View One

It happened on a Friday afternoon. I was pregnant and got tired quickly, but because the house needed cleaning and kids needed to get cleaned, I plugged on with my household tasks. My husband was helping the neighbor next door. The ladies in the upstairs apartment always used up the hot water so I thought it would be a good idea to run a tub full of hot water so that when it was time to bathe the children, it would be there.
These were my thoughts when I started running the water in the bathtub. I made it as hot as it would go because I'd probably let it sit for awhile before I was ready to give baths. The steam rose up out of the tub--it was very, very hot. Looking down, I suddenly realized that I still had on my watch. It would be ruined if I didn't take it off. Getting up and moving toward the door, I told Diane, who was eight years old, to be sure 17-month-old Melanie didn't go near the tub. Melanie was in the livingroom, toddling about in her diaper and rubber pants. Diane moved toward the bathroom door and I walked a few yards across the hall to lay my watch down on my bedroom dresser.
As I laid down my watch, I heard a blood-curdling scream coming from the bathroom. Racing into the steamy bathroom, I saw Melanie in the bathtub, directly under the faucett, water hitting her on the knees and her little hands curled up in front of her. I snatched her out of the water and saw that the skin on her hands and legs looked like cooked onion. "Go get Daddy!" I yelled to Diane, as I turned off the water in the tub and held Melanie to me. She was crying. I didn't know what to do with her except to hold her to me. I knew she was terribly burned. I also felt nauseated looking at her skin. It was starting to come off on my clothes.
My husband, Don, raced into the bathroom and took her into the kitchen. He had been a medic in the army and would know exactly what to do for her. He reached for the Oleo and quickly applied it all over her body. Wrapping her in a blanket, we rushed off to the hospital. The neighbor rushed in the door and herded the children out to her house.

When we got to the hospital, we rushed into the Emergency Department. A doctor immediately came out. He spoke a few words with my husband, snatched Melanie from him and ran into a treatment room behind some double doors. We were not allowed to follow. Don tearfully told me that the doctor had told him that putting Oleo on burns was the worst thing a person could do to burns. He felt just terrible. The doctor was having to wash all that margarine off Melanie's cooked-onion skin. As we sat there we began to hear her moan and cry in the other room: foreign sounding, unearthly wails. It was the most horrible experience I have ever had: to know she was in pain and be unable to comfort her or do anything about it. Don and I clung to each other, waiting, helpless. I told him what had happened and we felt just awful that this had happened.

When we were finally able to see her, Melanie was swathed in bandages over her whole body from the neck down. There was an opening in the bandages so she could go to the bathroom. She looked dazed and didn't really make eye contact with us. I talked to her and she hardly responded. The doctor said she had second degree burns over a large percentage of her body--I don't remember how much. He was very concerned about her so I knew it was serious. Don was devastated. But we decided that I'd stay the night in the hospital so Melanie wouldn't be as frightened. Don would pick up the two older children and go home.

I didn't sleep much that night. I was worried sick and didn't know what to do for Melanie. I tried to talk to her and entertain her, but she had withdrawn and wouldn't engage with me. She seemed dazed. Just dazed. She was in a crib with bars over the top so she couldn't climb out. But that would have been impossible because she couldn't really move with all those bandages on her. I couldn't get comfortable in the chair I had to sleep in. Being pregnant made it all the more difficult and I was exhausted by the next morning.

Don came the next day after he dropped the children off at a church member's house. Melanie looked a little bit better, but I was still very upset about her. Seeing how tired I was, Don asked the doctor to please give me some medication to help me sleep. I took a pill called Darvon or Darvocett or some sleeping pill that started with a D, once I got home. I slept quite well that day. But I was still quite upset when I got up. Actually, I felt kind of crampy when I woke up. When I went into the bathroom, I miscarried. It must have been the pill the doctor gave me.
I really wanted to have that baby and was terribly distraught, particularly when I could be losing my other baby, too.

When I went back to the hospital to see Melanie, she was awake and looking around. The doctor came through to take her down to have the dead skin removed, which was done daily in a huge tank of water, and he told me that Melanie sang during the whole procedure. Her little face would screw up and she'd look like she wanted to cry, but she'd sing:

When He cometh,

When He cometh

to take up His jewels.

All His jewels, Precious jewels,

His loved and His own.

Like the stars of the morning,

His bright crown adorning;

They shall shine in their beauty,

Bright gems for His crown.

I was so proud to know that Melanie was such a good girl. The doctor was impressed with her and I could tell that He admired our family and how we've raised our children. We taught the children to sing when our family worshipped together every weekend. Maybe I had done something right with my children. I didn't know how to be a parent because my own parents were not exactly the model of care for us and I grew up without getting the emotional things I needed. So how to run a household, attend to my children's emotional and physical needs, and not know how it should look, has always been a challenge for me.

Melanie looked exhausted and ashen when she got back from her treatment, but she had new bandages on and at least she was making eye contact with me. It wasn't long before she was singing her song for me, too. I was thrilled and so proud of her.

Melanie sang for the nurses and doctors, and I'd sing with her while she lay in her hospital crib. She started being more responsive, although she acted really dazed and withdrawn. I hoped that she would snap out of it soon.

One day, the pastor came to visit us and Melanie stood up in her crib and sang her song for him. He left with tears in his eyes. A little bit later he came back to see us with some surprising news. Scotty, a man who had once attended our church, was a patient across the hall from Melanie's room. Scotty had quit going to church because he had become embittered about something or another. People knew him to be an opinionated, miserable man. The pastor told us that Scotty had been admitted to the pediatric unit a couple nights earlier after an emergency hernia operation. No other beds had been available in the hospital, much to his disgust. But several times in the night he would hear Melanie singing. Her sweet little voice in the darkness of the night broke through the bitterness of his heart. When the pastor had visited him out of a sense of duty that morning, Scotty told him all about hearing Melanie singing at 2:00 in the morning, and how this had affected him. As he lay in his bed, he considered that he needed God in his life once again. He had reconsecrated himself to God. The pastor was teary as he told me this. I thought of the verse in Psalm 8: "Out of the mouth of babes He hath ordained strength."

