after the miller, but before the mother: always love, a sometime rhyme

 

after the miller, but before the mother: always love, a sometime rhyme

by eem

new? no, nothing’s new, nothing under the all

seeing sky, eye, why then, why do you cry?

for what was never but- was once- and is- in you in my

mind a real thing, real, spinning wheels, whimsy, wings with which to… fall

oh, my heart again, the nothing ness residing within each

cell, the dna a lock of hair, locket locked in deathless

sighs and pretense I feel nothing, yet flying west

toward you, my sun, one star, one sky, father, child, I reach

out my arms in imperfect rhyme, rhythm less jazz, a hymn to him

to eye to her you are we are falsely killing this time! ‘tis true

joy! of all! clichés of! non sense no music all meter here’s the cue

for my voice to come in, missed it again. this loving, dreamy sim-

plicity, growth of seeds to trees becomes our family, strangers joined by stars

as descends so far in supple earth where we, sometime lovers,

are born again seedlings, sister and brother, under land’s deep covers

explode again in an instant of glory, longing for you in me, our life denies all wars

(are you wondering? silly. you know then it is you!)

these are not poems for us to figure out why we love

these are equations to remind us that we do.

How sweetly nature embraces

Running along the Hudson River this morning, for a moment I forgot my feet were hitting the pavement as a rush of wind rustle the leaves of the cherry trees and me- and when once again I was toe to concrete, I wrote these lines in the notes section of my iPhone:


How sweetly nature embraces
The dreamer in breezes
From upon the frothy tides

And not if the dreamer- softly wakening,  remains in bliss less denial

But as mother, god, is kind, sees past illusion

And beyond the trash, scattered, the hollers of a city at night, the wailing of its children at the mess they themselves spark in a delight of self misleading the self in fright.

Ourselves....

Blind are we, are you are he are I as her as you as we. Ourselves.

But the dreamer, opening slowly ones eyelids to bathe in streams of song? embraces the extrapolation of "trying our best" and, discarding all the rest

Sees the heart

Of one tiny blue speck in a sea of lights.


Sent from my iPhone

PART THREE of Erin's SUMMER VOICE FESTIVAL JOURNEY

Erin buys a watch for the first time in her adult life.

Or,

Part Three of
Erin’s Journey

Manhattan School of Music Summer Voice Festival,
New York, Harlem, 2012

…



I used to always freak out about time. … and I mean, on a grand scale as well as a small scale. With regards to the grand scale, a perfect example is when I graduated from high school. I wished I were already graduating from college. I was so desperate to perform (and more than that, in a second) that I was worried I would be losing precious TIME going to college. I was also dismayed (at that time) that I was not following my true dream to go to NYU, because of fear and, um, well, for a MAN. Of course, looking back, I see how there were so many highways and byways to my life and they all bring-brought me HERE… but tell that to a 17 year old hell bent on being famous and married with three children to the love of her life by the time she’s 24 (because after that… well, I had to win a Tony, Oscar, Emmy, Grammy, and Pulitzer before age 30. So I could become the head of Unicef and win a Nobel Peace Prize before I was 35.)

I am sorry to say I am woefully behind on, um, well, ALL of those goals. In fact, I don't even hold them as goals any longer! I deny nothing, but I allow MY life to shine as brightly as IT should... not my idea of what it is "sposta" looke like.... I am, therefore, in my opinion, joyfully ahead on my perception of success as an opinion and not to be taken TOO seriously; the idea of “getting somewhere” as an attachment to a future outcome and therefore a distraction from the here now; and loving life- come what may- as a determined and daily practice. Yay me! I win! Another round in the Game of Life, please!

I used to always freak out about time on a small scale, too, though. I was overbooked (sound familiar? I mean, now, I practice slowing down and, sometimes, downright LAZINESS, as an antidote to a premature heart attack, as a respite from addictive behavior, and as a way to live life, damnit) all my life, running from rehearsal to lessons to teaching to class to workout to……

Sigh.

Eventually, about the time I went to massage school and was teaching voice and piano lessons to overwhelmed 9 year olds (why were they overwhelmed? Because they had Violin on Mondays, Piano on Tuesdays, Catechism on Wednesdays, Dance on Thursdays, weekend Tee-Ball and chores. Plus school and homework. Could they take the helmet off their heads while at piano lesson, puhleeease, Miss Erin?) (That’s why.) I began to see how very frightful this way of life was. Of course, ever the rebel, I left that way of life instantly. I decided to rebel and drop out. Now, I’m not saying EVERYTHING I did at that time was healthy, in fact, most of it was decidedly POOR decision making.... but 10 and 11 year old kids were having to watch their cholesterol and I couldn't deal. I wanted them to feel loved, supported… happy. Something I, at that time, desperately was NOT. So I threw away all my wrist watches. I stopped checking the time at every turn. I stopped overbooking myself and started dating a boy who loved watching TV for hours on end. His affliction became my respite.

Last week, I decided I was ready for a watch again. I thought to myself, it would be better than checking my iPhone obsessively for the time, (patterns and cycles sometimes come ‘round again), which invariably led/ leads to me checking Facebook and Twitter and Email and Family Feud and wait, now I’m REALLY gonna be late. Argh! So I went on to QVC (not a commercial, really!) and bought the prettiest, girliest watch I could find… Gold with a pearlized face. I like it.

What has this to do with the Summer Voice Festival?

Anything. Everything.

But I will get to that at the end of this blog. I promise!

SOOOOO many things have been going on in these last three weeks of the Festival. I can barely believe I am halfway through! I won’t talk about everything, but will try to touch upon the highlights…

And speaking of time and highlights, I am thrilled to announce that I held a 360-year old violin a week ago. ;) A friend of a friend is an orchestra conductor and rare and antique instrument dealer. As I have been learning and seeking guidance for my career, and just, desiring to meet some wonderful new people, a dear friend referred me to this man, Richard. He’s a Conductor out of Chicago and a kindred spirit, if I do say so myself. Anyway, he was flying into NYC to deal with a violin and when I met him, he said, “Wanna hold it?” Well, a 4 million dollar violin. Hm. Sure! It’s slightly more dangerous than when Frank the German asked if I wanted to drive his Porsche and I almost did before revealing I didn’t really know how to drive a manual transmission automobile. Ah. Yes. Two seconds later, the violin was back in Richard’s hands. Ha! I don’t blame him a wit, especially as he doesn’t know how clutzy I have been in my history… less clutzy now than ever, but still.

It was a gorgeous violin. I had the great pleasure of admiring its delicacy and beauty as it was played. Then, the family whose home we were in, belonging to a trio of gifted siblings, invited me to a performance of the Salome Orchestra the next evening. A Conductor-less orchestra, they would be playing music of the Jewish Diaspora, featuring selections from various Jewish Composers, including Arthur Foote, Philip Glass, the Gershwins, and one of my favorites, Saint-Saens.

