Not mine... The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

The Invitation
It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon...
I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true.
I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have.

I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.

I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.

I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.

I wrote a Haiku 10 minutes ago...

I have been working on this Artist's Way book in earnest this time. Not that I didn't make a serious effort the last time, but life got in the way, and I didn't like poking around in my brain and my emotions so much. However, this time I am a stronger person and am more willing to acknowledge my weaknesses and talk with myself about what it is that gets in my way. The Censor. That little voice of judgement in my mind... I'm willing to get to the bottom of it this time.

Last night it really reared its ugly head. This week I am to deprive myself of reading and avoid all of my normal outlets of distraction. This is not making me as crazy as I thought it would. When I stand there and think about reading, and realize that I am not 'allowed' I can easily find something else I could be doing. I am listening to more pop music in the past few days than I have in a decade. (Here's a plug for www.pandora.com - amazing site.) I have thrown out half my closet that I never wear and old sleep shirts and rearranged the furniture... and last night I found a great idea for my high school show shirts and other sundries. I could cut them up and sew them together and then to the back of my high school throw. WOW! Brilliant! Immediately then I was seized by this thought in my head... what would my mother think of me ruining that throw like that?!

SHUT UP! I was stunned and couldn't believe that my mother is such a censor to me. After all, I usually don't give her much thought. But here she was stifling a perfectly good creative idea and a way to preserve my past in a meaningful way. Hmmph. Well, see if I listen to her again.

Ooh! and last night I decided to be really honest and write down my desires with no censor. No judgement of whether or not I think it's worthwhile or insipid. I just wrote it down. There are things there like, "I want to make more snow angels."

And then this afternoon I wanted to poetic away message about the rain... First, I looked for one via google, and could not find one to suit. (I momentarily forgot that I wasn't allowed to read.) I knew what I wanted and couldn't find one to suit. Now I know it seems obvious, but suddenly I decided that I could in fact write my own. I didn't have to judge the merit. I could just do it and let it make me happy. So I did. HA! Look at me go.

And then... I went and blogged! What is this world coming to?!!??!?

I understand better this morning...

Yesterday was a rough day for many people as whispered results, and then some not-so whispered results got around. The way I react always, is by trying to find the positive and to look at the other possibilities. Now, this works for the most part until the unbearable frustration sets in...

WHAT MORE DO I NEED TO DO?

All the encouragement and the good comments and the amazing jury sheets still land me here. Not winning auditions.

Now, me being me, this will be the little bit of frustration that I allow myself, and then it's back to the practice room to work on diction and character development and all that other good stuff because really I know that this frustration will get me no more. Only hard work is going to get results.

Total Fear

I just wish that I could read the future. It would be so nice to know.

Reasons why Tejas is in fact not a straight woman, but in fact is a gay man.

Is hopelessly addicted to repeatedly watching musical numbers from Hairspray.

Is currently bitching about her costume in her upcoming opera. She could dance better in flat shoes... that's all she's sayin'.

Has a propensity for dirty humor. Really filthy.

Has developed a prediclection for ethnic boys.

Is a foodie.

Likes her likker.

Knows every word of Grease and Moulin Rouge.

Favorite actresses are gay icons... Michelle Pfeiffer, Bette Midler, Bette Davis... are we seeing a trend?

Is only attracted to other gay men. This would help if she really were a gay man.

Is upset that John Travolta was cast in the drag role.... honestly. There are real drag queens out there who could have used the work.

Loves shoes.

Likes to play with cosmetics to get just the right effect.

Wants to touch it at the thought of the Apple Air. Touch it. "It will be incredible." -Tejas

Always wants to be a black woman.... what gay man does not secretly wish to be Queen Latifah? Or someone like her?

She's conversational in she-bonics as well.

Master... err... Mistress... of the gay holy rosary.

Seriously. Loves the technological stuff. Someone buy her an iPhone.

Weeps over a good lyric.

Loves Tori and Fiona.

Wants to hump Zac Efron. Did I mention I think HE's gay?

Apprentice level of the Botox face, made famous by the Ubiquitous Hobbit.

Is currently drunk. - she had to take the edge off. You all know what I'm sayin'.

Still watching Hairspray... repeating her favorite scene, featuring an ethnic boy.

Almost purchased Mommie Dearest this summer. Considered it three times, people. Did purchase Steel Magnolias, however.

Currently plays the fly to no less than (maybe more than) half a dozen fruits.

I am so sure that there are many more people. However, Tejas/Nora... however we call her... will never be a man (without surgery) since she is incapable of efficiently peeing in a vertical stance. This also means that she cannot... well you know. ;)

Well, here we are on a Sunday night facing another week. The old recital creeping up and the end of the incubator period. Pretty soon it will be back to real life. Not to say that this hasn't been real, but no more refunds from the school to cover rent, and no more safe little environment in which to learn. No. Then it's time to take what we've been given and get out there and make something of ourselves in the world.

