Young Writers Society

August 13, 2013

I spent time with Amanda this past weekend. It was so wonderful. I really am gracious that I have such a marvelous and caring best friend.

I met her at her house, where I unloaded all of my stuff into her room. She had already ordered pizza for dinner, and she got me a coke. We did watch a little bit of TV with her folks, before retreating into her room on the other side of the house.

Her house is interesting. It could be weird, but her house actually makes me happy. It takes my mind off of things that worry me, and there’s always something…interesting happening. You see, her house is haunted. It sounds ridiculous and farfetched, but it is, by at least two distinct entities. There’s one upstairs that we avoid like the plague, and then there’s the other one, who we’ve nicknamed “Friend.” In all this time that I’ve known about it, I’ve never felt threatened or unwelcome before.

This weekend was no different. Once we were in her room, we sat on the floor, a pizza between us, and we watched Cirque du Soleil, the Quidam and Worlds Away editions. That was heaven…a circus that is almost an opera…

There are some days when I wish I could just skip getting a degree and go straight into a theater. Other days, I wish I had started in a music major to begin with, so that I could be finishing this year and go ahead and be working on auditions to a program somewhere. That is my ultimate goal: to perform opera and classical theater, like Shakespeare and Homer… I want to stand in the center of a stage and sing out my soul to people who want to hear and love and learn. I’ve felt that pull, that thrill, since I was in early high school and I saw my first Broadway show in New York City. Lion King… There’s nothing more fulfilling to a God-fearing musician than mesmerizing and inspiring other artists by what you can do on a stage, with just a piano as accompaniment, and a quiet room. It’s even more effective when you aren’t ashamed to give the credit to God, because He is the one who blesses us with talents like that, after all. “Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery” (Timothy 4:14, KJV).

I would be so excited to perform something like “Elvira” from I Puritani, “Adele” from Die Fledermaus, “Morgana” from Alcina, “Queen of the Night” from Die Zauberflote. God, Die Zauberflote… If there is one role that I would die to play, it would be that one. No coloratura can be fully satisfied or fulfilled as an artist until they have taken on the challenge of “Der Holle Rache”… I wish Dr. Allard would let me work on it, but I know she never would. I’m “too young” to take it on and succeed, that it would “destroy me.” If she knew that I sing along with it at home and in the car, she’d kill me.

Cirque du Soleil is a whole new spectrum, though. It has the same aspects as a classical opera, musically – the orchestra, the vocal focus, the story-like atmosphere, the theatrics. The only difference is that it’s a human circus. With my ankle and all of my scars, I don’t think I could ever do something remotely “athletic” ever again, not without hurting or re-injuring myself. Bikes and slow-paced long distance, maybe, and maybe some ultimate Frisbee on the quad, but only for a short period, and definitely no heavy track, soccer, or baseball. I might still be able to dance, with Zumba or Shimmy, but that would be the closest thing to a “circus act” that I may ever get.

Maybe one day. Hopefully, the news, both this Thursday and next Thursday, will be good. Maybe I won’t need surgery on my ankle, because the tendon grew back together. It doesn’t feel any different, but I’ve also been stuck in a boot for two months and a brace for one month. Hopefully, the ultrasound will show more progress, enough to let me get around without protection and start doing long-distance again. And maybe my femininity won’t be as bad off as the doctors think, or it’s something easily treatable. I just want to be able to have kids, after a couple of more years when we’re more stable and Jeff has a good job that he loves, and as I’m becoming a known and appreciated artist by God’s will.

Speaking of which, Jeff did not succeed. It’s a…delicate situation. The elementary school he interviewed at actually double-crossed him; they had already offered the job to someone else by the time he got his interview. That person actually turned out to be from the high school he was told about on Friday night, while I was at Amanda’s. We’ve been nervous for three days; his interview went well (according to him, he “kicked in their front door and left them awed”), and the principals told him that he would know as soon as they did. Well, we finally know… The superintendent didn’t release their current director from her contract, so she’s staying. Everyone is bummed, even the principals. When they called Jeff and told him, they implied very heavily that he would have had the job if it had opened, and they begged him to try again in six months or next year; their director is still pressing for the elementary school, adamant that she wants to leave and that it “suits her professional goals better.”

Until then, I guess we have to deal with the dread, uncertainty, and imbalance.