The next evening I donned my pastel splashed Catherine Malandrino wrap dress and faced the drizzle to go to the Shearith Isreal Temple. Glorious marble and gold, this was one of the most beautiful temples I had ever been in. In the section where I was seated, the entire row in front of me kept looking at me. After the concert, the apparent matriarch of the family said, “Now I know how we know you! From Jerusalem.” “Oh,” I said wistfully, “No, that wasn’t me.” “Oh, yes, don’t you remember us?” She asked. “Well, I’m from Los Angeles,” I said. “And…” I was about to say, and I’m not Jewish, nor have I ever been to Jerusalem, but she interrupted me. “No, no, before, when you were in Jerusalem.” “I don’t think it was me,” I said, “But maybe later I’ll remember how we may have met.”

That evening the music was beyond amazing. Each musician was incredible in his or her own right and the taste and beauty with which they played was a great foundation for when the soloists performed like rock stars of the Violin and Viola. They played Summertime… (I smiled inwardly just now as I wrote that because last night I saw the revival of Porgy and Bess on Broadway. I will give a review of the worthy production ina  future blog….) And they played… The Swan.

My mother used to play this song on piano when I was just a wee little girl… from the Carnival of the Animals by Saint-Saens, among my favorite composers. I remember asking her to play it again and again as I would twirl, imagining myself a ballerina but while wearing my Mary Lou Retton leotard over bright blue tights, with coke-bottle-lensed glasses and funky hair.

This is a song, among a few others, including Moon River and Fields of Gold and Dance me to the Ends of Love and Lujon and the first of the Deux Arabesques by Debussy and Songs my Mother Taught Me, which, upon hearing, renders me instantly in the throes of timelessness…. I could be in a Temple in New York City as easily as I could be in Jerusalem as easily as I could be once again a little girl in Sauk Rapids, Minnesota, with autumn leaves turning golden and orange and the long arms of the Maple Trees in our front yard tapping upon the window bringing a hint of silver, too… I hear this song, and I must stop, for it is always upon hearing that sweet melody that I think of my mother, and her tenderness, and taste eternity.

One of the amazing lessons I have been receiving time and time again during this 6 week period of opportunity is that all the ways I thought my past was a hindrance is, from many other perspectives, a gift. And my past has been coming up again and again, for me to see how lucky and loving life really can be. Of course I’ve had my share of heartache and disappointment and trauma and difficulty, but even much of that- nay, ALL of it- is a gift. Oddly, while I have been here in NYC, I have reconnected with a childhood friend, I have reconnected with my high school boyfriend, and my best friend from childhood’s mother passed away.

And so I reach out for now, because this is it. This is it. People. We can say this and think this and “get it” intellectually all day long, but really? This is it.

Needless to say, it was a sorrow to hear of my friend’s mother passing. She was always very kind to me, this woman who chain-smoked and loved Moonlighting and went back to college while we were kids (just like my mom!) and always included me on family boating trips in Minnesota, Land of Lakes.

And so as I am here, singing my heart out, and loving music, I wish even more deeply to be in honor of all these people in my life, all these wonderful folks I have had the pleasure to meet and spend time with, share sunshine or rain, love and be loved.

Just call me Nature Girl. Haha!

Truly though, the performance of that orchestra was life affirming, as life affirming as the death of a mother figure, as life affirming as a baby’s cry, as life affirming as the four leaf clovers I find everywhere I go.

Why is death life affirming?

There, you answered my opinion for yourself. Thank you. And I love you.

Almost as much as I love singing. I love singers. I love listening to singers- Shirley Bassey covering “I Wanna Know What Love Is” by Foreigner with a brass section, Audra McDonald singing Bess on Broadway, my friends at Manhattan School moving me to tears with lieder and Strauss and Mozart.

Speaking of singing, I am singing in the most wonderful of scenes. I am singing one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever composed: The Flower Duet from the opera Lakme. I am also singing Jane Eyre from the Musical Theatre version of Jane Eyre, composed by my very own friend Paul Gordon! Life truly is magical and mysterious… that my former roommate Linda would have done PR for that musical, that her sister would have appeared in the Broadway version of it, that I would know Paul, that I would be such a tremendous fan of the Bronte’s and especially that Charlotte, that I would just have been listening to a podcast called “Stuff You May Have Missed in History Class” all about the Brontes…. Well. Allow me to laugh in pure joy and then sing. For life couldn’t be sweeter!

One evening last week, after reconnecting with my childhood friend, Noah… he grew up kitty corner from my back door (I may have mentioned him in previous blogs)…. I went out with a group of his friends (now my friends, or at least acquaintances!) and had a marvelous time. All singers or musicians, it was a talk-shop kinda night. Later, getting off the train at my stop in Harlem, I overheard the most WONDERFUL half of a phone call…

"I mean, if I was to see you, I'd be nervous.... real nervous!.... not like throwing up nervous, but like, you know... love do that to a person... you know.... love overwhelm a person, make a person not his usual self....... you know that's how you know it's love... you know...... love make me real nervous, you see what I mean?...... 'cause if I saw you now, I'd be real nervous." ...... I know precisely what he means. “He” was a very very large man, probably in his 20s, a total Urban Fellah, pants around his knees, baseball cap on sideways, lumbering laboriously down the rain speckled Broadway.

I love what he said. And I am seeing that Harlem is full of love.

So, for a while, I have been getting my nails done every few weeks as part of my “Be Nice to Erin” campaign. I found a place across the street from my house here in Harlem where I can get a mani and pedi for 20 bucks and a smile. No one really speaks English there but I know enough Spanish to kind of catch on and they patiently listen to my halted speech. Anyway, the other day I was in there, getting my nails painted a bright salmon pink, listening to the women chatter gaily away, when suddenly Foreigner came on the radio…. “I’m gonna take a little time… a little time to think things over….” I love love love this song, and not in a sort of tongue in cheek way but outright, the way my hipster friends tease me for loving Celine Dion and the way my classical friends tease me for loving Sarah Brightman. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who loved this song! For as soon as that exalted chorus started, a handful of the women working in the shop all burst out in unison, “I wanna know what love is!!! I want you to show me!” Oh! The concert of birds and Harlem Dominican accents and Foreigner and the sirens and the traffic outside and the fans blowing was almost too much for my heart, I thought I might burst with a strange emotion I couldn’t identify for it was neither happy-ness nor sorrow and yet it was somehow both and yet somehow bigger than all of that combined. It was the joy of being alive, it was the very aliveness of every single person in the nail salon and all of us together as a musical system of love, arranged perfectly by our makers and our hearts, the unlikeliest amalgamation of Vietnamese and Minnesotan and Dominican and African American all contrived on this day at 1:40 pm Eastern Standard Time to sing the even less likely selection of late 70s’ / early 80s rock.

