward in a rush of swept-up sound as he flapped his impressive wingspan.

I counted seventeen as I stood over the catch bar of Richard’s bicycle. None making a sound but for the fwoosh of the wings as they picked up speed. The last one to pass was riding on the tailwind of his neighbor as one of his wings was broken, laying at an odd angle when it was fully spread from his back.

I burst into tears. There was something so amazing, so unprecedented about this flock of majesty flying over my head. I didn’t know how to react but to feel the breeze of their flight on my cheeks and let the tears of intense beauty roll down my face and drip off the end of my nose.

It’s those moments that life dawns on you that bring about a yearned-for perspective that sometimes seems just out of reach.

Midwestern Odyssey

Just a few more days in Chicago and I head to points South. Chicago has been a strange mix of old-home week and future strategic planning.

On the one hand, I am working in an extremely comfortable environment. This is the third show I've choreographed at DePaul University and the fifth time I've worked with this director. He is, in fact, the first opera director I ever assisted and this makes him a little bit mentor, a little bit friend and a little bit security blanket. I feel easy going with him in a way that I don't necessarily with other directors (especially in other houses).

On the other hand, I'm looking ahead and trying to plan out how my career is going to go. This really isn't something that's possible to do. So many established people who's brains I've picked tell me that so much of it is timing and luck. I know this, but it doens't keep my type-a personality from analyzing and reanalyzing what I've done, where I'm going and where I want to go. There's a thing so many of us say when we look ahead at our schedules and when they seemingly end. "What's coming up for you?" someone asks. "Oh...I'm at New York City Opera in September and after that I may never work again." Unrealistic for sure but it seems that way sometimes. I have offers on the table right now, I just have to sift through them and figure out what's best for me. Having the future of my career in my own hands is a relatively scary thing....but I digress.

Back to DePaul and Chicago, this has been a strange experience because it's really the first time I've run in during a rehearsal period, set some dance moves, and run back out again. I don't get to see this show open, I don't get to deal with the dancers on stage, and I didn't get to preplan by being here from the very beginning. I kind of like the limited responsibility, but I don't feel I'm bonding with it in the same way and that makes me a little sad.

The best parts of coming back here are the people. This is a director that I would follow around for the rest of my existance. I am lucky enough to have a couple of people in my life like that and I hope I know them for a good long time. They are the people who will always teach me something no matter how long I've been in the business and the people I will always be able to jump back into working with, with very little hitch and reintroduction.

I also like the fact that I've been able to watch a few of these students move through the program since I've come back about every two years. There are principals in this piece who were fighting their way through the chorus when I was here for "Idomeneo" in 2005. I love watching progress happen. The sad is end is seeing someone who hasn't progressed, but that's evident in all aspects of my teaching. I feel a little like a teacher here since this show is being put up in academia, and I like having that experience of giving back in a world that makes me feel pretty damn selfish most of the time.

The picture is a waltz rehearsal at the Music School. John took it while he was in town. I've been really pleased with everyone's progress with the dances, so I'm not sure what I'm thinking here. One student came up to me yesterday and said, "I can see your wheels turning every time we dance. It's great." They're turning pretty damn hard in this photo.

The other, other thing about Chicago is the opportunity to see family. I am staying with my little brother right now. My little brother who just turned 26 and lives on his own and has a real job and acts all adult...I feel younger than both of my brothers sometimes. I missed his birthday while I was in touring hell so I'm taking him out tomorrow night since we do not have rehearsals. My parents are coming up over the weekend so I'll get a chance to hang out with them as well. My fourteen-year-old brother will be with them. He is the one I've missed out with. I left home before he was two and sometimes I feel like I have to play catch-up with his life. He's changing so rapidly.

The other picture is of me at my sister-in-law's house in Cleveland, holding her cat, Jerry. That's the other thing I got to do here. John came in, we drove six hours to Cleveland, and I got to meet my father-in-law for the first time. It was a completely whirlwind trip in which we got into town at 4 in the morning and stayed for less than 48 hours, but I think totally worth it. Family is extremely important and I sometimes forget when I'm caught up in the opera of the day. Travel does one of two things. It either makes me forget completely about the existance of family or it makes me wallow in the fact that I am not around them.

John's family seems far away sometimes and I want to know them, so going there and having dinner and laughing, seeing pictures of John as a kid, was healing and encompassing. I am a part of a larger chain.

I think that's all the news that's fit to print right now. Life keeps moving forward and I am constantly readjusting to fit myself in. Career is absolutely important but sometimes we just have to look at it cross-eyed and have a beer with a friend, chase our brother's cat, sit in a coffee-shop and stare at the passers-by...