she lives here and there and everywhere and nowhere.
in I Lift My Eyes Up, Thoughts and Feelings
as beauty, city, Gershwin, girlhood, green pennsylvania, grit, movement, music and rhythm, pennsylvania streams, rhythm, Score, seat, single woman, skyline, subway, trills, unexpected rhythms, vast blue sky
I like it here in the city, I really do.
But then there are times like tonight, when I really miss the stars. There is beauty in both places–here in the industrial grit and higher-than-I-usually-even-bother-looking skyline; and there in the tumbling hills and woods of green Pennsylvania.
Just yesterday I was sitting, waiting for my train, when I was caught up in the sound of another train rumbling by. It was music and rhythm and movement and it made sense to me, guys, it did. It was a drummer. A machine. An artist. And I couldn’t help but listen and, yes, it made me want to sing and it made me want to dance and it was all I could do to try not to move too much in my seat right there in the subway. I was struck by the accidental music.
It reminded me of Gershwin, who surprised so many people with his blue notes and trills and unexpected rhythms. It reminded me of how he said he wrote out the every day sounds he heard in New York City right onto the score. So maybe he made the piano the shuffling of feet; the trombone, the high horns of traffic; the rolling drums had to have been the subway, right? Oh, at least they were the other night, my friends.
And I listened.
But my Pennsylvania streams and hills and good, honest trees–that is my girlhood, the innocence I insist is still here–God, may it be so!–it is what I want for the kids I will have. It is where I’d like to fall in love, I think; it is where I’d like him to fit right in someday, I think, too. To love the trees, to understand that the vast blue sky and the stream is something never to be taken for granted. Not once. Pennsyvlania is kindness and safety and a beauty that is unblemished…well, was unblemished, anyway, and will be one day again, I believe; whereas New York City is opportunity and The Game! (though I am not sure how one wins or how one even plays) and I am never so aware of the fact that I am a single woman than when I am here, in the city. I don’t know if that is good or bad, it just is. New York City is learning and growing and eating lots of peanut butter and navigating the city just like I can navigate life and LOOK AT ME! GETTING SOMEWHERE, AFTER ALL!
Pennsylvania is where God lives. I often meet him where the water covers bits of the earth, flowing freely, reminding me of the choice I have to live like that, too. Pennsylvania is where I see faces that look a lot like mine and hearts that hold me inside, and there’s some powerful kind of belonging in that.
And yet I find that God lives here, too. I meet him in the vast amounts of solitude; in this never expected, but empowering feeling of “me against the world” because sometimes I am surprised by thinking that I might just win after all. Because no, I am not alone. Not when God lives here, too. Not when I see him in all the different kinds of people I walk by, I talk to, I smile at, I learn from, I share this corner of the world with. Maybe for a moment, maybe for longer–who knows?–maybe forever.
But yes, tonight I am feeling that restlessness again. And it’s the stars that can calm it. But if I look out the windows, I only see a great big brick wall.
I guess this is when I remember the stars. That feeling I get when I look at them. That’s real, always, even when I cannot quite see them. And there’s a metaphor in that somewhere, I know.
hard work!
in Performance, Thoughts and Feelings
as Auto, click, click track, course, dancing, Draft, job, kind, measures, musicals, nevermind, nice thing, production, recording, recording project, Score, sentiment, studio, Super, work tomorrow
Tomorrow I start work on a little recording project. See, Jason and I are starting a small production company in order to actually sell the musicals we’ve created over the years.
And the nice thing for him is that his part of the job is basically done. Whereas, my part? Super. Hard. Work. Because I have to go into the studio and record every little thing. That means a click track. And counting. And working out how many measures for the dance breaks. Because every good musical has dance breaks!
Obviously.
So tomorrow we begin the hard work of all that. It’ll be fun, though. Who was it who said pick something you love to do and you’ll never have to work a day in your life? Well, yeah. I get that sentiment. But actually–even the things I love to do are still hard work. Dancing hurts. Writing strips you down, making you feel like there’s nothing much left once you’ve gotten rid of all those words. But it’s a good kind of nothing left. It’s the best kind of spent, I think. Singing, though–now that really doesn’t feel much like work. Unless, of course, you’re learning a new score. Because that’s work, so nevermind about singing not being work.
Anyway, yes, recording.
And a musical, no less!
Here’s to hoping I correctly calculate how many measures for those dance breaks…
p.t.
in Funny Stuff, Performance, Thoughts and Feelings
as cursory glance, deep tissue massage, DICKENS, far distances, hip, humor, I.T, Japan, jazz class, physical therapy, Score, show, standing, stress fracture, theater/tour, therapist
Our physical therapist watched the show tonight. And the thing about your physical therapist watching the show is that you’re all of the sudden seeing your body the way he does. You can no longer just stand and bevel. Now you have to give a slight arch to your back in order to stabilize those [...]