I feel, listening to the birds singing and the children playing outside, that I must get out into that Harlem for a bit before I go see a movie tonight… And, Oh, I have barely begun to scratch the surface of this time here. I have pages and pages of notes to write something brilliant, and instead these 5 word doc pages have meandered like a stream in glacial central Minnesota. I don’t mind though, because as I close, I am listening to a recording of Maria Callas singing an aria I sing, from Saint-Saens’ opera Samson et Dalila… Mon Coeur S’ouvre a ta Voix…. And as she sings about the way the breeze causes the fields of gold to undulate in sensuality, I realize I know now the things I could never have dreamed as a young girl in Minnesota…. I am heartened by the seduction, and by the purity, by the life, by the sorrow. I know things about Dalila, lifetimes and legends away from “Me,” the young woman who writes this, the way she might know a thing or two about Erin…. through heart and inspiration and that eternal timelessness that we can touch through music, through poetry, through making love, through giving birth, through death.

I wanna know what love is. I want you to show me.

We’re all leaning out for love. We will lean that way forever…

Blessings to you and yours. Deep gratitude and whimsy.

Yours truly,


Erin

Summer Voice Festival Part DEUX

 

Summer Voice Festival Part DEUX:

A musical blog, in which Erin has a hard day for no reason, and then remembers why she is here now and hear now, and then luxuriates in some of the most beautiful music on earth.

Warning:

This blog may or may not take some turns for the happy, the silly, the giddy, the dark, the depressed, the whiny, the pity party, the come-uppance, and the reverent. Fasten your seatbelts…

SATURDAY

(suggested soundtrack:

http://youtu.be/XUjAtYQkFm8

Air, Alone in Kyoto)

            One of my most infamous ex-boyfriends recently wrote me a note. It read: “Dear Erin. Manhattan School of Music. Really? How’d you get in? I mean, that’s where Marsi went to school.” (his ex-girlfriend previous to me.) Hm. Subtext… subtext… subtext… the answer is… I applied, I sent in an audition, and they accepted me. But that’s not the real answer because that’s not the real question… All this shows me, of course, really, is that after all this time, he still has no idea who I am. Why do I, a truly, sincerely, practicing, life-affirming person, open my blog with this note of notoriety? I don’t know. I don’t plan this stuff. But it seems important. I hope you’re listening to the soundtrack as you read this, because I am listening as I write this. I’d love for us to have a communion here, if you’d like. Any you, even notorious you, beloved you, sweet you, motherf$%er you, every you, me you, you me you, Ali Baba and John Paul Jones.

            I’m being cheeky, but also a little sad, a little goofy, and a little angry, and a little wonderful. Just a little.

            So Saturday were the big auditions for placement into scenes and productions. Auditions have long been difficult for me. I am really good live in performance, and really good on tape….. auditions, well, that’s a different story. I am learning to own myself as much in an audition as I do in a full performance. I did not plan well for this audition, however. Or rather, predictably unpredictable, I changed my mind at the last moment about what to sing. Since I am here to learn, rather than do the sensible thing and sing the song most likely to get me cast in a production, I decided to sing my most exciting piece that would show the folks what I can do and where I am going. So I sang a coloratura mezzo piece, “Una Voce Poco Fa.” I so love this song, and I am currently experiencing (somewhat, but without the identity swapping bits of the opera) the same sort of life as the heroine I was playing…

(Insert soundtrack #2: From THE JERK: http://youtu.be/AI8NuFAETMQ )

            Well, I tried some of the new things I had learned from my lovely teacher and didn’t feel grounded. Oh. Alas. Sigh. They asked for some musical theater, so I sang eight bars of “A Sleepin’ Bee.” Then they asked about cabaret. I told them I had recently performed a one-woman show about my love life and could sing “Making Love Alone” for them. They laughed. And then laughed some more. I have such a way of making people laugh when I never mean to. ! ;) So I sang it and they laughed. I wished I had offered only opera, but I did what I did and I couldn’t take it back.

            I always give myself 20 lashings after any audition. I am working on reducing the number to 18, and then 15, and then 12, and then, well, you get the picture, with the optimal number being 0. Or maybe even being like, “Go Erin! Yeah! You did it! You sang an audition and I think you are wonderful just for putting yourself out there.” But of course, some things, perhaps all things, are “progress, not perfection.” So, feeling a bit needy, I called my mama. She talked me off the ledge. As she has sooooo many times.

            Meanwhile, at the school, everyone was convinced they knew me already. People kept asking me if I was a grad student here, or if I had gone to such and such school, or if I knew such and such person, and how did they know me, where did I live, etc. I admit, I was having a Groundhog Day experience myself, in which I felt as if I had lived this life but not exactly like this, but sort of similar, 50, 500, 5000 times before, every time a little different, some better, some worse, but…. It wasn’t déjà vu, but as if it were a recurring theme in a dream…

            “I’m afraid if I kiss you, I’ll fall in love with you.” “You will?” “Then I don’t want to.” “You don’t?” “My mother sacrificed everything to send me through cosmetology school.” “She did?” “She has this dream for me to be someone.” “She does?” “To marry someone with power, money, vision. Someone with a special purpose.” “I’ve got one!!!! I’ve got a special purpose!!!!” “You do?”

            The above scene did not happen on Saturday, but in that moment from THE JERK… I don’t happen to have the Special Purpose that Steve Martin is talking about… if you don’t know what I am talking about then please, please, please do yourself, and humanity, a favor and RENT THIS MOVIE! But I DO have those same fears, and those same hesitations, and those same dreams, and my own version of a special purpose… more on that in a moment.

           

(Insert Soundtrack #3: Believe. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Uu3kCEEc98)

            Saturday evening I visited a friend from childhood and we revisited a few old times, and new ones. I loved that I could connect with this sweet man in another incarnation. When I was a little girl, living in my mom and dad’s house next to the woods, at our house on 13^th St in Sauk Rapids, I could look out the back patio door, through the oak trees, and see his front door across the street and a bit kitty corner. He and his sister would come over and play for hours, and of course the infamous story is the year he was a vacuum cleaner for Halloween. He was the cutest thing.

SUNDAY

Odd feelings.

