Tag: singing

Friday night sucks…

Let’s talk for a minute about how we live into the future…

You know, on any given weekend, Sunday is kind of the sucky day of the weekend, because we are acutely aware of having to go back to business Monday morning… and then, if we have a vacation coming up, we’re overjoyed and excited all the time, all throughout the day, even if it is Monday morning, and we have work to do…, because our vacation is soon(!)… The boring meeting right now has no power over our cruise that starts Saturday morning…

In that sense, we live into our future, right?

Right.

So, for me, I need to be around people – I need to have my solo time, but I also need to be with people, really be with them… a friend(?) recently mentioned the term “ambivert” to me, and I like it… it very well describes my situation with all of this being extroverted and introverted…, which people almost never seem to understand, by the way…

Anyway, I need people in my life.

For the past two weeks, I have been living with very few people in my daily life… it was enough to get me by last week and the start of this week, but then the working from home this week has crushed all interactions with people in my daily life now…

However, I had work to get me through the week, e-mails to exchange, interactions (though cyber) guaranteed to be had throughout the day…

But tomorrow is Saturday… I have no work, no e-mails, no semblance of human interaction…

And I am miserable… I almost – scratch the almost, I feel like weeping, I am filled with such an experience of stress and of being unloved…

There is that beautiful quote of, “I have called you by name; you are mine,” and, though it is used initially as defining a part of the relationship between God and humanity, I feel it applies to how we interact with all things and beings in our life… when I have called you by name, given you a name of my own, I have given you a place in my heart, and you are dear to me – in some way or other, you are mine.

When people interact with me, call me by name, I often am filled with the love that is present in our relationship, whatever that relationship may be… essentially, when people interact so directly with me, I feel and experience their love for me.

In contrast, when people do not interact with me directly…, I sometimes lose sight of that love…, I sometimes begin to convince myself that the love has faded, and that I am left to myself, to be loved by no one else…

And the experience of that always sucks.

Just saying, it does.

And I know that my love is enough, and I know that the pieces of God that reside within me are enough to sustain me and fill me in every way…

That doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck to feel unloved by the rest of the world.

I know I will be okay… I will be far more than okay…

I’m just letting myself experience this overwhelming feeling of sick right now, so that, in acknowledging it, in allowing the intense, hiding yet ebbing emotions to express, I am able to let it all go, to release it all in a cathartic convulsing of body and searing tears…

It is already late tonight, but I know that I will go to bed in an intentionally much improved state…, and I will get out of bed in the morning and take care of myself – I will play music and make art and work my body as hard as it needs to release anything else that might remain in the morning… if I cannot focus my love on others, perhaps there is something missing in my love for myself, something on which I would do well to improve… I am worth loving, and I know that and experience that with my whole being… even when I stray to wonder at its being true…

Nonetheless, I will take care of myself… I will do what I wish others would do to show their love for me, because I love me, and I am worth being loved (and even lavished), and being all alone for so long and for so much foreseeable future is scary right now…

But perhaps it is this problem exactly that has me in this situation… perhaps I need to grow more comfortable with providing all the love on my own, so that I become fully clear and comfortable in the fact that I do not need the others’ love – I merely want it.

As I was thinking in a dreamed conversation just today, do you really want to be with someone who needs you?… Would you really choose that over being with someone who wants to be with you?

I have said it before, and it still holds true entirely, I want to be with someone – in all my relationships, really – who doesn’t need me, but who wants to be with me nonetheless… who wants not to be without me, and so chooses to be with me.

It is in times of these feelings of isolation that I wonder where the people in my life stand on this spectrum, to what degrees they want me in their lives…

I have yet to find the far edge of the spectrum of wanting me…, but perhaps it will come some day… soon…

Anyway, I’m off to clean up and get ready for bed, now that I’ve finished this whole cry fest… who would have thought that Friday night and an entirely open weekend ahead could be so upsetting??

Haha

Anyway, this was how I spent my evening: eating fancy stew straight from the pot, while watching the first half of one of my favorite films, which was just recently gifted to me for my birthday, all while detachedly wondering about something that won’t seem to leave me alone lately… (I mean, what are you gonna do, right?… it’s like when a song gets stuck in my head… just let it ride, and it eventually will be replaced by something [hopefully] better, you know?)

Post-a-day 2020

Dreams are my reality*

These dreams feel so real, so vivid… I can almost smell in them… and yet, they are so good, I wake up from them with a seeping feeling of sadness at the loss of them – when I awaken, they end, and I return to a lesser world than the loveliness that was my world five minutes ago.

