Snow, Dreams

One of the things that my spiritual mentor asked me to do is to write down what it is that I want to accomplish with my career, and to be specific about it. This was several weeks ago, and I, as I tend to do, have been chewing on it in my brain—the proverbial cow’s cud, sent only to the main stomach so that it can finally be processed to its bitter end once it has been brought to its final version. Simply put, being specific about what it is that I want to achieve with my voice while at the same time trying to release all of my holding mechanisms as life takes me down an unknown path seems a bit of a conundrum that I just can’t seem to solve.

So far, the only thing that I can come up with is: “I want to express my soul through singing.” That seems like a pretty big step for me up to this point, as hard as it may be to believe. Music is just something that I do because I must do it. I feel it from the core--that I must be involved in it, that I must listen to it, create it, etc. I could go on, but it just gets like Kraft Processed if I do…

I only know that I would never have survived this world without music. It is what kept me alive in my childhood, listening to Public Radio’s classical station brought sanity to insanity. Music is the only means that I have to understand the world. The end of it would be the end of that meaning and, eventually, the end of me.

How, though, I am to fit into the crazy way that music manifests itself as a business is beyond me. I shouldn’t know my own future, anyway, even if my need for control is so great that if I were presented with the option of knowing all that will pass by simply by choosing the right “Let’s Make a Deal” door, I would do it. But, what costume would I be in? Maybe a giant chicken?

I am not saying that these are definitely a part of the goals that will eventually be a part of my list, but I definitely want to:

1. Sing at the Opéra de la Bastille in Paris
2. Sing the role of Siegmund in Walküre
3. Sing the role of Florestan in Fidelio
4. Sing at the Met
5. Sing the role of Siegfried in the opera of the same name.
6. Be a part of a mass-distributed recording of some kind.
7. Be a professor at a university.
8. Sing at Bayreuth.


It snowed for the first time yesterday while we were asleep. I woke up yesterday morning to see the world magically transformed to white, and this after just having dreamed about it… Warm feelings of wonderment (yes, wonderment) came over me, childlike in the presence of such beauty. There is nothing like the first snow and nothing like it appearing, transforming the world around you while you were away, asleep.