SOUNDTRACK
Strauss:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIzALjD4DXU

            Nothing ever goes the way I expect it to go, so as much as I can, I try not to expect it to go anyway at all. That evening was the Barbecue for all the singers and staff. About half the singers got up to sing and it was for me such a joy, such a luxury. I sat and listened, thinking to myself, what a wonderful gift each person her has, and is, to this world… what a sweet gift I am giving myself, to be amongst so many wonderfully talented people. I suppose the gift of being a few years older than most (not all, but most) of the others is that I can appreciate being here differently. I can’t say better or worse because I can only speak for myself… but the gift of spending all day with other singers who love music as deeply as I do… and don’t get me wrong. It isn’t that I am not grateful for my day job, or the experience my life has brought me touring in pop and cabaret and rock bands, and living in Hollywood, and having loss and grief and joy and life and having enough life experience to know that there is always another day, another chance, another thing to wake up for, and it can all start right now… but still. I know the toil of not fulfilling one’s dreams… I know a little bit about flirting with “deferring the dream,” and then losing sight of it…. And so I know the deep presence of love available through “musik!” and I was so grateful for the gift of getting to learn so much.

            I sang Carmen- the Habanera…. Of course I didn’t just sing it. I had to be me. So I climbed up on chairs and got everyone else to sing the chorus. Look. I could say I was a good little girl and I sang a real pretty song. But damn if I’m not Erin. I just follow the spirit in the moment, and am thankful now upon writing this with some reflection, for time and age and wisdom, to be able to have some appropriateness these days. I had a blast, though. And people sang along, so it was fun for all of us! I used to sing it back in the days of Le Cirque Rouge in a bustier and top hat, so this was actually quite tame in comparison.

MONDAY

SOUNDTRACK:

Kurt Weill, as sung by Anne-Sofie von Otter

http://youtu.be/8o8FnE9xKgY

            I have long loved Anne Sofie von Otter. I’ll never forget once, I had this guy I was sorta halfway seeing, and really liked, who lived in San Francisco. I went to visit him there, and we spent a day browsing music and bookstores, and I found a CD of Anne Sofie von Otter and Elvis Costello…. then we went back to his place, where he lit a fire (I know! Right in downtown San Fran.) and poured some champagne. We turned on the music, and he put his arm around me, and he looked down at me, and I looked up at him, and he leaned in…. and suddenly I was freezing cold and yet sweating and he said… “Um, Erin, you’re kinda burning up.” I nodded. “No,” he said, “like, you’re giving off a lot of heat.” It hit me. Boom. “I think I need to lay down,” I said. Three days later I woke up. I had been in various versions of fever delusions during which time, apparently, I accused the poor guy of trying to poison me. I believed he was in league with the ex boyfriend (mentioned in the beginning of this blog) and that he was slowly killing me. The opposite was true; he had taken several days off work to nurse me to health, calling his Uncle the medical doctor to get advice on whether or not to bring me to the emergency room, and constantly changing my sheets because I was soaking them through in fever sweats.

            I never heard from him after that, except for a few pleasantries on Facebook. I do NOT blame him. He was wonderful enough to take care of me while I was very sick and all I did was accuse him of trying to kill me. Sigh. Anyway.

            My lack of polish doesn’t extend only to my love life. No. It also extends to my singing life. And I was, and am, very excited to be learning more about where I lack professionalism, skills, diction abilities, and, where, in general, I try too hard….

(SOUNDTRACK: Anne Sofie again, another Weill tune): http://youtu.be/b2MQCTgbW0c

(from The Seven Deadly Sins)

            Most of the day was spent meeting my fellow singers, meeting the directors of the opera scenes I will be in and learning from my wonderful teacher. And the technique she is teaching me is so much simpler than how I sing, and so much more relaxed. And again and again, the message is: Too much. Too hard. Trying too hard.

            Oh! To be an overachiever. It has a special frustration all its own, and then you try hard not to try too hard and then you eventually just call your sister or try not to call your mother for the thirtieth time all needy-like, and you just go to the Crepe place near your new apartment and say, give me your most delicious crepe, and they make you a crepe with nutella and strawberries and bananas and raspberry sauce, and you sit and eat it and gossip with the girls about men and love and Lauryn Hill, and you forget you ever tried too hard in the first place and calm yourself thinking about…

SOUNDTRACK:

            http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxsDkB7tjnA

Ah, beautiful moments, sad and happy all at once. Some Groundhog Days happen only once, I guess.

TUESDAY

            Rain, and rain, and more rain. I have always loved the rain. To me it is profound, and poetic, and lush, and cleansing. Tuesday was a special day…

SOUNDTRACK:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SaxZGtzBAY

Nitin Sawhney

Firmament

            I decided to go for a jog in the rain. I needed a good cleansing of my emotional palate. I was trying way too hard, I was too hard on myself, I was having all these inner dramas. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I was having a ton of fun listening to wonderful singers, and learning, and eating, and sleeping. (yes! Finally getting good rest.) But I also… well, in setting up having no expectations of how anything would go during this time, I discovered a strange re-experiencing of my fretful and difficult youth: I was watching myself expect to know things I didn’t already know…. Do things I couldn’t already do… I wasn’t letting myself have the freedom to be a true student. So I went for a nice run along Riverside Park in the rain, praying for freedom, and availability, and-

            ….there, what was that? I stopped in my tracks. I turned around and looked down. There at my feet was the biggest four-leaf clover I had ever seen! I bent down to pluck it when… what was that? There was a five leaf clover! And there! Another four leaf clover! And there! And there! And everywhere I looked. I was in a field of four and five leaf clovers. I selected as many one hand could hold, a bouquet of magic, and walked, giddy, back to my apartment. I texted a few people the picture, and then decided the world of facebook might like to see these sweet little wonders…

            TUESDAY AND WEDNESDAY:

                        I have had the benefit of hearing some wonderful singers. I have been running the gamut of emotion. I don’t want to bore you with the run from needy to angry (with self) to joyful to bliss. I want to leave this tome only with bliss. Who knows what tomorrow may bring, who knows what the next moment may bring. But in Masterclasses with Neil Rosensheim, and then Ashley Putnam, I have been able to watch people transform. I have learned so much. I have heard Menotti, Sondheim, Rossini, Mozart, Verdi, and…. I will leave you with this. I heard an incredible singer perform this (and was excited that I have her teacher as my teacher for this program, and in the room that used to belong to Leontyne Price….)

(And you all know how I feel about Strauss.)

http://youtu.be/nmb_4pU9wMw

Breit' über mein Haupt dein schwarzes Haar, 

Neig' zu mir dein Angesicht, 

Da strömt in die Seele so hell und klar 

Mir deiner Augen Licht.  

Ich will nicht droben der Sonne Pracht, 

Noch der Sterne leuchtenden Kranz, 

Ich will nur deiner Locken Nacht 

Und deiner Blicke Glanz. 

Spread over my head your black hair,  

and incline to me your face,  

so that into my soul, so brightly and clearly,  

will stream your eye's light.   

I do not want the splendor of the sun above,  

nor the glittering crown of stars;  

I want only the night of your locks  

and the radiance of your gaze.