The tips of my fingers still tingle, and the sides of my arms, too, from the touch of hands and arms in loving embraces.. I can feel the residual pressure on my chest, and the hands in my back… such embraces are filled through and through with satisfying, tactile love…

And, though they are not real in terms of taking place physically, they are exactly what I most need and want, and my mind allows them to be real, so far as my brain is concerned… we already know that watching something being done activated the same parts of the brain as actually doing that something… my mind knows I want this physical expression of love in my life right now, especially considering my current experience of physical isolation, and so it helps to take care of me, to give me what I most want and need… to love me…

And so, tonight again, I suspect, I shall have some more such dreams, and I will encourage myself to be glad of it – it is a beautiful blessing for my mind and brain to take care of me, and I want to respect their efforts with appreciation and gratitude, and to let go easily of my letdown upon waking and discovering that my world has suddenly transformed from exactly what I wanted…

But then…, what I want truly is possible…, so perhaps, one day, it will be my physical reality, and not just in my head anymore.

Now… that would be amazing…

Fingers crossed(!!!).

*Bonus points for knowing the song and singing along!!

Post-a-day 2020

I promise, we worked today

Office talk between a heterosexual male and myself:

…“it has a sexy 32-year-old Antonio Banderas…”

“Ooh!… Just my type.”

And, what’s really great here is that we both were entirely joking, but also totally meant it – he that the sexy man made it worth seeing the film, and I that the same 32-year-old A. Banderas was just my kind of interest. 😛

There is so much to appreciate in that man, especially when younger,… he was beautiful and healthy, handsome, he could act, AND he sang… beautifully… just uh(!) to my gut, he was so lovely and worth appreciating and sharing… all thumbs up(!).

So, there’s that to take away from today… 😛

Post-a-day 2020

Music in the night

I have been playing music this weekend… and particularly to share with others…

When I put up the first song, my cousin sent the video to me almost immediately, asking if this had not been a goal of mine…

I was, at first, a bit confused, until she specified, saying that she believed I had mentioned a desire to share music publicly with people… yes, that has been a somewhat longtime wish for me, and a more recent determination (that has been very slow-moving, but moving).

The whole reason I wanted to be able to play guitar was to be able to be spending time with people, and sing songs together, thanks to my hands on the guitar… I never had specifically high hopes or goals of being an expert player – I just wanted to be able to make music communally and to share songs I love with people I love.

Now, I find myself interested in improving my performance skills, but it is not out of the same drive as the original reason for wanting to learn – it is merely for my own enjoyment.

As far as the original desire goes, I guess I am at that point already – that is, I can play casually plenty of songs and sing along with them…, but when do I actually share them with others in any way?

I am by no means a top musician or singer, but I love music and singing, and I love sharing them both with others…

Sure, the ideal scenario is something much like a campfire surrounded by many people I love dearly…, but two main parts of it all are my having the confidence to perform/play and my actually sharing with others.

This past week, I have been experiencing lots of feelings of loneliness… not overwhelming, help me, please! feelings, – they’ve all been quite manageable, and I have managed them mostly beautifully (yeah, I made some stumbles, but they’ve happened and I have let them go, so we need not dwell on those anymore) – but loneliness, nonetheless.

Whenever I feel lonely, I find myself wanting to turn, if not to people – meaning the people are unavailable – to music… music can express whatever I am feeling, usually, and then music can help me move into a different state of emotions, simply by my selecting the song and allowing myself to embrace it.

This past week, what I have probably wanted more than almost anything else has been someone to play music for me and to sing to me… I once shared online that I want a baritone to serenade me in my life, and a fabulous, incredibly sweet distant friend of mine saw the post, and promptly sent me two videos of him sitting around on a night shift at work, singing… just for me, in his baritone of a voice.

It warmed my heart so dearly, I think I shall remember it always.

Fast-forward to now, and I am approximately eight days into wanting just that in my life… but, under the circumstances, the only person at my disposal has been, well, myself…

And so, I started to play some ukulele (because I really need to change the guitar strings, and I only have strings for the two classical guitars that aren’t here right now [that’s another story for another day])…, but I quickly realized that it just wasn’t the same… my actively playing is not the same as being sung to… but, what if I recorded it?… then I could sit and listen to it afterward… for as long as I wish…

Recalling my wish to share music with others, evaluating that it would be a good way for me to make sure it is worth hearing more than once, and determining that it would be possible, I determined to make a recording to share with all my extended friends online… and all posterity… 😛

As I go to bed this Sunday night, I have listened multiple times to both of my songs that I shared this weekend, and I have loved them dearly… if anyone is able to enjoy them as I have, I am thrilled… and, even if no one has, I still am thrilled – I was confident enough to share them, I wanted to share them, I did share them, and I listened to and enjoyed them thoroughly… just lovely.

Yet another case of my kakizome coming to fruition in my life… self-trust/self-confidence and heart were definitely present in these small yet momentous tasks of the weekend.

Good job, Banana.

