Sometimes, you just need to be reminded that Spring is just around the corner.
Then, everything else seems doable.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Monday, March 8, 2010
but like a child at home
I've fallen down on the blogging - again! - but I have so much to talk about now! (The upside to be too busy to blog, I suppose.)
This weekend was my second concert with my choir, and it went off so, so well. We all felt it, I think, about halfway through the concert, that we were all in this moment together and all feeling the weight and joy and pathos and humor of these songs, and that we had worked so hard to get here, and were so proud!
It was interesting for me to sing for the people who were there to see me. My mom has obviously been coming to concerts of mine since I was in grade school, but she reminded me that she hadn't seen me sing since I was in a church choir in Arizona, back in 2002. My best friend from high school was there too, and she has to have sat through a dozen or more of my concerts in the past, but she hadn't heard me sing since college.
I can't believe it had been that long.
I can't believe I didn't have this in my life for so long.
Singing on my own is one thing - it's fun and easy and I can stop for a while when my life gets busy. But it doesn't have the same overwhelming feeling of belonging that singing in a group brings. Being part of this group is a real commitment - a hard one, now that I am working full time and also back in school. But the three hours a week I spend with these people is spiritually transformative, and gives me something I've been missing for a long, long time. We're not anything other than forty people who happen to enjoy music, but when you put us all together, we are so much more than the sum of our parts.
There will be more concerts in my future, and I hope you'll be able to join me for one of them. I'm not tooting my own horn here when I say you won't be disappointed. It's a wonderful group led by a truly gifted and giving music conductor. (If you want to hear some sample songs by the choir, or join the mailing list in case I get lame and don't email people about a show, visit the Manhattan Choral Ensemble website.)
*
In other, much more mundane realizations, I have somehow stopped going to movies. I love movies, a lot, and some of them have transformed me almost as much as music does. I don't really have anyone in NYC to go to movies with, and I've fallen out of the habit. Now that I get student tickets again, I should make that another of my resolutions - a movie a month! - but seeing as the Netflix film I got in December is still on my coffee table? I'm not holding out much hope. *sigh*
I do want to see The Hurt Locker, though. It looks stunning.
This weekend was my second concert with my choir, and it went off so, so well. We all felt it, I think, about halfway through the concert, that we were all in this moment together and all feeling the weight and joy and pathos and humor of these songs, and that we had worked so hard to get here, and were so proud!
I can't believe it had been that long.
I can't believe I didn't have this in my life for so long.
Singing on my own is one thing - it's fun and easy and I can stop for a while when my life gets busy. But it doesn't have the same overwhelming feeling of belonging that singing in a group brings. Being part of this group is a real commitment - a hard one, now that I am working full time and also back in school. But the three hours a week I spend with these people is spiritually transformative, and gives me something I've been missing for a long, long time. We're not anything other than forty people who happen to enjoy music, but when you put us all together, we are so much more than the sum of our parts.
There will be more concerts in my future, and I hope you'll be able to join me for one of them. I'm not tooting my own horn here when I say you won't be disappointed. It's a wonderful group led by a truly gifted and giving music conductor. (If you want to hear some sample songs by the choir, or join the mailing list in case I get lame and don't email people about a show, visit the Manhattan Choral Ensemble website.)
*
In other, much more mundane realizations, I have somehow stopped going to movies. I love movies, a lot, and some of them have transformed me almost as much as music does. I don't really have anyone in NYC to go to movies with, and I've fallen out of the habit. Now that I get student tickets again, I should make that another of my resolutions - a movie a month! - but seeing as the Netflix film I got in December is still on my coffee table? I'm not holding out much hope. *sigh*
I do want to see The Hurt Locker, though. It looks stunning.
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