I wondered if this event signaled something bigger, more important for Melanie's little life. Maybe she would be a singer when she grew up. Maybe God would use her for something important. She was getting better and could come home soon. I was thrilled that she would be okay.

And so I took my little baby girl home several days later. John, who was 5 years old, became very protective of his baby sister, always watching her and playing with her. He knew that she had nearly died and wanted to take care of her. They were very cute together. Melanie remained dazed and withdrawn for about six months. I just hoped that it would go away soon. And it did, eventually.

It seems that this all could have happened for a higher purpose: Scotty was given the opportunity to rededicate himself to God. And God had shown me that Melanie had been spared because God would do something important in her life.

I am so fortunate.

Both and.

Picture found here

James and Sarah (not their real names) sought therapy for their constant arguments. Sarah was always angry with James for not seeing things the way she did, and belittled him when he didn't relate events according to her version of what had happened. Or else she constantly prompted him, as though he were a small child: "Now, what was it that I did next, James?" "What did you say when I turned to go that day? ...no, you know what you did. Tell Barbara what you did." If I had been James, I would have wanted to wring her neck, listening to the nagging, sing-song tone of her voice.
What did James do? He seemed to be truly baffled by Sarah's perspective on life and life events. Something that to him seemed cut and dried, was for her wraught with all sorts of meanings that he'd never come up with. Even if he lay in bed awake all night thinking, he would never come up with her interpretations of things. So James withdrew and spent lots of time working out in the yard or garage, just to get away from her. He also said insensitive things to her which he deep down knew weren't the best things to say, mostly to try to counter her stories of how he had failed. He couldn't articulate what was wrong. But insist that he think the way Sarah did and he'd become furious. James saw life in a very straightforward way and it maddened him that Sarah read so much into everything.

It took a few sessions before they were able to hear that both their perspectives on life were valid. There was not one absolute truth about what had happened, or what something meant because there would almost always be at least two versions of meaning to be had. James was a no-nonsense person. Sarah was a bleeding heart who resonated with emotive aspects of events, not factual, face value type interpretations. She found the most meaning in trying to talk through things, while James withdrew to try to understand what was happening before he committed himself to an interpretation.

So there they sat on at different ends of my therapy couch, furious with each other, holding on to their respective bundles of meanings, interpretations, characteristics, family of origin issues, and list of stories to prove the validity of their perspective being the correct, absolute Truth.

Have you ever been around a group of family members and in listening, realize that each individual viewed a family event in vastly different ways? I have. I do it for a living. I am also from a family whose diverse stories about certain issues are so different as to make us appear to be unrelated. While there may be common threads in all of our stories, each individual's story arises from a unique position in the family, personality, psychological traits, beliefs, and experiences. What is blue to one person is orange to another. What was hurtful to one, went right over the head of a different person. Portentious events for one was not even on the radar screen of someone else. This is how it is in families.
This is why, when performing therapy for couples, it is important to ask about the different meanings of events that are taken for granted. For example, when involved in sex therapy, I always ask about what sexual contact means to each individual. Couples are usually shocked to be asked this question, as each thinks the other finds the same meaning as they do in their intimate activities. However, they are sometimes even more shocked to find that what to one is purely recreational, is a deeply spiritual existential exchange to their partner. Must they have the same interpretation and meaning in order to enjoy one another, or to truly be unified? No. In fact, I don't think that meanings for sex is the same in couples as often as most people think.

But back to my point. We all view things so differently. In the coming several days, I would like to outline six different perspectives on one family event. I think this may help elucidate the idea that there is truly no one interpretation or meaning for everyone. It's not possible.

Just as was true for James and Sarah, both are correct, and there are probably many more meanings that could be equally valid. An accurate view of life cannot be obtained through a monacle. Life is what is seen through both lenses in a pair of glasses, and there are other views beside what is seen through the glasses. All are valid and all have meaning. You will see what I mean, I think, over the next few posts.

My old high school

It was a terrific Alumni Weekend. Seeing my old friend, Alan, was worth the trip there. But more importantly, it was a healing, wonderful time in many ways.

I'm standing before my old high school.

It's been 10 yrs since I touched the door.

But to heal the old pain we must face it again

so I'll walk down that hallway once more.

I have come to this 10 yr reunion

for my heart is still pris'ner of war.

'n if I find it's alright we're escaping tonight.

That's what I came back here for.

Won't you please waltz with me?

I feel like I'm just like I used to be

my heart is locked up here so quietly

believing that you hold the key.

Won't you please waltz me free?

The turns of our steps are untangling me,

free from some dragged around memory

and the rusty old remnants of fear.

And after 10 years,

I'm melting the shackles with tears.

I'm as nervous as if its still high school.

You're happily married I know.

But it's not just this dance that I'm asking you for.

I'm asking you ten years ago.

Remember I wrote in your yearbook?

Could you please waste some time on me?

There's just a few things I must tell you,

but that's as brave as I could be.

Won't you please waltz with me?

I feel like I'm just like I used to be

my heart is locked up here so quietly

believing that you hold the key.

Won't you please waltz me free?

The turns of our steps are untangling me,

free from some dragged around memory

and the rusty old remnants of fear.

And after 10 years,

I'm melting the shackles with tears.

David Wilcox

Hail Alma Mater!

On the campus of Columbia University

I am leaving tonight for the East Coast to attend my 30th high school reunion. I have never attended one since I graduated in 1977, mostly because those years were so difficult. After reading the last series of posts it may be clear why that was. But now I am looking forward to going back and seeing what has become of my classmates. Ironically, I'm giving an hour-long afternoon concert during the weekend festivities. It will be very different than I would have given 30 years ago!

My recently widowed mother is traveling back with me for a two-week stay, so blogging will probably be scanty over the next three weeks. I will be back after the 22nd.