Now, bedtime, since you supposedly have to do this whole work thing in only a matter of hours… we’ll see how that all goes… 😛

Post-a-day 2020

Two things about music

The first:

It is funny, the things that get us, that get to us… I have been mostly totally fine with all of the splatters of chaos going on in the world around me these past weeks (the past one especially), and my life has been rather normal-ish… I have been bummed for many a people who have had work closed (and, therefore, no pay) or canceled (performers who, of course, now will not be paid for unperformed shows), but that is it… I have been bummed about it.

Today, as I read the lovely e-mail from Houston Grand Opera, stating clearly and beautifully that they are cancelling their remaining shows, both paid and free to the public, of the season (four altogether, with many performances of each) and that they are still paying 50% to all workers and performers who were hired to work on the shows, and, if we would like, we could ‘click here’ to donate our ticket prices to help them do this (instead of being refunded or having it apply to next season or something), I found myself full on crying… tears overflowing, body shaking slightly, a feeling of failed, helpless distress filling me…

Perhaps it was the first thing that 100% affected me directly, and not merely indirectly…, and perhaps it was that they were doing it all so kindly, handling it so well for the performers and workers they knew would be out of income probably entirely until the public returns to a life that includes theatres and performances and people…, whatever the case, it helped me to experience all the feelings I had been avoiding inside myself about all of this… I am terrified for my friends, these people I love, who work in these industries that have closed, and I am distraught for my performer friends, the people who light up my life for me with their every moment of work – their entire job serves the higher good in my life, lifts my spirits, heals my soul… how can I tell them that everything will be okay, when it very possibly will be quite terrible for them for a while?

I cannot…, but I can love them and value them nonetheless for all that they do, for all that they are, both in the world as a whole and in my life specifically…

I don’t know how I would be in life without them and all that they do and are committed to doing…, perhaps that is why it is so hard for me to know and accept the current absolute halt of their work… they mean more to me and my life than they ever could know or understand.

And I believe they might be feeling entirely useless and stupid and helpless right now…, I want the to know that they are not – they are as amazing as ever, and will be even more so amazing when we move forward through all of this, and they stick to doing what they do so spectacularly, both for themselves and for the world around them.

::big siiiigggghhhhh…

Second thing:

I discovered today that one of my absolute favorite places to sing is in a parking garage… I have turned unconsciously to singing this past week, and unabashedly so.

Walking through the parking garage today, I couldn’t help but marvel at how spectacular my voice sounded, reverberating so majestically around the concrete and air that surrounded me… it was beautiful.

And I am not exactly a fancy or trained singer or anything – very much an average, so far as people who understand and play at least some music go.

It was just so amazing a space for singing, it made my own singing sound worthy of being on a soundtrack…

Crazy, right?

Anyway, I look forward to gathering with friends for music dates in the future, in which we feel not so unlike drug dealers, when we meet up in various parking garages at all hours, like it is totally normal. 😛

Post-a-day 2020

Thump-thump, to the beat

Once again, my heart is ablaze at the sound of the same man’s voice…

I first heard him sing just over a year ago, amidst a chorus-filled song, when his crystalline voice suddenly, and seemingly out of nowhere, pierced through the rest, and took my heart with it as its reverberations dissipated through the room…

To me, it was the voice of a man delighted and in love, sharing his delight with the world.

Today, and this week, hearing it again, I cannot but feel my entire stomach convulse and my heart pause in awe, before thumping with intensity and fervor, longing to follow and to stay with such a voice, such an expression.

His voice has my heart forever, I declared… and I told it to him, too, even before hearing him sing again today… that’s how lovely it is, and how strongly it sticks in my memory.

It’s funny what I thought of while considering it all afterward… when I lived in Japan, there was a brief time, shortly after moving there, that I had two phone buddies who also had just moved there.

One of them and I had both procured guitars, and so, one night, while talking, instead of hanging up and having to call back after her shower, the friend just left the phone on speaker, and I practiced some guitar and singing.

We joked that I was serenading her during her shower (which led to the telling of another silly story from college of my doing something similar).

When I told later my other phone buddy, he jokingly yet in earnest asked where his serenading was.

And so, one night before bed, I sang him some music… naturally, with its being just before bed and his being who he is, he fell asleep while I sang to him.

Basically, as we say now, I sang him to sleep.

And so, today, after hearing this tantalizingly beautiful voice sing, I recalled my phone buddy’s demanding question, and I found myself saying (silently to myself, that is) that I want to have his voice sing me to sleep at night… oh, couldn’t I, please?

You can just call me every night before you go to bed, if I haven’t called you yet (because I tend to go to bed at all different hours, depending on the week), and you can just sing me a lovely little song, and then we’ll hang up and I’ll go directly to sleep.

Done.

Easy peasy.

Let’s do it.

Let me have your number – here’s mine.

