"And now, the end is near...

And so I face the final curtain"

My Pa Rocky was a huge Sinatra fan.  He was such a big fan that we played "My Way" at his graveside on the day of his funeral. That song wasn't just one of his favorites; it was a mantra by which he lived his life.

Pa's life was not an easy one.  He came from a small town in Calabria, Italy. When he was 12, he and his father came to the United States, to work and raise enough money to bring his mother and two brothers over.  They lived in an apartment building in Boston, working hard, eventually bringing the rest of the family to America.  When Pa was 15, his father died.  Now he was the head of the family, supporting his mother and two young brothers.  School had been out of the question for a long time; now his life was about family and work.  Childhood was out of the question as well.

The years that followed were not easy either.  There was joy in his marriage and birth of his three children, but heartache in his divorce and strained family relationships.  He continued on his own path, not worrying about consequences, but being true to himself.  Even if no one liked his answers, they were his own truth, and he would not give up.

I find myself thinking about Pa a lot these days, these days that are shaky at best.  He did his utmost to make his own decisions on his own journey.  He was strong and stubborn (some would say to a fault).

I am making my own decisions now.  I have thought about giving up music.  Last night, I was scheduled to sing the Verdi "Requiem" at Tanglewood.  About an hour before the performance, I began to sob uncontrollably.  A dear friend and my manager both rubbed my back and comforted me and told me not to worry about singing, just to take care of myself.  My husband and mother said "Put tonight behind you.  It's one Verdi performance." But how many nights like these must I put behind me?  How many times can I start to lose my mind and let everyone pick me up off the ground, sobbing and wondering why I can't just get swallowed up by it?  How many people must I disappoint?  How many times will I prepare for a concert and then go through such a roller coaster in my brain that I question my own perception of reality?  In the span of one hour, I went from urges to cut myself, to determination to do the concert anyway (sobbing during silence be damned), to a simple and utter despair.  I don't know if I'm manic, hypomanic, anxious, depressed or psychotic.  I keep taking the pills, and taking the pills, and coping and coping and coping.

I want to try to slow the creeping unrest in my heart.  I can't stand to be around more than two or three people at a time.  Going out in public makes me fearful.  I worry that people I don't know will be angry, talk out of turn, or won't be quiet in a movie theater or at Mass.  These things make me feel actual fear!

And so I feel an end is near, and I face a final curtain of sorts. Is this the end of a music career? As I rehearsed the "Requiem" this week, I could not help but weep while I sang.  I am mourning the career that might have been.

I have had regrets, but I will have to do this my way.

Joyful Girl

"I do it for the joy it brings,

Because I'm a joyful girl.

Because the world owes me nothing,

And we owe each other the world.

I do it 'cause it's the least I can do,

I do it 'cause I learned it from you."- A. DiFranco

When I was a little kid, I loved to make friends.  My parents tell me that when I was a toddler, they looked up from their blanket by the ocean to find that I was traveling from blanket to blanket nearby, babbling at the people there, and eating their food.  (Who doesn't love a buffet?.... ahem....) But I was so happy just to be talking to people and learning new things.  I would walk up to children in a park or at the beach and say "Hi, I'm Laura.  Wanna be my friend?" It just seemed like the right, comfortable thing to do. It was another reason that performing felt so natural.  With one song or monologue, you could communicate with a room full of people, asking them all to be your friend.  How does one become this way? How did I learn about being a joyful girl? The best answer I can come up with is two words: my mother.

Momma is a joyful girl.  But don't you DARE let her hear you say it! She carefully guards her curmudgeonly status, like an Ebenezer Scrooge who tricks Fred into thinking she's still horribly grouchy even after the three ghosts have come and gone. My mother is like Auntie Mame and good ol' Ebenezer and Julie Andrews all rolled up in one.

Momma grew up in a huge house with six siblings, a mother, a father, a grandmother, a grandfather, an aunt, an uncle, a cousin, and seven other aunts and uncles and cousins' worth of family going through the doors as though they revolved.  My grandmother told me once "When your mother was born, the world turned on its side.  Your aunt Eileen took to that child in a way I had never seen a person take to an infant before.  But that was your mother's influence on everyone she met!" When she was still small, they realized that she loved to sing and was quite good at it.  And so she began to perform in little variety shows, for ladies' luncheons, and summer shows in town.  She was a shining star, someone who everyone cherished and delighted in watching perform.  She was smart, accomplished, and had a 1000 watt smile. Momma had everyone wrapped around her finger, and that's ultimately because she was a joyful girl.

"Everything I do is judged,

And they mostly get it wrong, but oh well.

'Cause the bathroom mirror has not budged,

And the woman who lives there can tell

the truth from the stuff that they say,

And she looks me in the eye and says

Would you prefer the easy way?

No, well then ok, don't cry."

I had the privilege of having my mother as a music teacher when I was a kid.  I remember learning lots of songs with her, at home and school.  I remember seeing her laughing with a class full of kids when we would make all the silly noises and sing silly lyrics that came with her songs.  I remember her acting out the story of the very first "Surprise Symphony". I remember her baseball unit, marrying her love of the Red Sox with her love of music. I remember her wrangling group after group of us in after-school choruses and shows, putting us all in the right spots, running our lines over and over again, and smiling her 1000 watt smile while she conducted. She is so joyful when children work hard and sing beautifully.  How could we do anything but that, with her smile and laugh cajoling us along?

Momma is another female role model in my life, made of steel that's overlaid in humor and joy.  She has raised four children (one of whom is out of her mind), worked full time for 30 years, hosted parties and rehearsal dinners and sleepovers, and done it all with a wonderful dose of hilarity and sarcasm.  If sarcasm were currency, Momma would be the richest woman in the world.  But this is not to say that she is nasty, or exacting.  Momma's sarcasm is the kind of self-deprecating humor that she has honed carefully.  Momma has a great sense of perspective (learned from my Nana), and wants all around her to know that they are of value, greatly loved, and should NEVER take themselves too seriously. Through the sarcasm, Momma is a devout Catholic who believes in the inherent good in people.  She believes in doing good deeds when no one is looking. She believes we owe each other the world.  

When I am at my lowest, I go to Momma to pick me up.  She finds some way to make me laugh and take stock of the real situation.  Often, she can talk and joke me right out of a bad mood.  When my brain has been too far gone for that, she'd put her cup of tea or coffee down, look me right in the eye and say "Well, now we know what needs to happen.  Let's go...".  Off we'd go to the hospital, and as we'd wait in the ER, she would find joy and humor in every small thing, rubbing my hand in hers and using her sarcasm to get me laughing even through my madness and tears.  

When I think of Momma, I think of the Ani DiFranco song quoted above. Momma is my "woman in the bathroom mirror" who does not budge.  She is my compass. When I think of what I should do next, or how I am perceived, I see Momma in front of me, encouraging me, never letting me take the easy way when the right way is hard, and being the joyful girl with the 1000 watt smile.  I think of how she never expects anything of the world, but wants to give and give and give, with her performing, with her friendship, with her sarcasm and love of life. She has said to me "Life is just messy, Laura, but we need to be like Auntie Mame, and belly up to the banquet!!!"

When I grow up, I want to be a joyful girl like Momma.