Come back in a couple weeks!

Prisoners all

The previous several posts relate to growing up gifted and what life was like for me. It is the abridged version because there is much more to be said that is not appropriate in this venue. One can see however, how formative an experience it has been.

But this is only one of many story lines about my growing up years. There are more. It is not the only version of what it was to be a young person. Other narratives could be written about growing up in a family that camped and did outdoor activities, or about being in a family without divorce. Entire story lines could be developed about being the third-born in my family, or what has happened religiously to the family as a whole as well as individually. I would guess that previous posts do not belie this strand of my story and that was by design.
The story about being gifted is only one very thin thread of the whole story. Were I to dwell in that story all the time, life would feel as though I were standing at the edge of an open grave: missed opportunities, misunderstandings, confusion, great joy that I don't experience now, etc. But there is much more in life than this one story line, as powerful as it may have been.

It has been said that people can become prisoners of their stories. Nothing makes more sense to me than this, as I have been a prisoner of of several stories for certain periods of time. Have you ever met someone who has a story and is quick to tell you that story, adding detail to detail so you get the full impact? That person is probably trapped in their story. The "party line" becomes the structure for their present and future. Everything is typically either blamed on their story, or tied to their story in some way: "My parents didn't love me enough." "I was abused as a child." "Religion was forced down my throat." "My father was absent." Some people weave their present into their past in such a way that it seems as though the same dynamic is happening now, even though they may be 60 years old.

We often hear our elderly tell stories about their lives. If you listen carefully, you can hear the story in what they say. Perhaps they grew up in the Depression, struggling to survive. Maybe their entire story is one of survival and all of their stories of childhood contain this as a key ingredient. You will probably find that their comments about their present life are full of survival references, too.

One of many things therapists listen for is the story. Some people are prisoners of one story but they don't know it. They hold on to the details and relate them to anyone who will hear because those details are integral to their own identity. If they do not have their story, they do not seem to feel like a self. Their friends know their story and can quote it almost word for word because they've heard it so many times. This story is often told as a way to join with other people--if you know what has happened to me, you will understand me. But after so many references to that formative story, people's eyes can glaze over as they think, here it comes again, and they hear the bitter tone of voice as their friend explains their dilemma yet again.
People like this only remember facts from the past that supports their story. They do not look back and recall other events that supports alternative stories of their life, or that tells stories of exceptions to the party line story. They are all about their story and they hold tenaciously to it because if they do not have their story, they do not have a self. I know people who are frozen in time, prisoners of old stories. I felt this way for many years about my singing. But from my vantage point now, I see that it was just one version of my experience, not the entire summation of who I am or how I feel about anything.

Therapists help people develop alternative stories by rounding out the story by exploring other realities that were present during the time that formative story took place. When the story is very negative and painful, it is important to set the painful events in the context of what was going right at the time, or what positive experiences one had in other arenas of life. For example, as a child I was never afraid to go to bed at night for fear that I would be molested. I never had to worry that my father would strike my mother. Although we didn't have much money, we had enough to eat. We made all sorts of gifts for one another at Christmas, so that to this day, I really treasure handmade gifts. I had a degree of freedom living in the country that few of my friends had in town. I felt loved and cherished as a small child, and have many happy memories of family activities. Even though the singing issue strained my relationship with my parents for years, I worked through it and moved on in my relationship to them. I understand my parents and their good intentions for my life.

Do you have a story? Are you trapped or defined by it? Your story can contribute to your self-knowledge or it can squelch self-development and keep you ruminating on what happened or what should have been. If you read stories of the holocaust survivors, you will find that those who survived well were ones who had alternative stories of what was happening other than simply the fact that they were incarcerated, trapped, and helpless. You will read about friends, group meetings, their observations of what was happening socially or relationally in the camp, or even their observations of nature: sky, forest, grass. Viktor Frankl was such a person, the father of logotherapy--an existential approach to finding meaning in one's lot in life. His theory was developed by observing others in the camps.

There are those who hold their story close to their heart, and those who step back and find many story lines; those whose stories make our blood run cold and those whose stories warm us. There is room for more than the party line about who we are and how we got this way. Our lives are really like a diamond with many facets. The more facets a diamond has, the more it sparkles. So with our life stories.

La Prima Dona

This series of posts started out by my desire to respond to a post of one of my fellow bloggers. It prompted me to contemplate why musicians cite their teachers and the schools at which they studied before they offer opinions about things. Here are some random thoughts that don't really answer the question, but that may make sense of some actions of classical musicians:

1. There is an unspoken socialization that occurs in the music world. A regular person must learn how to carry oneself as a musician. Someone with bad posture and a hesitant bearing can't slink up onto the stage and "sell" themselves and their music to an audience. We are taught, either explicitly or by watching other performers, to walk tall and carry ourselves with confidence. One of my voice teachers told me to walk as though I was suspended by my sternum. Quite a spectacle, but when singing opera it does open up the chest to produce freedom of vocal production and movement. It also creates a sense of bearing and presence.
After I defended my dissertation proposal and took a verbal beating from one committee member, my chair took me aside and commented that he was amazed that I had appeared to be unmoved and positive during the entire onslaught. Of course! We are taught to do this when we sing, because people talk aloud in concerts, make faces, and once someone even passed out and emergency workers rushed in to carry him out--all while I was singing.

2. Another interesting phenomenon is that of learning how to establish a pecking order without beating anyone up. This is called "upstaging" and can take a variety of forms. Once during a Messiah sing-along, I was seated on the stage with the three other soloists--all old enough to be my parents. The soprano, who was wearing an off-white chiffon number with a long train, leaned over to me in my plain emerald green silk dress and sniffed, "I'm very thirsty. Would you please pour me a cup of water?" The organizers of the event had placed a small table with a pitcher of water and four paper cups on it. It was right between the two of us. Why this woman couldn't get the water herself answered the simple question: Can I upstage you before you upstage me? It is truly a dog-eat-dog world in some musical circles. I was appalled because I would no sooner have asked anyone else to pour my water than I would have stood up and barked like a dog.