…

and, another woman who tread these same halls…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWmCbEbMmeU

Now it is time for me to go to sleep and awake refreshed. I will try hard not to try too hard. I will try not to punish myself for the subtleties of frustration in my heart that probably only I have noticed, and I will avail myself to the best of my awareness to the freedom of having room for life to occur. Good, bad, ugly, beautiful. Life. Life life life… self. Room for self. And love. And music, and fun. And joy. And laughing at all my foibles. What a piece of work is (wo)man.

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Manhattan School of Music Summer Voice Festival Part One: Journey to Surrender

 

Erin Elizabeth Muir: the Summer Voice Festival

Part One:

A Journey to Surrender

Well, this has certainly been quite the journey already and today is only the first day of the program itself! My program started, of course, back on Easter, when I learned I was accepted to the program and decided to do a kickstarter to fund the tuition for the program. In the last month since then, I have been so honored by all the people- some that didn’t know me at all, and others who were long lost friends, and yet other friends near and far and close and closer and even REAL CLOSE, and family… by al these people pitching in to help me get here, to help me pay the tuition, housing transportation costs…. By the wonderful folks just sending words of encouragement…. By the four amazing men who are baby-sitting my dog (each separately. He doesn’t require THAT much attention. I may. ;-) but he can do one on one.)

Anyway, thanks again, everyone, for that support…

And now here I sit in my little sublet apartment in Harlem, writing this blog just to try and cover the first few days of my experience! I live near the Cotton Club, which is fun for me, being a jazz buff. I’m one subway stop north of the school itself, and I believe this neighborhood is in that estuary of gentrification meeting artists meeting old school Harlem inhabitants. Everywhere there are people hanging out on their front stoops, there’s Afro-Cuban drumming and pigeons cooing, children laughing and food… everywhere food. Last night I broke my no dairy rule (I try to not eat it too much if I’m singing because it makes me all phlegmy) and ate a Cuban from Flor de Broadway, with lots of garlic and pickles. YUM YUM…. And topped it off with coconut juice and some sweet plaintains.

My only regret about being here, of course, is that my dog isn’t here with me, but there will be days that I will be gone for 12 hours and I just couldn’t bear the thought of poor little Henry being stuck in a strange new city without getting out to take care of his needs! So last Tuesday I brought him over to my friend Woodruff’s, his first baby-sitter. Woodruff was very patient with me as I cried but pretended I wasn’t. As I was choking up showing him Henry’s food and toys, he said, wanna hang out for a minute and settle Henry in? Whew. I got a last little time with my little Muppet and then said good bye for 6 weeks. I was sad, but Henry looked at me like, “Yeah, Mom, I get it. You’re gonna be gone til July. Geez. Let me go play with the boys now.” At least, that was my anthropomorphized version of his underbite-grin. Later, W sent me a pic of Henry napping on his lap. I knew then, it would be alright with my little bundle of puppy love.

An on to New York City! I arrived Thursday morning. I took the red-eye flight from the city I love, my city of Angels, and got in to LaGuardia around 9 am. The flights (I somehow gave myself a stop in Chicago) were uneventful and fitful for sleep. I had booked a car to take me into the city because, according to the website, it was only $9 more than the shuttle. I was a bit surprised when the total was $38 more than the shuttle but since the driver was 30 minutes late picking me up, drove like a mad man to my place, sort of hit on me and then offered to show me around, I figured, I would just pay and skedaddle! Oh, hey, Mom, if you’re reading this, don’t read that last part. ;-p

I’m staying in a sweet 2B sublet very near the river (just half a block away!) with another lovely opera singer, a soprano, singing in a production of Don Pasquale. Once I got into the place, and unpacked, I was off to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see one of my best girlfriends from LA! Wait, what!? Yes! It seems that a number of my friends were all converging upon this big Apple all at once. Alison and I had lunch with her friend that works for the museum and took in the Prada special exhibit. Amazing and, well, quirky! I mean, I know a lot of people tell me IIIIii’m quirky, but, um, I’ll take a slight backseat to a few of Ms. Prada’s creations. From there I ran to a voice coaching with my LA Coach Bill. Wait. What!? YES! Another Angeleno descending upon the streets of New Amsterdam. To be fair, he actually works bicoastally. Still, there we were. Breathless, I made it through the Card aria for an audition coming up, and am better the woman for the coaching.

And then, my energy went WHooooooot. Crash. I needed a break. Luckily, my darling friend Debbie, whom I met in Los Angeles (wait, what?) but who lives here now these past many years took me to the Ayurvedic Café for dinner. This is a lovely café which, every day, prepares dishes to incorporate all 7 flavors required in Ayurvedic cooking. At the end, we visited the shrine devoted to Quan Yin, goddess of compassion, and each took a “fortune.”

Mine read:

“Trust that everything you strive for will be taken care of in the absence of your fighting and your worrying.”

Ah.

Ah.

Ah.

That is something this gal definitely needed to hear.

I breathed in deeply, and thought about that night, several years ago, beneath the stars in Rishikesh, the lilting mother Ganga river singing to me, and me to it. I dropped into that joy, and love of singing, and feeling of freedom that comes from the surrender of just letting go.

I’m here, I thought to myself, As I always have been. Everything else after “here” is just joy.

Friday morning I awoke to pigeons cooing. I smiled and thought of Bert, of Bert and Ernie fame. I went for a long jog along the river… here’s how perfect the weather was for a run: I actually extended it by 20 minutes. Trust me. That ain’t how this chickee usually rolls. … but it was lovely, lovely, lovely. I ran a bunch of errands, met the fellow who is subletting MY place in LA in June and gave him the keys, and then went to meet with my vocal teacher from Manhattan School of Music for the first time.

Now, originally, when she and I had been emailing about setting up a first meeting, she said that the lesson Friday evening would be at her home studio, just 4 stops from where I live. No problem! Friday evening, around 6:40, I got off the train and wandered up toward her home. Suddenly, I wondered if I had it correct, because her personal assistant had e-mailed all of us assigned to her studio about times for Friday and Sunday… I rechecked the email and to my dismay, my confirmation email (from Wednesday) said “up at the school.” Uh, oh! I called my teacher, Joan, on her mobile phone. No answer… of course, as she was busy teaching! So I left a message: “Hello, Joan! This is Erin Elizabeth Muir, your mezzo 7 pm student. I’m near your home but I’m just rereading this email and I see that it says the lessons are up at the school! I am so sorry to call and leave this message but in case I am late, I am just erring on the side of the school. I’ll be right there!” I ran to the train (with my purse and my backpack, in my flipflops and short/long skirt fluttering away, hoping not to sweat… er, um…. Glisten…. Too much for my sheer aquamarine chiffon blouse over my nude tank top!), hopped on, hopped off two stops later, and then rechecked my email… wait… wait… a more recent email… Friday night’s lessons are at Joan’s home studio and Sunday’s lessons are at the school…. Argh! I ran back to the train, got on, got off two stops later, ran around the corner and into the building and took the elevator up and arrived at?

