I have a new job!!

(The image is Katherine Hepburn from the movie Desk Set)

I started training on October 17th and this past week was the first on my own, without the woman I was replacing being there to help. It went well, and I can see myself thriving in this fast-paced and dynamic place. I’m sure I’ll talk about it more later.

Because my commute is now an hour (train, walk, subway, walk) each way,* starting very early in the morning, and because the days have been non-stop busy, I’ve been extremely tired when I have returned home each night. My husband has been wonderful. He made sure dinner was prepared and ready each night, knowing that I would be rushed to think-up and make something. Sometimes I just don’t deserve him. Because of this mental exhaustion, I have come home to eat, have a drink and sit down to something mindless – either TV, or folding clothes, or the like – I have not been able to handle anything else. I would love to read and study some more, or to write here, but I have not been up to the task.

The other reason for my being away from here, and for being so tired, can be summed-up in 3 words:

OCTOBER IN SALEM

Every weekend we had something planned or someplace to go. I had volunteered at the tourist Information Booth for 3 shifts** – a schedule I made while still unemployed. This limited our ‘downtime’ as well.

As if the universe knew I would not have my days free anymore, all were booked from the end of September through my start date. Here are a few highlights:

My husband’s birthday is the end of September, and we always go at least once to King Richard’s Faire. We’ve made some friends with the people that work there, and they always remember us.
I had family visit for a few days to do some Ancestry.com research – this was unexpected, but a lot of fun and very informative!
I had 1 phone interview and 5 in-person interviews (2 in Salem, 3 in Cambridge)
My Goddaughter got married! We drove the 4 hours in the rain to the Cape, and had a lovely (drier) drive back the next morning, with stops at the beach (a hurricane was passing by off the coast), and a little French bistro in Hyannis.
“If you’re fond of sand dunes and salty air, quaint little villages, here and there, you’re sure to fall in love with Old Cape Cod.”
I drove down to the South Shore to the graves of my paternal grandparents, maternal grandparents, and my Dad (3 different cemeteries in 3 different towns). I washed the stones with a soft brush and water, cleaning off the lichen and dirt, swept away the leaves, had a chat with each of them and left some gifts (flower basket, a crystal, some rosemary, and some scotch). For my Dad, I also brought a spade’s worth of dirt from his garden at home and mixed it in.
After visiting the graves, I drove further down to visit my Mom in the Memory Care unit of her Assisted Living apartment. I had brought my laptop with me, and pulled-up all of the pictures from the wedding, and the freshly cleaned gravesites. I had also printed a few pictures from the past month and had used my label maker to label each picture with the people’s names. I brought the label maker with me and, while we were talking, I labelled the photos she had set-up next to the TV as well. We had a great visit, and while it tears a little bit of my heart every time I notice how much more the Alzheimer’s has taken from her, I try to keep her happy and present. I can cry in the car on the way home. We had a lot of laughs together and I could see how happy she was in those moments. I only wish she could remember them when she is down.
I created a sewing pattern from our Harry Potter robes, and made myself a new robe out of this gorgeous green tweed flannel I got on sale.
I also made my outfit for the Info booth. Here it is in its debut waiting for the Haunted Happenings Parade (I also have orange striped socks – they went better with the Info Booth vest I had to wear). It was my first attempt at designing and making a hat, so I was very proud of it. I received many compliments on both the hat and the tartan accents (I also made them)!

So this has been a very busy, but productive time. This was supposed to just be a short note of why I’ve been quiet, but, like everything else, it took on a life of its own.

The Election has me crazy – I will likely never write about that here. Let’s just hope that the right decision is made on Tuesday.

Be good to each other.
Happy New Year, Witches!

Samantha Stephens (Bewitched) in a quiet moment before the craziness of October in Salem begins (note the Info booth in the background). This is not the usual angle that people take photos of her. Sorry Sammy! I didn’t mean to be indelicate.

*I have been thrilled to have this uninterrupted time in the morning and afternoon on the train. In the morning, I can sip my coffee and read a book or listen to a podcast, and ease into the day. In the afternoon, I can shut-off from work and do the same thing, calming me down to arrive home without any stress or pressure from the day. In my old job, I was driving both directions, which allowed me to listen to audio books or sing along to music, but there was still the stress of driving, traffic, weather, etc, so if I left work in a state of agitation, it lingered and came home with me. Now, on the train, I can disconnect work from the rest of my life.