Date whomever you want; just call me every night to sing to me.

😂

So, yeah… those were my thoughts all afternoon…

Post-a-day 2020

What to say…

I keep thinking about what to say, and, every time I set my mind loose to ponder ideas, I find myself a minute or two later singing some old song in my head…. actually, it is fluctuating back and forth between the song in the dance video I have now watched about thirty plus times and old songs that were playing where I was hanging out tonight…

So, yeah… that keeps happening, and I keep not having anything to say, aside from song lyrics…. 😛

I keep feeling like I am daydreaming in the middle of the night(!)… haha

Post-a-day 2020

And then, suddenly and seemingly out of nowhere, you find yourself quoting and singing along to Disney songs with the other Americans at dinner, and you realize that you might actually be, in this moment, surrounded by friends… and all the fear and concern slips away, and you find yourself firstly delighted and secondly – and much more powerfully – filled with love for them… all of them.

And you notice that the love was always there, but it head been, in a sense, on hold, in the break room, in the green room…. it had been waiting for its cue, its invitation to join the party… it had been waiting to feel love coming onward before exploding outward with love.

And it makes you wonder what might happen if you just went ahead and loved so powerfully and fully right from the start with people, instead of worrying about a need to keep it cool, not to be so sappy or whatever….i f they then would sort out their own expressions of love toward you, and a lot sooner than usual due to the overflowing love already coming so openly at them…

Perhaps it could end up creating a whole new world of love in the relationships of your life…, and, even though it is scary to consider being so exposed and vulnerable, you find yourself genuinely considering it…

Or, maybe, is that just for me?

😂 Love the world, and it can love you back even better than you might have imagined, Banana… 😉

Post-a-day 2020

Singing, high and low

At the opera tonight, I found myself thinking once again about the the sound of the origination of different vocal ranges within people’s bodies in opera.

This is not at all from where the sounds actually come, but merely a feeling I always get when I hear certain ranges – like when you hear something that clearly came from around the corner to your right… that’s the kind of feeling I mean…

Divide the body two ways: front-center-back and left-middle-right.

When the first prominent bassist was singing in his deep, deep range, it felt like the sound was coming from deep within him…. center of the body’s depth, middle of the left-middle-right spectrum, and at the level just below the groin…

It made me laugh a little, actually, because it occurred to me that this tied in somewhat to the concept of boys having their organs drop, and thereby having their voices deepen… so, perhaps the bassist really do have further-dropped organs than other men… 😛

And, whenever they sing higher in their range, bassists seem to be originating their sound from middle center stomach, the lower belly level…

Moving on…

Sopranos always show up to me, when at the very top of their range, to be originating in the back middle of their throats and mouths, and even down just a bit in their throats, about where am Adam’s apple would be.

(In the middle of their range, they seem to be in the front of the throat, and even more toward the lips, the lower they go, to the point at which they seem to be singing from their front teeth in their lower range of soprano.)

For tenors, they seem to be coming from middle front and middle center at the level of the very bottom of their rib cages, and just above and behind the navel.

Baritones, I haven’t figured out yet, as I didn’t listen for it consciously tonight during the short time that we had a baritone singing solo in the show… – yes, he came back from his early death, but his ghost didn’t stick around for very long whenever it finally made its inevitable appearance… they might be at the back middle, far behind the navel, at the back of the bottom of the rib cage…., but I’m not sure.

And altos…., well, they are chorus…, so not much solo sounds there either tonight…

And countertenors, I’m pretty sure, show up as a floating bubble of air just in front of their mouths… (If you don’t know what a countertenor is, definitely look that one up – it is with knowing.)

Anyway, those are my thoughts that arose tonight again… kind of odd, huh?

It sort of makes sense, but also sort of totally doesn’t, right?

Meh… 😛

Post-a-day 2019

Sioux living

I watched the film “Dances with Wolves” tonight for the first time.

It stressed me out a lot.

It was a really, really well done film…. really…

Kevin Costner is adorably handsome in it.

It hurts my heart that people like the “white men” in the beginning and end still exist today – they are the kinds of people who give me stress whenever I cross them, for I cannot understand their misplaced, narrow viewpoint of the world… and I do not yet know what to do about it – I know something must be done about it, however, if we are to survive as a people on this planet.

Anyway… it is a beautifully done film, and it is very much worth watching… I am glad I finally saw it as an adult, for I think it would have been perceived extremely differently by me as a child, and I want to have had this experience, as an adult watching it for the first time.

And the soundtrack is spectacular, totally worth hearing.

Give it a watch (and listen).

And then, just because it is related through the director and main actor of the film, go look up some of Kevin Costner’s music – he has a band, and they perform together, and the music is wonderful… that man had spirit worth sharing with the world, and I am grateful that he shares it with us.

Post-a-day 2019