7:02.

HA!

I walked in and waited for her to finish with the student before me.

Then I met Joan, and her pianist, Coco. I explained a bit about myself, and we got right to work. Immediately she identified my biggest obstacles with singing at this time: a misappropriation of breathing and my tongue having a mind of its own. (Don’t even get me staaaaarted on that one.) And ultimately, honestly, truly… after she asked me about my philosophy of breathing and I launched into a long poetic treatise on the stars and the heavens and the earth and the … “wait!” She said. “That’s your problem. You’re making it too complicated. It’s not complicated. It’s easy. And it’s going to be difficult for you to retrain yourself to let it be easy.” And then we got to the real work:

Undoing Erin’s hyper-analytical, obsessively pseudo-pscientific practice when it comes to life. I mean. Singing.

;-)

She showed me a few things within that lesson that were already so much easier than what I have been doing… things that were building upon the wonderful work I’ve been doing with Calvin…. Things that explained things that he has probably TRIED to get through my thick skull!... and she’s right, it may be hard for me to surrender into it, and yet, then again… it was such a relief and… joy. It was a joy to be singing so easily, so freely. I left her lesson so excited about what I will learn these next 6 weeks… not just for singing but for life…. And I thought again about my fortune from the Ayurvedic Café:

“Trust that everything you strive for will be taken care of in the absence of your fighting and your worrying.”

Maybe I am here to learn better singing, and meet a great manager or even a cute guy. And maybe I’m here because, maybe, just maybe, I need more faith in the moment itself. Less fighting. More trusting. Less worrying. More fun.

So last night, I returned home with my Flor de Broadway sandwich and my roomie was about to watch a favorite movie I haven’t seen since, probably, 2000:

Les Parapluies de Cherbourg…

(The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.)

A wonderful film in which difficult and beautiful life occurs and no one is demonized or made innocent nor evil, but simply each person is alive, striving for joy (and all sung in Michel LeGrand’s amazing, beautiful composing!)

To be honest, my workaholic habit would always have been to go into my room and “work on something.” But I’m here (on earth) to grow, to be alive, to be in joy. So I let myself simply soak in this beautiful film, no umbrellas. Let the rain fall on me! I shall drink it in.

I’m off to warm up now, for my audition for the productions occurring during this Voice Festival are in only a few short hours. I am so honored and happy to be alive. I pray for joy for every living being, for I believe, that is our birthright.

Until next time-

So much love…

Enjoy:

http://youtu.be/Yj6hI5g15aQ

“To die for love? What could be more glorious!”

-       Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen

“The French were made to die for love! They delight in fighting duels!”

            -Marilyn Monroe, Gentleman Prefer Blondes

“Toujours, la mort.”

            -Carmen, Card Aria.

“People only die of love in films!”

            -Madame Emery, the Umbrellas of Cherbourg.

finally, a new poem! How the lyric feels within my mouth

 

How the lyric feels within my mouth

Brightly, sun pours forth in generosity, particles of light drifting ever downward

Upon ten fingers and a smile. One, two, three, four and breathless, I play.

Once again, a magical afternoon with the traffic hurrying by, unnoticing

Of the life and death and passion occurring just a few feet away.

These old black and white keys, chords and rhythm and spaces between,

Moments of music, and- me! How sweet it is to touch the divine,

To hold it in my heart and let it run through me, notes tumbling forth,

Water in a slough, and the trees, and the stars, and the murk, and the purity,

All of nature and all of God and all of man and woman combined into:

Music. What then, is music? The food of Gods, painting upon silence, and

Pleasure, and... And this. This is how it feels to be moved. This is how it feels to dance,

And this, as I sing, today it is French and tomorrow it is German and another day

It may be Czech. And my mouth becomes Venus’ pearlized shell, curved round the top

And pink within, and the strength from the earth and that air from above and lost am I

In something almost un human (and yet oh so very) when I realize this reverberating

(something! What? What is it? It is like falling in love, and capitulating the lover,

it is like the sensation of rustling in one’s heart at the witness of a hundred parakeets

in exodus from a weeping willow in one sudden rush of terror and joy, it is effervescent

and it is) it is within me, coming from me? Nay, not from. Through. And back I am to the

through, for this is how the lyric feels within my mouth, whether I sing for la mort or

l’amour. I sing for you.

e.e.m.

Gambling everything for Love

 
Lately I’ve been blue. I am loathe to admit it, for the same reasons I “never” get sick. I like to be as able as possible to choose joy… but the last few weeks have proven to me that there is something beyond choice going on here and while many may have their opinions about it, which I, like all freedom-seeking thinkers value or disvalue at my leisure (tongue in BOTH cheeks), I smell something else brewing…

Now, part of it might be the cycling of patterns and time. I had a birthday recently, and for the first time ever, I put it up on Facebook. Why? Usually I hide from my birthday. I run for the hills and pray no one notices and then feel bad no one noticed. (Oh, this is public. Should I not be admitting a flaw of such magnitude! Again, tongue in cheek….. but the point of this is that I think the more we see glimpses of ourselves in others, the more we can return to health and balance for our selves and then for our world… so if I choose to share something dumb about me, maybe you’ll  find a reason to laugh in the mirror of recognition, too!)

Maybe I’ve been blue because I’ve been changing my whole life over the last few years- changing my career path, changing my lifestyle. And it is all brand new or recently new and scary.

And maybe, it’s just time for the next adventure in love. And I don’t mean just romantic love, although that is possible, too. I mean in LOVE love, the kind that led me to Santa Fe and to Prophecy Rock, to India, to Venice to write an album. The kind that brought me to singing and to massage. The kind that I felt, inexplicably, early mornings in my hometown in Minnesota, when I would wake naturally with the sun rise, and have such a great and deep desire to be the very first to run out into that morning dew, and laugh with delight as my feet were wading in the tall wet grass out into the woods that were my playground, the birds singing as the world bloomed itself open once again- that kind of glory, THAT kind of love.

And so, sometimes, these peaces and pieces come in small lovely moments.
For example, I rescue a puppy, but it’s like those bumper stickers- who rescued whom?

Every morning I walk Henry past the Zen Center that is a building neighborly to mine, and sometimes we stop to run around their yard. Well, Henry runs. I watch. LOL. This morning, as Henry ran and played in the front gardens there, I watched and listened as a group of beautiful golden breasted birds sang and sang.