**It was a wonderful experience that I wish I had had the energy to report on at the time. Hopefully next year, I will be more diligent in sharing those experiences here as they happen.

Sometimes my dreams are unremarkable or incoherent, but other times, like last night, they are hyper-realistic and almost plausible.

In the first dream, I was with my cousin and her family. They are big into horses and riding competitions, so it was natural that I was there with them in their backyard (not really), which had a slight hill inclining up into the distance, with a chain-link labyrinth that wound on the flat and just at the bottom of the rise. They called this the ‘coaster’ and I pictured the poor horses running up and down hills and through loops and jumps. But no, it was only called that because of the hill and because of its design. The rows of fencing were just wide enough for one horse and rider to comfortably get through, with the turns being a little more open. This caused the horse to control its desire to buck or gallop, and made the rider take more control and be more careful and gentle with guiding the horse’s gait and direction. There were stretches of straight rows where picking-up speed was encouraged, then the rider had to rein the horse in when coming up to a sharp turn, and similar challenges were found where the ground was uneven, such as walking on the incline. It was very tricky, but it was obvious that my cousin’s daughter and her pony had done this hundreds of times and were enjoying it.

One bit of unrealistic dreaming: at one point, wings blurred out on the sides of her pony, and then were gone in the blink of an eye. Almost like something I wasn’t supposed to see; or rather, something no one else saw, but I could. “Pegasus!” I thought. And then it was gone and never came up again. Subconscious reminding me I was dreaming?! Who knows.

We went inside and my cousin’s husband was there, happy to see me. He said, “Will you be staying for …” but didn’t finish the sentence. “Ooh yes, he’ll love it!” they all cried. His son took me in the other room excited to show me this game everyone was playing (either I can’t remember the name, or it was never mentioned).

In the TV room, there were arrangements of small wooden squares everywhere. Not really piles or stacks, but displays of them, like periodic tables or mosaics all around the room in groups. They looked to be made of chip wood or really thin light-colored veneer, all blank on the one side showing. He turned on the TV as explanation, and there was a tournament going on. They were showing a super-cut of a lot of young men’s reactions (girls didn’t play this game?) of delight or despair as they won or lost a game. It was like something they would show in between games to keep the audience interested. It looked to be in a huge convention center – how had I never heard of this? One guy had all of the squares stuck to his shirt, arms and neck. He had lost, and in slow motion, we saw him pull a double-square from his neck. It had a blue splotch and some symbols in black that I couldn’t make out. He saw it and seemed to act as if that would have been the winning piece if only he had drawn it earlier. There were more short scenes like that, and then it switched to a station where you could buy the game set-up and the rules. Everyone was watching me and very excited for me to play, but I didn’t think I had the money for it, so I declined and went into the other room to lay down on a couch with a blanket. This is where I transitioned to the next dream.

*This is just some background on the next dream. You may have seen in one of my other posts that I used to work in the Music industry as an agent. One of the most fulfilling experiences came at a conference in Europe. My colleague and I had a booth, so tons of Artists would come up and drop off their CDs to be signed by us. There was a group of young singers without managers, labels or agents, that all paid their own way to come to the conference (not cheap). They were young, eager, personable and (I found out when I got home) immensely talented. Over the weekend, they would stop in when we were free to chat and ask advice. While being in Europe, and meeting with people I only got to see once a year, seeing great performances, and mixing with my colleagues from around the globe were all wonderful, it was this new experience of being mentors (in a small way) to these young Artists that gave me a renewed drive when I got back to the office. We helped them network and introduced them around during the cocktail hours, and I’ve been following their careers since.*

As I was on the couch, the non-distinct room turned into a reception room in a hotel. Behind me were high-top tables with groups around them talking, but I wasn’t paying attention. One of the young singers I knew walked in, gave me a hello kiss and swept over to the tables. It took me a minute to recognize him as I watched him go. Only then did I notice that I knew a lot of the people behind me. They were managers, musicians and producers. I had introduced him to some of them long ago, and now he was confident and expanding on that network. I made a mental note to go say hello to everyone.

As I turned around, I was still on a couch, but the TV and blanket were gone, and instead, there was a long row of tables running lengthwise away from me all the way to the lobby of the hotel. The tables were full of people talking and I recognized more industry people and some of my personal friends. From this table came another singer that I had talked to about her career (though I didn’t think she would go very far). I was happy for her because she was with two people that I understood to be her manager and an assistant. She had started her career, but still wanted advice. She came to me with a difficult and tricky question.