I think what's hard is to see those friends who've graduated in their lives and see where they are. Many of them went out and found great jobs with benefits and regular hours. The drawback is that they can't get out of them were they to be cast in a summer show or something like that... ah. I can relate to this. This is what happened when I went full time at Target. Music got abandoned, and while chorus and church choir still accounts for musical involvement, it isn't what I want to do.

This week, I got a letter from Target, telling me that my benefits were going to end as of 3/31. This was inevitable really. No good thing lasts forever, and I really did have a good run with them. Then there is the whole issue of auditions, and why do I not do more. DB told me to do the damn Ryan outreach thing, but in the end I just didn't want to go in and do a poor showing because I hadn't coached or sung through my Mozart since before Xmas. And I know! I need to get out there. The only way I will get seen and potentially hired is to be out there doing.

But... what if they're all lying? Well, maybe not lying really, since I can't see my teacher, coach, accompanist, and jury sheets all being in agreement to tell me a giant whopper. At the same time... as Tracy points out, I need to believe it. And I guess when I finally really honestly truly madly deeply decide that I am a good singer, it will be time to go.

I know I feel a lot closer to that than ever before. Earlier today, I was telling some friends about the loss of my benefits and my desire to stay loose and part time in the upcoming summer. They were supportive, but stated that they suppose I was still a little young to want security. Honestly... I feel as though I'm waiting for something. I don't know what it is, but I have these moments sometimes where there is no fear, there is no real true doubt of veracity... where I just know. Everything will be all right. Now, I have no idea how it is going to be all right, I only know that it will be.

I had the strangest sense of deja vu earlier today as well. And it's an old one. Years ago, I dreamt I was on a train, discussing my website with my mother. She was telling me that my grandparents thought my photo was beautiful. And today it happened. I was riding back from Howard. Manprano had just left me, and moments later the phone rings with the mommy. And it happened. It really rattled me because it was from such a long time ago... I knew this because I remembered waking at my parents and wondering why the heck I had a website. I'm going to take it as a sign though that I am on the right path. I keep making my choices and rolling with it when it doesn't work out. Like I told a professor recently, I'm all ready jaded when it comes to this business. I know that talent is only a small part. It's also who you know, how badly you want it, and how hard you go after it. I'm going hard.

This week-

Follow up with that one contact.
Group email the ladies and set a time/date to meet
Get my recital promo stuff mailed/posted.
Follow up with James.

Adhere to the list.

Most of all, learn to believe the truth of this:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same." - Marianne Williamson

And with this very maudlin post... off I go.

So, it all started when Tejas was reading Frenchie's Tarot for her the other night. Now, Frenchie claims to have unused psychic ability, but doesn't really like the supernatural so she ignores it. However, she doesn't seem to have a problem with Tarot. :)
Anyway. This event usually leads to Frenchie telling stories of her friend's ghost encounters. After a little time has passed, I decide to ask my question.

Being on break, I have been up a lot later than I usually am, and for some reason up alone. Alone in a dark house late at night lends a certain amount of paranoia, so I had kept quiet about the recent weird feeling around the kitchen and bathroom. Lately though, I've noticed a presence in the hall when I come out of the bathroom, or it follows me up the hall, right on my heels, stopping right when I get to the end of the hall. This could easily be paranoia, but it doesn't feel like it. It feels like I'm being chased. So, I ask Tejas and Frenchie if they've noticed anything. Frenchie freaked out! I mean, lost her mind. Especially upset since the disturbance was being felt so close to her room. Tejas immediately sets to calming her, all the while turning to me with the "yes oh my god I have too" face. Exit Frenchie for bed and Tejas and I get down to sleuthing.

Here is what we have decided after a few days of thinking, really paying attention, and comparing notes.

1. The presence is not malicious. Just mischievous. Good.
2. Female.
3. A child. Evidence: Frenchie's stuffed cat is inexplicably missing. When it follows me up the hall, it's short and you get the feeling of a child pulling at your waist or shirt. It will not go into the living room - wasn't allowed? Gives Tejas the mischievous grin feeling.
4. We have taken turns asking it to behave and it seems to listen.
5. We are not talking about her in the house anymore.
6. I walk down the hallway with a visualized bubble of protective energy. Good times.
7. It likes to rifle around in the drawers and kitchen cabinets, but didn't last night when I asked her not to.

In conclusion, as long as nothing else disappears... sorry Frenchie for the loss of the cat... and we don't sense a feeling of impending doom or disaster, or she starts to get nasty, we'll live and let haunt. I am prepared to call a medium if I must.