Then, a little wren began playing the funniest game during their singing: he would flit from a high tree near the roof of the Zen Center and fly onto the rooftop, barely touching down before circling back round to the same exact perch on his tree, appearing as though to have jumped from the roof to the tree…. Then he would do the same flit, barely touch down on the roof on a spot just a bit further from the tree, and leap back to the exact same branch. Soon he was doing this in rapid succession, each time getting further and further! Finally, Henry caught wind and starting running back and forth beneath the birdie. The bird stopped, hiding high up in the rustling leaves of the tree. No more tempting a small white dog toward potential snacks… Henry and I walked toward the flower garden where a sweet little hummingbird popped into say hello. Oh! Such delight in the morning.

Now, I’m a hard working, realistic young woman. And I’m an urban girl right now. I wear high heels and lots of makeup and read Vogue. I listen to NPR and get the paper. (See!? I’m a grown up.) (hahahahahhahahahahahha.) I have debt, and I have dreams. I have heartbreaks, and I have schemes. I’m well educated about things like literature and music and art and of course I am also very dumb about a lot of things. But one thing I know in my HEART is that I am as connected to these beautiful patterns in nature as I am to the idea that my name is Erin. In fact, I am more connected to these birds, these flowers, that childhood morning dew…. Than my name, than my position. In modern parlance, that sounds a bit…. I don’t know how it sounds, actually. The world is changing and some have always recognized themselves in nature (even in the middle of a great city like Los Angeles) and some have never connected the dots between their hearts and the golden breasted warblers.

But these adventures, seemingly small, make every morning worth rising for, and actually, make me realize that the thought of rising for any reason other than joy is just an idea that has nothing to do with the reality of this moment.

And it was at that thought, as Henry and I were returning to our apartment, that I looked down and found a four leaf clover….. why do I see them all the time? I prefer it if you tell me.

Today, my four leaf clover went into the Rumi book where I put all the clovers I keep, and it went tucked inside the pages of THIS poem:

Gamble everything for love.
If you are a true human being.
If not, leave this gathering.
Half-heartedness doesn't reach into majesty.
You set out to find God, but then you keep
stopping for long periods at mean-spirited roadhouses.
Don't wait any longer.  Dive in the ocean, leave and let the
sea be you.  Silent, absent, walking an empty road, all praise.

Singer Sisters Leaping....

Singer sisters leaping from the cliffs of despair and into the sonic tides of bliss

There is no home for us but the stage
And at dinner, before the show, over candlelight,

We see, we know through our hearts, we love like the hush of nightingales and it echoes bittersweet from cliff to cliff

(Darling! I have looked into your eyes, I have felt the recognition. Tell me we are not alone? And if that was but a fantasy of my mind... then please, at least... join with me in song.)

Ageless and ever, our sisters know 'round the globe,

Any dream fulfilled of the lie of the world leads to death,

For the world offers paper moons and persecutes passion (quella fiamma)

But we, singers of the earth, have known that light sublime, which, alchemically transporting sound and dust particles from sorrow to aliveness, believe beyond reason: there must be some reason to live.

There must be, for here we stand once again at the piano, as we stood once for the lyre, for the king,for the sea-

(Sous le dôme épais...)

For the Aegean, for the Mississippi, for the Rhine and the Caspian, the Styx, Atlantis, Rome, for the belle époque, for the academy. It matters not for whom!

(Où le blanc jasmin...)

We. Hands enjoined, hearts entwined, sweet counterpoint:
Sweet, yes, and sad. We turn then, to joy. (À la rose s’assemble...)

The ending yet foretold, having but one supernova eternal,

We leap -

(....Sail....)
Où le blanc jasmin
À la rose s’assemble

There are Jesters in the Morning

 

The Imaginative Mind, upon walking the dog on a Sunday morning

We overslept… rather… I overslept, and Henry bit my finger to announce the time.

Walking out, then, in a haze,

the cool air was fresh, a hint of salt lingering in the inhale exhale

and my feet seemed to feel the dew through

the inch of thickness of my uggs

the parade roses were in bloom, booming whiteness,

while what was left of the night blooms?

The jasmine hung, slowly turning away, the sad girls at the prom.

Approaching the broad expanse of green in front of the Zen Temple,

a deck of cards scattered about, as if

the morning sun had interrupted the court jesters at poker,

and here, a card face down in a puddle, red with two men on bicycles.

I picked it up, expecting to see a Jack of Hearts

and was surprised to see

it was blank!

Ah, the sweet assurance of conquerance,

the laughter to one’s own self

as around the table made of pavement,

the others’ eyes, beady and black in the moonless night,

life in curiosity.

I’ve a blank up my sleeve! I’ve a blank up my sleeve!

Oh, the rupturious joy, they could never know-

those jesters from all corners of the world,

so proud of their lineage.

“I’ve come from His Majesty’s in Francia,”

he couldn’t even say it right, that one,

sticking his tongue too close between his teeth to

render his ess as effectual as a dehydrated peach.

“I’ve flown in on Pegasus from Atlantis,”

announced the one with the crazy fish eye, green and hanging

next to broken blood vessels and

the smell of rotten kelp all round him.

“Atlantis isn’t real,” snarled another one,

a surly fellow but who at least had brought bagels.

I laughed to myself, for

they never had a chance! They who had flown in to MY City of Angels,

MY world of subcultural subterfugistic delights…

And the games continued and bagel boy was out, and then

mandolin playing troubadour with a lisp was out, and

it was down to me and down to the self-proclaimed magician

of the sea, and I am sure I saw him hide a fishbone behind his ear,

although in the darkest hour before dawn, how could I be sure?

Until at last,

shifting the point of my red and green hat from left to right

and left again, the jingle bell jangling in the silence

as deftly, my blank, I withdrew and replaced

to lay down atop an Ace

and I was about to take it all, winner takes ALL

when

The God of the Morning! From out of nowhere!

That be-damned golden orb of secrets revealed

emerged from the swathes of black silk

and foiled our game, with such tremendous force that we,

in uproar, fled in a swirl of dirt and trash and baggies,

leaving the effects of our game flying into the sky,

the sound of tinkering bells as we jesters fled

turning back only to notice the cards, floating down like feathers.

But it was 9 am on a Sunday, and I had places to be.

“Come on, boy,” I muttered. “Let’s go.”

I am not even the wind

…for I would rather be a sucker

than believe in lies

because once they were true

because once they were safe

because once I had it all figured out.

…

he thinks I am a fool

and full well I suppose I am

For loving?

Well worth it.

Or not. What care I?

because it is too late for me to do anything other than love.

(and in my mind’s eye,

I remember everything about that day.)

I would do anything, for you, anything

and no other man has that power, none,

for god speaks to me through you

and only you

and how I know that to be true?

I don’t know.

That is the only thing

that separates me from you:

your knowing yourself to be true.

