I am a fence sitter, or at least that is a judgment of others that I have found to be true. Possessed of decent abilities in many areas, I have had a hard time making full commitments to many of my undertakings. Take, for instance, this blog. I have thought of writing a blog for a long time and now I am finally doing it, but I haven't told bloody anyone that it is here. (OK, one person, but he is an old friend, a writer and will probably forgive me if he finds time to read it and sees it as somehow offensive.)
My fear of telling anyone about this blog is a lot like my reasons for not doing many things. If I tell them, they might learn too much about me. (Ignoring the fact that such undertakings are fundamentally exhibitionistic to begin with.) My coworkers might see it and guess, or read blatantly, about my true feelings towards my work. (Although not necessarily bad, I fear that someone might try to use this information against me.) People might tell me I am a bad writer. (Fair enough, I attended conservatories rather than colleges of letters and sciences.) They might loose respect for me, but this of course assumes that there was some there to begin with. Maybe my ideas are good, but I don't want to broadcast them until they are perfected. (So they wait in solitude for perfection to magically rain down upon them.)
On and on it goes. Paralysis by analysis. Yet, in this pattern I see so much of my life and so many of my frustrations. A trained singer, I have more excuses than anyone for not doing certain auditions - and amazingly they resemble my reasons for telling no one about this blog. My years of sacrifice and work to become the performer that I now am are invalidated because I run backwards in fear towards what I had before, dreaming that it is somehow safer. Is it really safer to give up or endlessly defer my dreams? Safer to believe all of the bad things I've been told about my singing through the years but none of the good?
Somewhere inside me, slowly and deep down, action is beginning to stir and I think I will be trying for a few more auditions this Fall. The trick is to care about the preparation, the breath, the craft and form and to let the arrow land where it may, to let my small words land where they may and as they choose. And maybe I will tell a few more people about this blog as well.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Monday, August 24, 2009
Death certificates
Through a number of coincidences and lucky happenings, I came into possession of a number of digitized copies of documents pertaining to the history of my family. My maternal grandfather was the first of his siblings to be born in the United States, and his family is the closest link that I have to something of the realm of euro imagination and speculation.
The documents include such things that my mother had possessed in one form or another at some time, the death certificates of her great-grandparents and census records from 1920 and 1930. My acquisitions also include the passenger records from the ship that first brought my great-grandfather across and then from the ship that brought his wife and my grandfather's two older siblings.
Though the underlying story is hardly unusual, these documents lead me to marvel at the personal qualities of my forbears. My great-grandfather came across in 1904. My mother's oldest first cousin says that he had training as a carpenter in Holland before he returned to Hungary and met my great-grandmother, but in the new world he was a laborer. By 1910 he had saved enough money to send for his wife and two children in style by buying them a state room on a ship. What must it have taken for him to cross the ocean at the age of 26, leaving behind a wife with one child and another on the way? What was my great-grandmother like to have left her tiny village with two small children, ages 4 and 6 in tow, illiterate even in her own language? What type of steel did she posses to have gone first to Italy to get a boat and when turned away then traveled to Germany where they finally boarded the President Lincoln in Hamburg bound for this promised land so far away?
As I muse on their fortitude, my own struggles and demons seem so small in comparison. I think of how they came here so that I, and the other hundred or so of their great-grandchildren, might have my own struggles and opportunities, so unlike theirs.
In reading through the blanks of my great-grandfather's death certificate from 1926, I am also struck by the equanimity of death. Here was a man, as brave in my imagination as any fictional hero, dead at the age of 50 from a stomach cancer which had apparently plagued him for 10 years. "Occupation: Labor working in stone quarry." How did he continue working in a stone quarry for a decade with such an ailment? How did he buy a house and 4 acres of land for his family while working in such a lowly job?
There is a juxtaposition here I would like to make. Another great-grandfather of mine was a veterinarian in rural Indiana, another was a state senator and physician and another an English teacher and local politician. Despite their worldly status, each of their exits were marked by just such a document to be remembered by those succeeding generations who might take such scant clues to wonder about the character of each man. Though the others left far more written documentation of their lives and were shown far more worldly appreciation that this one, yet somehow my mind returns to this brave and mysterious man again and again. Bravery shown by scant facts, missing details with a world of color to be filled in by those who exist because of his choices.
The documents include such things that my mother had possessed in one form or another at some time, the death certificates of her great-grandparents and census records from 1920 and 1930. My acquisitions also include the passenger records from the ship that first brought my great-grandfather across and then from the ship that brought his wife and my grandfather's two older siblings.
Though the underlying story is hardly unusual, these documents lead me to marvel at the personal qualities of my forbears. My great-grandfather came across in 1904. My mother's oldest first cousin says that he had training as a carpenter in Holland before he returned to Hungary and met my great-grandmother, but in the new world he was a laborer. By 1910 he had saved enough money to send for his wife and two children in style by buying them a state room on a ship. What must it have taken for him to cross the ocean at the age of 26, leaving behind a wife with one child and another on the way? What was my great-grandmother like to have left her tiny village with two small children, ages 4 and 6 in tow, illiterate even in her own language? What type of steel did she posses to have gone first to Italy to get a boat and when turned away then traveled to Germany where they finally boarded the President Lincoln in Hamburg bound for this promised land so far away?
As I muse on their fortitude, my own struggles and demons seem so small in comparison. I think of how they came here so that I, and the other hundred or so of their great-grandchildren, might have my own struggles and opportunities, so unlike theirs.
In reading through the blanks of my great-grandfather's death certificate from 1926, I am also struck by the equanimity of death. Here was a man, as brave in my imagination as any fictional hero, dead at the age of 50 from a stomach cancer which had apparently plagued him for 10 years. "Occupation: Labor working in stone quarry." How did he continue working in a stone quarry for a decade with such an ailment? How did he buy a house and 4 acres of land for his family while working in such a lowly job?
There is a juxtaposition here I would like to make. Another great-grandfather of mine was a veterinarian in rural Indiana, another was a state senator and physician and another an English teacher and local politician. Despite their worldly status, each of their exits were marked by just such a document to be remembered by those succeeding generations who might take such scant clues to wonder about the character of each man. Though the others left far more written documentation of their lives and were shown far more worldly appreciation that this one, yet somehow my mind returns to this brave and mysterious man again and again. Bravery shown by scant facts, missing details with a world of color to be filled in by those who exist because of his choices.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