3. A singer has nothing to hide behind. If people don't like our voices, we feel rejected in a different way that a flautist would. You don't like how they play a song, or don't like the fingering they use. They can say, I didn't practice enough, or my lip was shot, or any number of things. But singers feel attacked when someone doesn't like their voice. We can't hide our twitching eye or quivering chin behind a trombone or lean into a violin. People are looking at our faces, our bodies. Our voices are part of us and can't be separated from who we are. Our soul is in our throat, near to our heart. So singers often develop some other sort of notoriety to define them. Some wear Bible dresses (low and behold). Others have wild outfits, or pitch a fit about one thing or another. Some have an obnoxious, gutteral, whooping laugh, almost as though they are vocalizing when they find something to be funny. I think this is what leads to people acting like divas. It's almost as though some think that since you can't see a voice and know a person is a singer, there must be some external behavior to notify the observer that one is a personage of note (no pun intended).

4. Musicians are at the mercy of the conductor. A soloist may sit with a conductor and explain how they interpret a piece: tempo, rubato, mood, and what-have-you. But the conductor can trump you because he or she can do whatever they want once you are on stage with them. If they decide that your interpretation isn't consistent with theirs, or your ideas outrage their sense of musicianship, say goodbye to your fantasy of performing a piece how you'd like to.
This happened more than once to me. The last time it happened, I was singing against a men's chorus and a full orchestra in a small hall. I could barely be heard, as I am a mezzo soprano and sing in a range that doesn't offer contrast with the accompaniament. The conductor discouraged me from using a microphone, stating that he would tone down the orchestra and chorus for the performance. Of course, at performances, nervous energy makes people play and sing too enthusiastically, and I was drowned out for a good third of the performance. I had also asked for the tempo to be a bit faster because the lyrics supported a more cheerful speed. The conductor made a lot of non-committal comments after about five requests to speed up the piece. He liked so-and-so's interpretation of it and played me a portion of it to show me (that sounded like a dirge). I politely requested that we find a tempo somewhere between his and mine and he agreed. At the performance we slogged along slower than his original tempo! And since I was oversinging due to lack of amplification, I was running out of breath. This made me look really bad, I thought. People in the third and fourth rows back couldn't hear me over the din. I was furious.
After the performance, the conductor saw me backstage and glibly commented, "I only heard one mistake!" That was all he said. No thanks!, no collegial comment, nothing. I had thanked him and complimented him on how the chorus had sung, etc. The experience was deflating, to say the least.
Perhaps then, it makes sense to the reader, why a performer may seem demanding sometimes. If we aren't, and conditions for performing are unsuitable as it was with me, we look bad. If performing is the medium for making a living, this is a serious problem, because a person can lose opportunities for future performances after one bad concert.
Negotiation skills are critical for performers. An agent works out the logistics of where and what to sing, but the singer has to deal with conductors who can ruin them. Singers are known for having screaming matches with conductors, calling them all sorts of unsavory names in front of the orchestra (and vice versa). The worst is, "dumb singer." A number of people think of singers as very dumb people unless they hold some sort of advanced degree. Even then, because their whole life is about singing and nothing else, they can appear to be very narrow people. To be called a smart singer who is easy to get along with is a compliment, indeed.

5. If you perform for a living, you have probably given up a lot just to follow your passion. For classical singers, it is not possible to pick and choose which performances one would like to participate in. You have to do all or most of the engagements because that is how you build a referral base and become in demand. That is how you meet people who can invite you to perform elsewhere. There is a huge amount of networking and politics that go into a successful performance career. One must greet members of the audience afterward--something that I have always disliked doing because I don't know what to say. It seems ostentatious (to me) to be in a reception line where the expectation is that people will compliment you. I remember saying to my parents once that I just wish I could perform in a balcony or behind a curtain so no one would accost me afterward. I never knew what to say. If you try to act humble and minimize how well you sang, you sound dismissive of the good will of the person who compliments you. If you accept the compliment and try to carry it further as a way to support what they are saying, you can look conceited. It's hard for some of us to simply thank people for their kind comments, particularly if the performance was a spiritual experience for you. It is much easier to fall into an easy conversation about who they are, what they do, and focus on them, before thanking them for coming out to hear you.
Ah yes, where was I? --giving up my all to follow performing. It is not as easy as it looks.

6. There is an interesting underbelly of the musical world that is all about hearsay and politicing. We get the real scoop from the musical grapevine about various musical personalities and whether they are truly as hard to work with as is reported. Or the conductor who is really a pedophile. Or the bass soloist who slept with the concert mistress. And always, when in the presence of the people with power--the ones who determine where you perform and what you perform--you have to conduct yourself in such a manner that they will invite you to perform so you can have your livelihood. The powerful person who wants you to sleep with him, the sexual harassment that goes on backstage--all of this is rarely visible to most people. It does however, have a huge impact on performers and our sense of personal integrity.

So when people give up this type of life for reasons of religious conviction--to teach music in a conservative religious institution, for example--they would love to hear words of appreciation that they prefer dealing with the uninitiated, unsophisticated musical wannabees, instead of being "out there" performing. Many feel that they have given up all possibilities of ever becoming famous. It can feel like an enormous sacrifice. It is not uncommon for such musicians to talk together, discussing who has given up what opportunity and what they almost did. To be around people who do not recognize the inner struggle associated with the choices and lifestyle in performance, can make musicians feel like they are living amongst aliens. The entire mindset is different, the socialization so very different. It is like living without having your legs under you.

Or they may just get disgusted with the scripted role they must live in the performance world (I think role expectation is much more common in classical singers than other performers). Two weeks ago I had a long chat with my neice, Amy. She questions her career choice in voice performance. To hear her sing is to hear an angel. But she is sick of the politics, the "kissing up" to conductors who "are so insecure that unless they feel that people like them, they write you off and don't invite you to sing anything." The upstaging of her voice teacher, the critical comments meant to keep her within a pecking order--all of this is wearing.
"There is nothing on earth like singing--really singing," she tells me. "But I can't stand what I have to be in order to do it."
Food for thought.