I know myself to be:

a baby’s breath, sweet and warm, milk of her mother;

a flock of geese, the moon and dusk.

the warm, firm belly of my horse as I lean my head against him,

the coarseness of his hair and the softness of my skin.

I know myself to be a song,

and bells ringing, and phones ringing,

and ticks and tacks and clicks and clacks

and the whirring machinery of the human heart

of the human body of the universal speck of dust

that we believe is modernity

and I know myself to be your eyes,

and the light behind them.

I know myself to be a great roar from a stadium,

a dandelion, a snowflake, a crash, a stabbing wound,

a toothless, hapless smelly man

and the Queen.

And I am available to all of these,

and more,

to know themselves as me:

Here is where you sign your name.

And now my makeup’s smudged, and I’m late for a class,

and Christmas songs, and gifts, and dogs, and mailmen, and

all of the day to day distractions which I love

do beckon for my eyes upon them.

But know this:

in my secret time, within my heart, where

days exist as eons and lifetimes are a smile:

you will forever live.

I am nothing, not even the wind. And yet, I love you so.

...it lingers in the air here...

 

It lingers in the air here

by Erin Elizabeth Muir

It was a bright and cheerful morning, but cool. Very cool in running shorts, I discovered as I exited the building, skipping along the yellow and cream tiled corridor and down the marble steps to the busy street. Henry tugged at my leash more forecefully than usual.

            “Henry!”

            Ah…. there’s Doris and Mitzi further down the street!

            Henry led, but I ran to so that we could catch up to my neighbor lady and her young rescue pup, Mitzi. Henry loves Mitzi. Mitzi ignores Henry.

            “Good morning!” I shouted over the sound of cars and mowers and tree trimmers.

            “Good morning!” she returned. “Aren’t you cold!?”

           

            “Yes. I’m freezing!” We laughed.

            I smiled, looking over the dew on the clovers in the little courtyard where we led our pups, hip hop from a Honda Civic stopped in a line of traffic.

           

            “Did you know,” I began, in the hushed tones of gossip, “I read something on Yahoo today that I had never heard before, that Clark Gable and Loretta Young had a child, and no one ever told about it until the 90s, and that child only recently just died?”

            “Oh, yes!” Doris answered, letting Mitzi’s leash out a bit so she could continue to torture Henry by sometimes giving him a “come hither” look and usually rebuffing him. “I read that obituary in the paper the other day!”

            “I had no clue!” I erupted.

            “Neither did I,” Doris exclaimed, “And that was my generation! I’m 86, you know! And she only saw her father twice in her life, and at first, her mother adopted her out! Well, you know, that’s how it was done in those days.”

            “Yeah,” I said, “These days the rules of any kind of propriety don’t apply. And when it comes to this kind of thing, I’m thankful.”

            “Oh, it just wasn’t done back then. But that Clark Gable…” Doris trailed off….

            …I did too… I was remembering the first time I ever knew who Clark Gable even was. I was 12. My grandmother was living at our house, dying of emphysema. She was breathing through the respirator and every day she and I together watched an old black and white movie. I loved those old movies and wished that I had been born just 50 or 60 years earlier. I made us tomato soup with crackers and cheese, and we started watching the movie. Then came that moment, that first moment when Scarlett (Vivien Leigh) is coming down the steps and Rhett (Clark Gable) rests on his elbow and turns and looks up at her. I was STRUCK…. something my little 12 year old body had barely felt before… if ever…. suddenly, I heard heavy breathing coming from the tiny little body with tubes coming out of it everywhere…. my Grandmother was breathing verrrrrrry heavily. “Grandma,” I said, checking in on her. Her eyes were RAPT. “Grandma, who’s that?” She snapped out of HER reverie, surprised to see me. She smiled. She breathed in one long, heavy rasp: “Clark…” She breathed out, slowly, tasting the name… “Gaaaaaable.” “Ah,” I repeated. “Claaaaark… Gaaaaable.” And a femme fatale was born…..

            Both Doris and I shook our heads out of our respective daydreams and we both looked sharply at our dogs. Mitzi was poking around a tree and Henry was happily chewing on his leash, planning how he and Mitzi would run away and feast on the leftovers that the McDonald’s up the street threw in the dumpsters.

            “Well,” I said, “You know, I think Clark Gable was one of the most…” I put my thumbs up, winked and smiled… that… knowing…. Claaaark Gaaaaable…. kind of smile.

            “Oh yes,” she said, “Even better than George Clooney.”

            “Although,” I said, “George Clooney is pretty darn Clark Gable.”

            We laughed.

            “You know, I used to always want to be born in that era,” I confessed. “I romanticized it. But when I hear about the limitations on our choices… having to adopt out a child, or hush it up, I’m glad I live today, as a woman I’m grateful for my choices.” After all, I live alone, or sometimes with a roommate, I run my own businesses, I date freely whom I choose (well, if they choose back! LOL). I have traveled the world on my own and had an incredible life and it’s not even half over, God-willing.

            “Oh, yes,” Doris said. “When I graduated high school, your only choices were to get married, or go to college to be a nurse, or be a teacher. Well I didn’t go to college, because my parents couldn’t afford that, so I went and became a teacher. These days, my nephew’s son, he is in his third year of college and he has already traveled the world!”

            “I used to really romanticize Jane Austen, and the Bronte sisters, and Lucy Maud Montgomery,” I said. “I used to romanticize those eras.”

            “Well, sure, if you were lucky, it was probably an interesting time to be alive. If you were a girl from a well off family, you had very few responsibilities. Getting married and learning your manners. That sounds like a fairly nice life…” she trailed off, a look of doubt crossing her face.

            “Well, you know, my mother says, ‘Marry for money, and you earn EVERY penny.’ I guess the same was probably true back then.” I said.

            Doris laughed, as we headed back to her building, next door from mine. “Hello, John,” she called out to the handsome janitor. I smiled an waved. He was a total cutie, and he always was sweet to Henry. “And you’re still looking for the rich man, aren’t you?” She pointed a finger, almost accusatorily at me.

            “Oh, no,” I said, watching the look of surprise on her face with a secret smile in my heart. “I’ve dated the rich man, and I’ve dated the poor man, and deep down, it really doesn’t make much difference. I want a nice man.”

            She smiled and nodded, shaking her finger and her head in uniform approval. And with that, she turned and walked Mitzi into her building.

            Henry jumped up and put his little paws on my legs. I looked into his little Henry Fonda eyes. “Let’s race!” I said. And with that, we were off, sprinting the rest of the way back to my little 1950s era Hollywood apartment, full of leftover dreams and wishes from all the people who have come and gone. Those dreams linger in the walls here, in the poof of dust that escapes a closet door as you open it, in the little statue of the Chinese Lady plastered on the wall as you head out toward the pool. Those dreams never strike me as bitter, but hopeful, and sweetly innocent.