I’m a little old lady.
Lemme tell ya, the older you get, the less there is to do on weekends. Now that I am no longer working, I wouldn’t mind an event or two, but the weekends often drag on with nada, zero, zilch in the social department, other than to play backgammon with another less-little old lady, while the rest of the world is out partying. Or are they?
This weekend was quite different, and I finally have something of interest to report to the Weekend Experiences community.
It all started months ago when I joined a community chorus. The first concert I would sing in would be their Christmas concert. “Easy peasy” I thought. “Christmas carols I can do.” I’ve been in some high-functioning choruses in my time, and figured this rinky-dink hillbilly town wouldn’t have one of those, so I didn’t give my all, or even my worst, to preparing for this concert. I even figured I could afford to miss every other rehearsal so that I could instead attend an open mic 120 miles away on my off weeks, hoping to get something going with a cute guitarist up there; both the open mic and the rehearsals were on Tuesday evenings. I put off learning the music until a few weeks ago, at which point I figured out that the music was anything but easy for me. Suddenly we were a choir. We would be singing religious music, Jesus music, a genre I had never sung before. No Christmas carols, these. A few weeks before the concert, the conductor handed out Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus, which would be our final piece, with the comment “It’s like riding a bike.”
HA!
Too late, I began the laborious process of learning the alto part of nine very complex musical scores. I started with the first song on the roster and slowly made my way through the pieces as they would be sung on December 2, 2023. At the dress rehearsal, I had still not done much work on both Elton John’s I’m Still Standing and on the Hallelujah Chorus – I’d glossed over the more intricate bits of both pieces, and could do little more than read along for those two numbers, at our final rehearsal, five days before the concert.
Normally, five days would be enough, with rigorous practice, to get two more numbers under my belt and to clean up the other nine pieces, so that all eleven would be down pat for the big show on Sunday. Since there is so little to do in this hillbilly town, for all ages, I knew the hall would be packed, and that I would know a great many of the attendees. I needed to be up on that stage, fully prepared, dressed in concert black with a spot of red, rested, confident and beautiful.
So what do I do? I decide to throw a big party the night before.
I spent those five days cleaning my house, arranging furniture for a party, shopping, hauling Christmas decorations up from the basement, decorating, and setting out candles. Each night before bed I made a lengthy to-do list for the next day, and each of those lists contained “practice” on them. I had to make sure I got enough sleep! I had to eat well to keep my energy up! I had to give my fur babies quality time! I had to be very organized!
The party went smashingly well. I kicked out a still-significant number of guests at midnight. I was due at the hall in twelve hours, and, while I had learned all the pieces, they all still needed some cleaning up: pitch corrections, voice placement, and dynamics refinement.
The morning of, I practiced several times in twenty-minute bursts, especially on teasing out the intricacies of section B in the Hallelujah chorus, which is quite difficult for the altos, my peeps.
By my final burst of practicing just before having to leave for the concert, I had showered, dressed, eaten, and put everything I needed to take with me by the back door so I wouldn’t be late. I intended to sing until ten minutes before I needed to be there, then make the four-minute dash to the church, arriving a bit early.
I pulled it off.
Boy was I happy with myself! I’d thrown a swell party, cleaned up after the party, prepared difficult music that I would be performing in less than two hours, and I would arrive, uncharacteristically, a few minutes early!
It wasn’t until I was parking at the church that I realized I had forgotten to do a few important things:
I hadn’t put on any make up. OK, not such a big deal, I can get up on a stage without mascara and liptstick.
I hadn’t brushed my hair. OK, there would be thirty of us up there. Few would notice.
I hadn’t turned off the coffee pot. OK, a little something to worry about there.
I hadn’t put on deodorant! The only time I wear anti-perspirant rather than plain deodorant is when I have to be on a stage! This time, I had neither! BIG PROBLEM.
But that problem was nothing compared to the biggest problem of all - I HADN’T BRUSHED MY TEETH!
We can get so wrapped up in little details that don’t really matter, ya know?
The gods of the theater visited me and all of us for our performance, and we killed it. I love that. When an audience is gathered, they want to love what you will do for them. Their desire, their wish to be entertained, is fuel for performers, an adrenaline of sorts, and we always surprise even ourselves. This is why I perform, for that particular rush.
I sang nearly perfectly. One man told me my hair looked nice. I smelled fine as long as I didn’t remove my concert-black sweater, and no one was in the bathroom while I picked the gunk out of my teeth with a fingernail.