Lions

I didn't realize what I had gone through when I started my graduate program, at the age of 30. Life had felt very challenging, but I didn't have a name for what it was. One day I came across a book on gifted children and saw this poem. It almost leaped off the page and strangled me. Tears poured down my face as the light came on and I reviewed my young life through the lens of having grown up (too fast) as a talented kid. There's more to be said, but here's the poem:

They laughed at me.

They laughed at me and called me names,

They wouldn't let me join their games.

I couldn't understand.

I spent most playtimes on my own,

Everywhere I was alone,

I couldn't understand.

Teachers told me I was rude,

Bumptious, overbearing, shrewd.

Some of the things they said were crude.

I couldn't understand.

And so I built myself a wall,

Strong and solid, ten foot tall,

With bricks you couldn't see at all,

So I could understand.

And then came Sir,

A jovial, beaming, kindly man,

Saw through my wall and took my hand,

And the bricks came tumbling down,

For he could understand.

And now I laugh with them,

Not in any unkind way,

For they have yet to face their day

And the lessons I have learned.

For eagles soar above all birds

And scavengers need to hunt in herds.

But the lion walks alone,

And now I understand.

Written by an unidentified 11-year old, and quoted int he forward of the book, The world of the Gifted Child by Priscilla Vail, 1979.

Boheme

After graduation I moved to California where I planned to work as a nurse for one year. It seemed a prudent thing to start paying off my student loans before going back to New England to finish my music degree.
Nursing was harder than I thought it would be. When I interviewed on the unit I eventually worked on for seven years, I did not recognize anything I saw: tubes, machines, monitors, specialty beds. I was a new nurse who had never started an IV, catheterized a patient, given antibiotics or suctioned anyone. How I ever got through nursing is a mystery to me--and all the more proof that there was nothing about it that came naturally to me. My sister worked on the unit, and I desperately tried to live up to both her expectations and reputation. It was a living nightmare. I had to repeat my probationary period and was written up more times than I probably was even aware of. I had to work a 10-hour night shift and couldn't sleep during the day. So it was hard to think straight after working three nights in a row. But I stuck it out. After a year or so, I wasn't a hazard to my patients--and the fact that no one had died due to my care was a miracle in itself.

Somewhere along the way I began to study voice with a short, stocky tenor. Through his influence I applied for and was accepted in an opera workshop.

The workshop was held at a local liberal arts university. A well-known musician and Italian language coach team had come to town for the three weeks it would take to put on three Puccini operas. There were singers from San Francisco, Texas, and Arizona. And a few of us from the area. Each of us sang for Bill (not his real name) and were cast in a role based on our voices. I was cast in the role of Musetta in La Boheme, and Ciesca in Gianni Schicci.

The singing and rehearsals were invigorating. It was soon apparent that Bill really liked me. While he'd swear and shout at the other singers, when he realized that I was within earshot, he'd immediately rush to me and apologize profusely. "Those words were not meant for your ears, honey," he'd drawl. Our daily voice lessons were thrilling--I'd never sung so well before, and it was wonderful to be able to sing high notes that I'd never performed before. I had a high B and reveled in singing it loudly in the several arias that contained it.

Meanwhile, I was embroiled in an internal struggle. I was convinced that opera was not a good venue for a Christian. I was even more convinced that I did not want to forsake all in my life and follow music. This came forcefully to me one day when Bill introduced me to a visiting singer who had lived in his car for a summer just to be able to attend a one of his workshops in another state. The singer had given up his job, been penniless and transient just to be able to gamble on a maybe. The life of a gypsy was not for me. I was also scared about how I could make a living if I chose to throw it all into one basket.

One day during my lesson I was working out a passage with rather languorous lyrics and Bill stopped me. "Think only of sex when you sing that." I was a virgin, and his comments awakened nothing in me. This must have registered on my face. "Barbara, you need to have an affair before you can really sing." For several minutes he waxed eloquent on the benefits of being sexually ravished and bringing that sensuality to my singing. I flatly told him that I wasn't interested in having an affair and could we please move on with the lesson. We did move on. But the next day there was a visitor for my lesson. This all-brawn-no-brains type of guy, wearing very tight jeans and a shirt unbuttoned clear down to Bakersfield, sat in the corner leering at me throughout my lesson. It was clear that this was someone only too willing to help me with the affair Bill recommended. What a turnoff. Although I was cordial when I met him, I ignored him thereafter. He never came back.

I wasn't sure what to think about this sex business. I hadn't realized that it would be so rampant. I was only 22 years old and still rather naive.

My regular voice teacher hugged me one time and whispered in my ear that he'd love to get me in bed. He was a father of seven children. I was disgusted to the point that I dropped him and never went back to study with him. (By then I also learned that he'd been having an affair with another singer who he later married).

What was I going to do with my singing? Bill wanted to know and really pressed me about it one day. I didn't know. He told me that he thought I should go to New York and that he would take care of me there. He would see that I sang where I should, was introduced to people who should know of me, and that he would be there for me. He said that I had an extremely rosy future if I would only go to New York and work hard at singing (with him, of course) for two years. Then I could sing wherever I chose.

Singing had become an intoxication. I loved it. I was free and I was good at what I was doing. Languages came easily to me, as did acting. So opera was really fun. But I still had that nagging question--How could I be true to my religious convictions and have a professional musical career? Part of my confusion was obviously rooted in the way singing had come upon me. Part of it was from the mixed messages and emotional charge that singing had for me. And part of it was that there was no one to trust, no one to ask how to proceed, and no one to support me. So I did what I had done for years: I prayed.

One night, on the way back from the workshop I had words with God. I told Him that I was mighty angry at the fix I was in, that I really wanted to go to New York with Bill, and that I had lived with my dreams so long as a teenager and that now they were coming true. But something didn't seem right. The very time we don't feel like praying is the exact time we should pray. And pray, I did. And rant and rave and cry.