She had recently been diagnosed as HIV+. She hadn’t told anyone yet, because she had finally gotten her career going and she didn’t know if disclosing her status would ruin that, especially this early. She wanted to know if I thought her agency would drop her, since she was so new to them, and she didn’t want to throw any risk into such a new relationship. I told her that I had some ideas, but needed a moment. She went to the lobby to the restroom while I thought it out. (This was weird for me in a dream. I actually sat on the couch and had a mental conversation with myself for what seemed like several minutes.) she came back and I gave her two bits of advice:

1. As long as you give a good show, it doesn’t matter. Ultimately, your job as a singer is to perform your art for your own self-growth and for the enjoyment of others. If you are doing that, whatever is happening off the stage or out of the studio doesn’t matter (in your career), and therefore shouldn’t matter to your agent. Your manager is here supporting you, your agent should too, as well as your label.

2. Don’t let it define who you are as and Artist, unless that is what you want. Stevie Wonder, Diane Schuur, Ray Charles – what is the first thing you think of? A blind, piano playing singer; that is unavoidable. People notice that and (I’m sorry to say) exploit that. Obviously those three had the talent to excel, but they did use their disabilities to get noticed (or their people did) at first. Is that what you want? At a certain point, when does something move from being unique to becoming a novelty act? I understand the point of being an advocate, especially as a heterosexual female – that is still needed, but that is something you need to decide. My advice would be to be that advocate proudly in your life, but don’t change your performance. People will see that as an attempt to use your diagnosis for advancement, and you might be put in a niche that you can’t escape from. Being in jazz is enough of a niche! Think of the labels that follow people: gay comic, trans-gendered actress, plus-sized model, etc. Do you want to be known as ____, or ____, HIV+ singer. Have it be part of your story, but not your entire definition.

Two examples from Artists I’ve worked with:

I worked with a very well-known singer. She was well know by her fans for being a soulful singer, and she was well known by the industry for being extremely difficult. We put together a tour for her that met all of her demands (I can’t list them here, or it would be known who I was talking about, sorry!) but while she was on tour, she got nastier and nastier to us, to her musicians, and to our buyers. All the time, the fans loved her, and the reviews were great, but the horror stories coming in from the buyers were unforgivable. She was ruining relationships we had built, and for what purpose? When she refused to go on because she decided that she needed to be paid more money in cash right then (while her audience was sitting waiting for an already-late show), that was the last straw, and we dropped her. My point with this example is that as long as you are making your best art on stage or in the studio, and the audience is happy, it doesn’t matter what goes on in your life. People will put up with a lot if you have the talent to back-it-up. She is a bad example – don’t be like her, but you know what I’m saying. Also, we are talking about the Jazz world, not the world of “Beyonce had this for breakfast and you won’t believe what it was!”

I also worked with an Artist who had developed AIDS early in his career, and long before I worked with him. He chose to be an advocate, and even wrote some beautiful pieces about his struggles and health issues. It was part of his story, and it became part of his act, but not all of it. He knows that his diagnosis does not define him, though it does limit him, physically, unfortunately. He was a great musician before and continues to be a great musician now, that’s what really defines him. Another thing you will need to contend with is the prejudice of the buyer. We have come a very long way, socially, but misunderstandings still exist. You will have buyers that will put extra clauses in contracts regarding cancellations due to illness. They will think twice about the money they are willing to spend if there is a worry that they will lose it if you catch a cold and can’t perform, especially at this point in your career. Be careful.

She thanked me for my advice and went off. I walked over to say hello to the tables in the back, but that’s when I woke.

I am not too happy with some of the advice I gave her, to be honest. I didn’t explain it in the right way, and looking at it here, it comes across as harsh and that I’m telling her to hide. That wasn’t it at all. I wanted to tell her to know what she was up against.

I often go to bed with the hope that my dreams will help me to find the path I’m supposed to be on to find my next career. The second dream reminded me what I liked from my last job, while highlighting my desire to mentor and help others. It was also in a hotel. I had a second interview earlier this week at one hotel and have a first interview at a different one next week. Who knows where these things come from?

As for the first dream? I don’t know. Maybe I need to make that game. And see my cousin’s family more.