STEP ONE

Funny that in March I thought I might be depressed. At this point there's no "might" about it. Functioning is hard. That anyone would ever romanticize this condition is ridiculous to me. It's so unbelievably debilitating. The notion that creative personalities are prone to depression - that it somehow makes them what they are is such BULLSHIT!!! It keeps me from my creative outlets. I can barely shower let alone be creative. To find oneself at step one again after years of study, practice and experience is - well - I have no words to describe it but it gets harder each time. How many times can one start over again - it's exhausting and in itself depressing. In my last entry I cavalierly wrote that I'd received a good review once when I was severely depressed. Well, I was a helluva lot younger then and what I gloss over is how it practically ruined my creditability in the opera world. I was so unpredictable and unable to concentrate. Years of work trashed by one ill-timed episode. Here we go again. It seems to demand a level of courage I lack. I think I have perhaps answered a question I've asked myself many times. Is performing my art or my job. Answer: My job. I'm going on not out of love but out of responsibility. Sad, hmm? How does a passionate creative outlet wind up being a job?

Still Digging

A week later and I'm hanging on by my fingernails. There's a very good chance that I am depressed. So, I am surrenduring to that probability and giving up the impossibly high standards I had set for myself in getting ready for this production. I'm just going to do the best I can do at this moment. In another time and another place I could probably do better but - not this time. I'm back to basics - learn the lines, learn the music, learn the blocking. Hopefully, a miracle will happen. I console myself with the knowledge that I got a pretty damn good Opera News review when I was on the highest dosage possible w/o hospitalization of Serzone and still hearing voices. So, it's possible that good enough will be good enough.

Digging my Way Out

(i wrote this over a week ago)

Part of what I’m trying to do here is examine my own creative process. It’s especially important to me now because I am trying to dig my way out of a creative abyss and I’m hoping if I make note now of what works and what doesn’t that it will help me in the future. From a performing standpoint, I have been stagnant since my last project which ended in November. I was exhausted on every level at the end of it and I needed a break. I think because I had allowed myself to become completely burnt out - it made it harder than usual to return to the process. Then, of course, the longer I waited the more insurmountable it all started to seem. So, my first lesson would appear to be to not let myself burn out. I knew as it was happening that it was happening and I didn’t take action. I should have taken time off, gone to get a massage, pampered myself in any way I could to help lessen the effect. I’d also given up yoga and meditation because I “didn’t have time.” These are two practices that are beginning to seem imperative to me.
Depleted, inert and out of shape I began rehearsals for A Midsummer Nights Musical. I skipped the first rehearsal because I still wasn’t ready to face the task of starting again. When I did finally get to rehearsal I felt like I was just going through the motions. I couldn’t see myself in the role, I felt nothing. Oddly, during this whole time I had a song that I couldn’t get out of my head. I was a little obsessed with it and couldn’t figure out why. Just yesterday it came to me - although it’s not a song from the show, it’s my Titania’s song. This has happened to me other times in the past when a certain song will represent a pivotal moment in the show to me. The song itself then becomes very important to the development of my character. I’ve learned a long time ago never to revel my secrets otherwise they won’t work for me anymore - so I’ll not name the song!! So, happily, although I didn’t know it, I was already subconsciously working. Finally, I read the play. I wish I could clearly identify what led me to do it. A sense of responsibility? Fear of public humiliation? Creative curiosity? I don’t know. Mostly, I think I just felt like it was my job to read it so I read it. That in turn led me to watch several different versions of the play and then the creative juices started to flow. Ideas started to form about the character and her relationship to the others. Seeing the set helped me, too. Although I was unable to see myself as the character I could see the character on the set and I could see myself on the set. Now after a week of inner work the two have begun to meld together. The “it’s my job” motivator also spurred me to look at the music and the funny thing about music for me is - once I start singing - I start to think creatively. I can’t sing through something through just to learn it. Now, at last, after a week of inner work, reading and re-reading the play, and exploring the music, I have begun the task of physically getting ready. This is the part I wish I would have maintained throughout my hiatus. It would have been so much easier to visualize myself as Titania if I didn’t feel like a fat, stiff, bloated mess. So, this would be another important lesson. Although it is a big pain in the ass, it’s much easier in the long run to keep the instrument in shape.

Peine fort et dure

Everyday
Like
Pebbles
Into
My
Heart
They fall
Your words dull and dense.
Initially there is PAIN
The small black stone ripping into the slippery tissue.
But, afterward I feel nothing
Except perhaps the
heaviness -
As I adjust to the extra weight.
It is a good way to kill someone you love
Effective but
Imperceptible.

TOTEM

The Muse as Frustration

Part of what I want to do here is not only record and archive some of my work but to also make notes and observations about my process. Something interesting happened recently and I just wanted to record the chain of events. I'd been feeling restless and blocked. I'm not even sure that at the time I would have been able to tell anyone I was feeling blocked. I just felt a general overall feeling of frustration and agitation. Then I talked to my sis one day and she mentioned that Nikki Giovanni had been to her campus to speak. That in turn led me to check a collection of Nikki Giovanni's poems out of the library because it had been a long time since I had read any of them and I imagined I would have a new perspective on them. Reading them excited me right away. I read and re-read them. Laughing, getting angry, nodding in agreement and having conversations in my head with the poet. Still there was this restlessness within me as if something wanted to break through - but I couldn't name what it was. Then suddenly, one day in the shower, the poem to Nikki Giovanni arrived fully formed and 911 followed shortly thereafter. That day and for several days following I felt joyful, buoyant and full of inspiration. Recently, however, that nameless restlessness has returned.