The next morning I had real peace about my singing future. I awoke with the intention of singing with all my heart, of reaching for excellence. But only as a dedicated Christian of conviction.

That day, Bill again pressed me about my future. "Bill, I don't know what I'll do with my voice. I don't need to know right now. But I believe that if God wants me to become a famous singer, nothing will keep me from that. If God wants me to go down the the corner and sing for a drunken man and then die, that's up to Him. I'll do my best, but I simply don't have the answers to what I need to be doing with my voice right now. I just know that I want to do what God wants for me."

I cringed under Bill's stare. He walked around the piano, looking sideways at me and then out the window. He suddenly wheeled around, pointing his index finger at me. "For by grace are ye saved, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God! ...And we know that all things work together for them that love the Lord." He paused, looking at my shocked face. "Oh yes, I know all the verses. I used to be a child evangelist with the Southern Baptist church. I know how to preach and I know exactly what you believe. I respect that. I understand." He didn't say much more than that, and our lesson was over very quickly. But I did catch him looking wistfully at me several times over the next day or two.

It was just like the tenor from Seattle, at the cast party. After we performed Boheme, we all got together for a party at my voice teacher's home. Sitting in the jacuzzi, a huge pink hibiscus in my hair, and false eyelashes aflutter, I was approached by this man. He squatted down next to the hot tub, probably for a better view down my swimsuit, I thought.

"I hear that you're a Christian," he said in a low voice.

"Yes," I answered, well aware that nothing about me looked very Christian.

"So what are you going to do with your voice?"

"I don't know yet. Are you a Christian, too?"

He stammered a very weak, "Yes." He said he had left his family and his pastorate in Seattle so he could go to New York to pursue singing. "I've given up everything for music," he said. "You should go to New York. You have a very bright future there."

By then I was out of the hot tub and standing next to him by the sliding door into the house. "You know, I don't really know what I'll be doing with my singing. But I do know that without a doubt, God will be central to whatever decisions I make about my future."

The expression on this man's face is one I will never forget. It was one of sadness, regret, wonder, and earnestness. "I wish I could think about it that way" was all he said. He was watching me through the evening with a very wistful expression.

Life moved on after that workshop. I had sung very well and experienced something beautiful. And I was sure that I didn't want to live the life of an almost professional singer. I still sang quite frequently, but mostly oratorio work. More and more, I sang religious music--arrangements of all the old hymns with lofty, uplifting words. And that is the path I took until 2001. Doctoral studies and lack of a musical network pulled me out of the musical world for the most part. Then a nasty bout of gastric reflux excoriated my vocal cords to the point that I am hoarse after only a few songs. So perhaps my singing days are over.

It could have been very different, this singing business. But it wasn't. I feel as though I have already had a career in music and retired from it. Yet it has influenced all that I am--how I carry myself, the way I interact with people after I speak, my sense of presence. I'm grateful for what remains, even though the focus of my life has moved on to something else now. The memories live on in my heart.

My Lord, What a Morning!

Marian Anderson

I had been bitten. Singing had become my passion. If it meant that I couldn't fit in with my friends, then so be it. If it meant that I'd need to practice for hours on end, then I would. There just had to be a way that I could make it all happen for me, even though my circumstances made me feel closed in, scrutinized, drained dry, and hopeless. I still sang--but mostly in private and never in front of my parents. If they were going to dictate when, what, and how I sang, then I simply wouldn't sing at all around them. So at age 17 I stopped singing at home and have not sung in the house in front of my parents since. If I sang in front of them, one of them would cry, or stare at me so I felt uncomfortable. My voice got all the attention at the cost of Barbara getting any attention at all. I would be volunteered to sing any number of places and have hell to pay if I refused. But I thought, if they won't see me, then they don't hear me either. At least I could control what I did at home.

This is the very thing that anorexics do: if they can't control their own lives and do not get to order how they live or negotiate rules for themselves, or if they feel out of control in general, they focus on their eating. That, they can control, and control it, they do. I completely understand that concept. I have always loved to eat, so anorexia never occurred to me. But I suppose you could say that I had vocal anorexia!

Our family did not have money. In fact, I was frequently reminded that because we did not have what other people did that I needed to keep a low profile so my lack wouldn't be as obvious. At least that is the message that came through. This made me feel rather hopeless that I would ever be able to get out of my home town, afford to go on to school, or get to a place where I could afford voice lessons. So many people could afford lessons and I couldn't. I had to beg my parents for piano lessons, and even then, we could only afford lessons for six months, all told.

Somewhere I came across the book, "My Lord, What a Morning!" --the autobiography of Marian Anderson. She was the courageous African American woman who was invited to sing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., 1939. She was a famous mezzo soprano who had come up through poverty and difficult family circumstances to become a much loved opera and recital singer. I devoured her book and borrowed records from the library of Marian singing spirituals. I had a cheap little record player in my bedroom, and I used to listen to her singing as I lay in bed at night, all those wonderful spirituals. If she could do it, so could I.

My last two years of high school were absolutely miserable because I withdrew into myself, certain that my peers didn't like me. The music that the choir sang was unappealing and our choir director was loud and socially awkward. So I dropped choir. It seemed that there was no social connections available to me at the school.

When it was time to go on to college, I was eager to go to New England and study music. There are so many excellent musical opportunities there and wonderful schools of music. I was very excited about finally being around students who were serious about music. My parents strongly encouraged me to attend a college in the Southeast, stating that I could become a refined, well-mannered young lady if I learned the Southern way. I was horrified at the thought of being pushed into the Southern Belle mold and told my parents that I wanted to go to my father's alma mater in New England. Imagine my shock and disappointment to be told that my education would not be paid for unless I studied nursing. If it couldn't be music, I wanted to study psychology and journalism. I already realized that writing was enjoyable. Neither of those were acceptable careers, however. So I dutifully went up to New England and enrolled as a double major: voice performance and nursing.

