La Foule

There are really days when I feel at one with myself and, to at least some extent, with the world around me. The days are usually possible because of prayer and meditation of some kind. I have to really try to find my “center” (that old man that lives in my belly I have sometimes talked about.) Most of the time my real self eludes me, I think, staying away, or caught behind the normal flow of my life as it rushes forward, a freight train on its way to some undisclosed destination. I’m sure we all feel like unknowing passengers from time to time. I think that what differs, that is to say, what makes me an interestingly unique and, consequently, neurotic character is the constant need to feel in some way whole.

The second of the two life-shattering or life-altering things in my life of late is my last lesson that I had with my voice teacher. We got to talking about how I, as a personality, am a hermit of sorts, unwilling to trust things, unwilling to go headlong into what I see as dangerous situations, in short, fearful. This kind of personality, in my opinion, is one which is not well-suited at being an opera singer. We talked for quite a while and several issues, troubling ones, presented themselves that day, and have been bothering me ever since.

She asked a very simple question: ‘do you even want to be a singer?’ That is disconcerting in that I had/have no real answer to the question.

I see my singing, no matter if such a thought is to be ridiculed or not, as a sacrifice. I see the world as a somewhat desolate place in terms of beauty and kindness. I seek to give back, through music, what music has given to me. Being a country boy with two older, uninterested sisters, meant that I played a lot on my own. I loved Classical music from about the age of 4, when I would play the 2 or 3 classical, Fisher Price mini records over and over. I don’t know what it was; it was just an attraction that couldn’t be denied. I took piano lessons from the time I was 5, and did well at it. I just, for most of my life, have always had music there, and it always made me feel whole, alive. It allowed me to believe that there must actually be a god. It was a balm for a somewhat desolate place for a young intellectual to grow up—amongst the cornfields of rural Illinois. So, now, I try to offer this balm to others who might need it.

But it is my inherent distrust of people that stops me from really giving of myself, through music, to them. Why should I open myself up and give a piece of myself to those people, the crowds and their fickle natures, who have hurt me so much. It is a conundrum that I can’t seem to solve for the moment.