Go with your choice

Exhausted. Happy. Anxious. Grateful. In pain. Proud. Remorseful. Relieved.

I am back on my couch after a 1,5 hour concert with my choir Kammarkören Sångkraft (Sångkraft Chamber Choir). Our first production for this year I was unable participating because of the flue and that horrible faint-and-fall on my bathroom floor. I have been able attending most of the rehearsals for our second production, but since my day-to-day body condition is as unpredictable as mountain weather, there was no guarantee that I could actually do my job as a singer when it was time for the show. On top of that, I had promised to MC the thing… So May 26 in my calendar has been as haunting as alluring.

Friday I was in so much pain a concert was out of the question. Yesterday, a bit more stable, and goddamnit, I am going to do it, at least the MC part! And today I did it, I was actually on my feet singing and talking for 1,5 hour! Will power is an amazing force…

So of course I’m happy. And grateful. Relieved. And quite proud of myself. So what about the anxiety and remorsefulness?

Well, a concert program can sometimes be only scattered songs until they are put together to something that makes sense. And in this production that was my job. Which I like. I like it a lot. So, that’s all good.

Now, I have this tendency of waking up really early in the morning with, what is seems like at that point, bright ideas. I am talking ideas so bright they are luminous. Here is an example:

I am waking up with the most perfect ever commercial-web film idea about Seattle, this is some years ago. I will come up with the concept and direct it. My DP friends Theo or Lulu or David will shoot it. Matt, my super funny actor-improve friend will write the narration. He kind of new the former mayor, so he would get him to by the idea. And then we will have Bill Gates do the narration. See?

Anyway, so I woke up this morning some weeks ago with this image for today’s concert, a kind of intermission supposed to be entertaining, I won’t bore you with the details. Entertainment is a tricky business though. You have no idea if it’s going to work or not until you are there. And sometimes you don’t know even then.

And that’s where I am right now. I am thinking I was wearing a too short dress and making a too long show. (The reason for the too short dress was that it was the only one that could cover my back support.) And what was supposed to be entertaining might have been nothing but embarrassing. Being trusted with the microphone by a community of 40 people is a huge responsibility. Failing that trust is something you don’t want to do. And maybe I did. That’s why the anxiety and remorse.

But. Only because I was able to do my assignment and actually could stand on my two feet singing an entire concert, I am celebrating. And my idea of celebrating is eating a big bowl of cheese doodles watching a movie, in this case Woody Allen’s Whatever Works. The door to my balcony is open for the 11^th night in a row. I was wrong last week about having to put on a wool sweater again within a couple of days. It hasn’t happened. I love being barefoot, and I am, day after day, in May! The Song Thrush is singing all through the bright night and the greenery is magical.

Long ago I had this separate photo show at The Nordic Heritage Museum in Seattle. Framing the pictures for the show I chose an unusual color for the frames, kind of a champagne tint that worked with the reddish selenium tone of the photos. Having it all done, more then 40 pictures, I had second thoughts. Then a friend said: ”Maria, go with your choice. You make a choice and then you believe in it, stay confident and go with it.”

So. I will finish up my snacks. I will watch another movie. And I will try to not pay too much attention to the anxiety and remorse. I will stay with my choice and enjoy the Song Thrush. And be just a little bit more careful when it comes to my early bird ideas in the future.

Yeah, we’ll see about that…