I knew a good number of music students, because many of them had been in the youth orchestra with which I had traveled three years earlier. It was terrific to be able to sing with the orchestra once again, and to eat, breathe, and dream music. I felt free and at the cusp of opportunity. Even though I worked three jobs to pay for my education (yup--I ended up paying for most of it myself, even though I studied the requisite subject!), I spent every free moment down in the music department. It was pure joy to sit at the piano and accompany myself singing all sorts of art songs and operatic arias. I was a soloist with the choir and performed several challenging choral works there.

Meanwhile, nursing studies were not going so well. I enjoyed microbiology, anatomy, and physiology. I even enjoyed learning about various diseases. But I couldn't quite grasp what my role as a nurse was supposed to be. For whatever reason, I couldn't catch on to what I was supposed to be doing when we went to the hospital. I followed around other students, trying to figure out how they knew what to do next. It could be that I had no interest in the subject matter so I simply didn't take in the information that had been offered in class. Or, maybe I was so unstructured that I couldn't develop any sort of routine. My nursing labs at the hospital were stress-filled and anxiety producing. I had no idea what I was doing and was so painfully shy that I could hardly converse with my patients.
But as soon as I left that world and made my way to the music department, all the pieces fell into the right places. I could chat with people, I felt outgoing, and my grades--while they were all C's in nursing--were all A's in my music classes.

Sadly, I had to drop my music major in my last year of college. I just couldn't keep up with all the nursing labs and required recitals. I still gave a junior recital that was very well received. But I began to notice things about the music department and musicians that I'd not seen before. Once, when returning a reel-to-reel recorder to my voice teacher, I tapped on his office door and heard scurrying sounds and whispering. After I knocked three more times, he finally came to the door--no shoes on, his glasses off, and his shirt hanging out of his pants. I knew the girl in there with him and my idealistic sense of right and wrong was outraged. Storming into the office of the chair of the department, I told him what I thought about my discovery and followed up with the comment, "I don't know how you expect God to bless this department when this kind of thing goes on!" I later found out that my roommate was having an affair with him, and quite possibly, another faculty member. Of course, nothing was ever done about my voice teacher.

There had also been interesting events with my previous voice teacher there with whom I had worked two years earlier (the orchestra conductor had paid for them herself, God love her!) Alex had come to our college to teach for a couple semesters. He was very worldly to my way of thinking, but he liked me because I joked and laughed with him. But there were times when his comments caused real discomfort. "Lift your chest when you sing, Barbara, or I'll come over there and lift it for you!" Suggestive words for a 16-year old. He'd put his hands on my stomach, chest, and back, while coaching me to produce sounds from various regions. He had me lie on the floor and pant while making vocal sounds--to get me to breathe properly. This is when we lay under the piano and laughed about the pictures of Big Bird that he'd taped under there.
One day he said he'd like to take some time and help me with my French pronounciation. Not wanting to waste time with something I could get elsewhere, I said I just wanted to work on the music. Alex blew up and called me "spoiled rotten" and "conceited" and told me that if I didn't get my act together, no one would be able to tolerate me. I was stunned. How could I be all those things when I was afraid of my own shadow, felt helpless and hopeless? When I feared that I'd never be given opportunities to really sing. I had two more voice lessons with him before the end of the semester. I tried very hard to do what he said and was cheerful and appreciative as I knew how to be. And I remained confused. I didn't connect having enthusiastic opinions with noncompliance. And since singing had come to me so easily, I didn't know how to work at it. Perhaps it would be important for me to try to appear to be more humble and quiet. So I pulled in a little more, trying to keep that low profile that I'd been groomed to create.
It was an odd, almost out-of-body experience to be taking voice lessons. One of my teachers sounded constipated when he sang, so I wasn't sure what he was going to be able to teach me. Since I sang very well and very naturally, some of my voice teachers didn't know what to do with me. We all knew it. So I'd go perform at some concert and have excellent reviews about my effortless, full-bodied voice. Then go to a voice teacher who lazily encouraged me to sing any art song that was handy, and really was more of a vocal coach (pointing out phrasing and music dynamics) rather than a teacher. Many times I'd go through the motions during my voice lessons, feeling utter disgust for my assigned teacher.
Looking back, I realize that my standards for these teachers were impossibly high. I just assumed that if I could sing the way I did without training, and they had years of training, they should be able to do more with me. So I dropped singing lessons.
Graduation finally came. I sang something that my voice teacher chose--something really awful and atonal. But I went out of that college with a bang, glad it was over, wanting to return after a year off and finish my voice degree. I wanted to be a singer. If Marian could do it, so could I.

Warnings

Found here

So here I was, a gifted child living in a small rural community with people who for the most part, didn't understand or appreciate classical music, let alone an operatic voice in a 15-year old. I didn't know anyone who could tell me how to navigate these waters. My father tried to encourage me to sing like the female performers that he knew of: Christa Ludwig or Dame Janet Baker. I loved listening to the latter and feared sounding like the former. Baker had a clear, crisp, decisive sounding voice. To my ear, Ludwig sang hootily and sounded like her mouth and throat were full of cotton. My father presented me with a recording of her singing Brahm's Alto Rhapsody, along with the vocal score. It is a soaring piece, written for an alto voice against a men's chorus. I was immediately entranced both with the music and melancholy lyrics of Goethe:

But who is that apart?

In the underbrush he loses himself

Behind him the shrubs clap together,

The grass stands up again

and the wasteland engulfs him.

Ah, who heals the pains for him

whose balsam became poison?

Who drank hate

out of the fullness of love?

First despised, now a despiser

He furtively consumes

his own merit in

unsatisfying egotism.

If there is in they Psalter,

Father of love, one note

audible to his ear,

Then refresh his heart.

Open his clouded gaze

to the thousand springs

next to the thirsting one

in the desert.

