Belated aspirations

I desperately want to be good at something. I mean VERY good, not just good. It’s a leftover feeling from long ago, I think. Something that was never addressed. There were times in my life when that feeling didn’t matter, when all that mattered was “romance.” I would want to be VERY good for that particular man in 1970, another particular man in 1981. But now it’s too late for that. I can be GOOD for my husband now without giving up anything, because there’s not much to give up. No job, no place. All that’s been gone for a while. I’ll never get back to Massachusetts. It’s too late, and too expensive.

I became pretty good at some things. I suppose I was a pretty good writer, at times. As a grad student in English Literature, I wrote some mean papers. There was a teacher to please, so I was motivated, even though I was in my fifties. Compared to how I feel now, I felt YOUNG back then, as if doing well in class would bode well for my “future.” Why didn’t I feel that when I was younger? Because I was too busy being an adult, trying to handle a middle-management job at a weekly newspaper. I thought I was a big shot, dealing with stuff moment-to-moment, which ruled out the idea of studying anything seriously (although I should have studied management techniques).

Music kept rearing its lovely head when I least expected it. I was no prodigy at the piano when I was a kid taking lessons, but I enjoyed any opportunity to compose. Of course, that was rare, and only one teacher indulged it. No one encouraged me to go to ANY college, let alone music school. I wound up in art school because a friend urged me to join her, and it was cheap. There, at Massachusetts College of Art, a major in filmmaking led to more writing. As an afterthought I improvised some music for one of my films (long since lost to the dustbin).

Now, a veteran of several bands and sporadic guitar and voice lessons over the years, I am trying to be a serious musician? It makes no sense. I laugh at myself, and yet I continue. But how will I know if I have succeeded? These days, there is no way to tell. I currently participate in (don’t laugh) a weekly ukulele open mic online (among a few other open mics online). The first few times I was clearly more “professional” than most of the other players on this particular open mic; but this last time (tonight) I was not perfect. Now I’m feeling like shit. My weakness is not hitting the right vocal note when changing keys. I guess I should work on that. It’s all about working on stuff. Working and working and working. I am supposed to be retired! I’m 71 years old, for crissakes! Good thing we’re in the middle of a COVID resurgence! I have an excuse for always being in my chair, at the computer, with my ukulele in hand.

I keep writing songs, they do keep coming if I pay attention and, again, keep working, working working. But, what happens then? Except for the ones I recently recorded (which might as well be buried in an old mine, since nothing’s happening regarding completing what’s called “production,” and I’m too much of a wuss to nudge the person supposed to be doing that), my efforts are made in a vacuum. I can play them for one or two people, but that doesn’t satisfy me. At the same time, I’m very unsure of my worth in this area, and cannot bring myself to promote myself. It’s against my nature and nurture.

And now I can’t even bring myself to watch any songwriters playing their songs (especially if they are female) on YouTube or wherever. I don’t want to be distracted or influenced. Which tells me it’s really an EGO thing with me, and that I don’t really LOVE music as I should! If I did, I’d want to hear all of it, wouldn’t I? I remember failing an audition to get into a prestigious choral group in junior high. They asked for the Star Spangled Banner, or was it America the Beautiful? I can’t remember. My friend Caroline made it; I didn’t. At the time, I really didn’t care. I didn’t care about the music that group, called the Well-Wishers, was going to do. I liked folk and rock. I was happy playing that kind of song with my other girlfriend, Janice. As is the case (for me) now, we never played in front of anyone except a few friends. I don’t think Janice plays or sings at all now, although I have no evidence. I think she’s still alive, which is good. She’s probably a grandmother, or even a great-grandmother, roles I’ve not even considered for myself, since I don’t have kids.

I traded my first guitar, a classical, for some opium, back in 1967. Now I have three ukuleles, two guitars, a melodica, and eight harmonicas, and I’m about to finish a bottle of white wine. After which I will practice a song I just wrote called “Against Self-Examination.” There’s another open mic online tomorrow.

Emerging from Isolation

I have a suspicion that coming out of the COVID “lockdown” (or what passed for that in the U.S.) is scary for me. I feel raw, vulnerable. I do not want to SEE large groups of people let alone navigate large groups socially. I do not want to be running from one place to another. I am now used to having swaths of time to segue from writing to walking the dog, from singing to cooking. I have had a taste of living in a slow, civilized fashion, and I don’t want to give it up.

 

My luck (or “privilege,” as some would have it) has been good. Our house had been completely paid for a few years before COVID. I’d retired around the same time, so I didn’t have an income to lose, an essential job to endanger me, or obligations I’d have to invent an online process for. I took to “creativity”-related Zoom meetings eagerly. It seemed the perfect format for me. But then, difficulties DID arise with two people (one a family member, the other an acquaintance from decades ago who moved away, but during COVID became an online intimate, almost, without really being a real-life friend, simply because we had some things in common).

 

I do take things too seriously. A few critical comments from either of those people and I’m a ruminating wreck for hours. Even independent of those relationships, though, I often slip into a state where I simply don’t have a grip on who I am, whether I am good or bad, an artist or a hack, a narcissist or an empath. I observe other’s qualities, but I don’t think I judge them the way I judge myself. It’s much easier to imagine that I know who I am if I stay home and don’t have much to do with other people at all. In some cases, it’s also easier if I don’t even communicate with some people even online. I did not used to be this way, really. Maybe I’ve become more blunt, as well as more sensitive, and I’m tired of acting the part of the Nice, Helpful Woman. I can no longer imagine how I did the people-pleasing job I retired from!

 

Because it was necessary, because I couldn’t escape to a job or myriad activities, I think I became a better companion and a kinder partner for my husband during this time. It just happened, and I hope he agrees that it's true. I don’t think I could have done this with more than one other person, or maybe even any other person but him. This is probably a good thing, and I don’t think I twisted myself in knots to do it. 

 

I like to wait for my dreams to tell me things about myself, but my dreams during the past year or so have not been memorable. Only twice since March 2020 have I awoken in the night to write them down. The second time was just the other night. It was a semi-recurring dream about a person I was involved with when I was in my twenties, ending in a situation in which I was left wondering and confused. The specific dream situations change, but the confusion seems eternal. I really wanted more than that from my unconscious, but it goes its own way.

 

I’m now embarked on my seventies. Everything after this is 'lagniappe.' I am making use of it; I am writing songs and having them recorded. I have no idea if it’s worth it. The enterprise is unfamiliar because I have rarely done something like this under my own “steam” (as my mother used to call it). I do have one of those difficult people to thank for the initial impetus, but I continue dutifully, almost, pretending that I am someone else, I suppose, someone who has an obligation to herself and holds herself in some esteem. I have not yet become that person, though. And I am not able to think of it as "fun." I need to lighten up.