(Harzreise im Winter)

Well, that's pretty heavy stuff. Contemplating what it meant made me recognize that I felt like the bitter, brokenhearted man wandering in the desert. The music took me places that I'd never been before, mentally, spiritually, and vocally. But immersing myself in the lyrics like that was not good for me emotionally. About 60-70% of teenagers experience dysphoria: feeling sad or melancholy for long stretches of time. It's a sadness that is not quite depression, but is a melancholy that holds on. It is one of the things that makes us think of teenage girls as "drama queens." Being a teenager is hard enough, but living in the romantic composers' world dropped me down into the subterranean levels of mental health. Consider these lyrics of Robert Schumann:

I'll not complain though I have loved in vain.

Now you are lost to me!

I'll not complain

Once blind with love I saw you pure and white;

How could I know your soul was black as night?

But now I know...

I'll not complain though I have loved in vain.

(Ich Grolle Nicht)

Or the words of Mahler's Lieder eine faharenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer) in which a man sings about his agony on the day of his true love's marriage to someone else:

I have a burning dagger,
a dagger deep in my heart,
Ah pain, it cuts so deep.
In every joy and pleasure deep,
so deep it cuts with pain so deep.
Ah, why must I have this evil guest,
never is he hushed, never will he rest.
Not by day, not by night when I sleep.
Ah pain.
When I look into the sky,
there I can see the bluest eyes. Ah pain.
When in the golden fields I roam,
there I can see her golden hair
on breezes blown. Ah pain, such pain.
And when from my dream I start
then I hear laughter, her silver laughter,
Ah pain.
I wished I lay in the darkest grave.
Oh never, never to wake up again.

(Listen here)

And so there I was, living in the ephemeral world of anguished romantic composers--a good 60% of whom have mood disorders, as I would later learn. My external world had enough challenges of its own without this added ingredient. Longing to sing these songs, I was consumed every waking moment with a type of unrequited love: the music was in me but there was no place out in that rural environment to sing it. It was within me, but didn't belong to me. When I did sing it, I had to brace myself for whatever unthinking remark was made by my siblings or friends. And all the time, I kept wondering who on earth could I turn to who could help me with all of this.

I grew up in a very conservative religious home. One could say that we were fundamentalist Christians. We were told that it was our duty to develop our talents and gifts as much as possible as a way to bring honor and glory to God. But I began to notice that as I did that, I was getting unspoken messages that there was something spiritually dangerous about being a professional classical musician. I might lose interest in spiritual things and become full of prideful, dissipation. Especially with all those opera stories of lust, betrayal, and all manner of relationships inappropriate for Christians to portray. Think of it: Carmen, the girl with the loose morals who worked in a cigarette factory, has an affair with the jealous Escamillo who eventually knifes her to death in a jealous rage. Or let's see, how about Madame Butterfly? A 15 year-old geisha girl falls in love and marries American Lt. Pinkerton. In doing so, she must renounce the religion and love of her own parents. She does not realize that her marriage to Pinkerton is merely one of convenience and is not legally binding. So when he returns to America saying that he will return "when the robins nest again" she innocently believes him. Of course, he doesn't come back. When he writes to tell Butterfly that he has married an American woman, she does not read English and assumes that his letter is full of love for her. In fact, Pinkerton and his American wife come to Japan to tell her that they want her child to live with them in America. As Butterfly realizes what has happened, she tells them that they can return for the child in half an hour. She bids an agonized goodbye to her small child, goes behind a screen, and with Pinkerton's own dagger, kills herself. Pinkerton and his wife rush in to find her dying, and as the curtain falls, Pinkerton is pathetically calling out her name and weeping over her.
This is the ilk of operatic stories. No wonder conservative Christians do not like the idea of opera. They contain every stripe of immorality. But if I couldn't sing that sort of thing, why would God give me an operatic voice? Was I to sing Christian hymns in church? Was that to be my life?

I sought out every person whom I thought might be able to help me. One of them was my religion teacher, Mr. Barton. He had a thundering bass voice and when he sang "Asleep in the Deep" at church, he tucked his chin into his chest and shook his head from side to side, squeezing out those low notes. He used to sing in the Metropolitan Opera Chorus, he was quick to tell people. He was full of the stories that musicians tell: the time the obese soprano dramatically flung herself off a parapet supposedly to her death, but landed on a trampoline type affair offstage, only to bounce back up into full view of the audience. Or when the chorus members got lost and sang obscene lyrics in Italian to one another on stage. Or how the tenor couldn't sing a note and someone sang it for him from offstage. I used to listen to Mr. Barton talk about his days of glory and take notice of the wistfulness and regret on his face. "Oh, but a Christian can't stay in that field for very long," he'd tell me. "It was all so awful. You have to sleep your way to the top. There are so few really good singers that that's what you can expect to have to do." I didn't like the sound of that. But I didn't believe him, either. He sounded like such a martyr as he poured cold water on my dreams. Mr. Barton pointed out several opera singers who used to be fine Christians: Shirley Verrett, Thomas Hampson, and Kathleen Battle. "They gave up their godly lives to live out of a suitcase and sing on a stage. You need to be careful that this doesn't happen to you." He didn't have any advice, just a steady diet of futility and fatalism. A has-been, that's what he is. I don't want to ever be a has-been.

I note on Shirley Verrett's autobiography cover, she mentions how she "over came the fundamentalism" of her own family. Hmmm.

To hear this kind of commentary from Mr. Barton as well as from my own father, and to be led to believe that singers inevitably become power hungry, vain, dissolute divas, was the most discouraging thing any young singer could hear. It was as though my voice had been a cosmic joke: Here--see what singing is all about, but don't you dare do anything with it or else you'll be forever spiritually lost. It shocked me that I had been given something I didn't ask for, that I couldn't safely pursue or develop, that belonged to someone else, that others would receive accolades for (parents), and that was a danger to my eternal life. What had I done to deserve this? It was a double, triple, quadruple bind. I began to pray that my voice would go away.

Be careful what you pray for.