Coming home after work
Turning on a free concert 
Alanis Morissette at Austin City Limits 
Her songs have been my soundtrack for
Almost three decades
It's like visiting an old friend 

What a joy and a luxury 
To see such a gorgeous sumptuous opera 
The way Zeffirelli paints on the stage 
Using bodies and sets
And splashes of color 
The way a soprano's voice can float across the hall 
All the way into the gods 
What it feels like to watch over a hundred people
Lift their hands to the sky together 
Puccini's soaring score 
Resonating in my bones 
Remembering Abuela playing the music 
Thinking of her
And how much she would love this 
How thankful I am
For the gift of
Enjoying opera

In year 3 we were taught the basics of recorder
Mr Scutts was our music teacher
Grumpy and unapproachable
But also a talented musician and
The composer of our school song
Trees and birds
And fields of green…
He later died of cancer 
Was he grumpy because he was in pain? 

I enjoyed the recorder so much
I must’ve asked for one at some point
Because I had one
(Even though I was teased endlessly for it) 
And a kid’s book from which I taught myself to read music
I can still almost picture the page that taught the G above middle C
It had blue on it

A girl the year above me played piano in a school assembly
I felt jealous because she had access to a secret world I wasn’t allowed to be a part of
I wished for years to have a “proper instrument”

And then in high school
I joined the beginner band
And picked the flute even though the bassoon seemed interesting
A flute was the lightest instrument to carry on the bus
And didn’t require reeds
Which would cost more
And require replacing on a regular basis

But the ability to read music was a gift
Being a part of the school choir
And Sydney Schools Singers
Going to State Music Camp
​Playing the flute and passing exams 
Singing in the Olympics and
Schools Spec
Moving to London and
Going to drama school for musical theatre
Moving to New York and
Singing with MasterVoices
Teaching voice
It has all bought me so much joy and
So many friends

And every single time
I read music
I feel joy that I can

Silly fun at work
A parade for a glockenspiel
La La Ronda!
A lovely unexpected surprise from chorus
And time to work on my music.

The 1390th performance of 
Zefirelli's sumptuous production of 
La Bohéme at The Met 
It's always such a thrill just to walk into the building, 
It's so grand and beautiful 
And then to take your seat
And see those glittering chandeliers 
And all the players in the orchestra
And then you watch a stunningly realized opera
With its gorgeous costumes 
And mind-boggling sets and
A real live donkey! And a HORSE! And Puccini's 
Gorgeous music floating through the hall 
Viva la vie boheme!

​I’ve been feeling
Swirly
Joyful and giddy and inspired
Tempered by
Moments of sadness
And missing and grieving
​
It has been fun to craft again
Play with a hot glue gun and
Colored thread
While listening to beautiful music
The Indigo Girls and Judy Garland and Barbra

The delight of beginner musicians 
Earnestly counting 
Tapping their converse and sneakers 
Remembering how to move their fingers across the keys 
Over the strings 
Connecting the dots on the page
To the sounds of their instruments 
Each. Note. Played. With. Equal. Importance
(Phrasing a skill yet to be mastered)
The enthusiasm of their teachers
Look how far they've come! 

Your dear friend Jonathan
Invites you on a backstage tour of the Met Opera
And there is a couple from London
And a lady from San Francisco
And together you explore the bowels and backstage
Of one of the most iconic operas in the world
It is thrilling and beautiful
And smells like paint and dust
And even though you’ve been in theatre your whole life
The grandness of it
The scale of it
Takes your breath away
The hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of workers scurrying around   
The costumers
The wig makers
The carpenters
The metal-smiths
The stage hands
The education officers
Not to mention the singers and dancers and chorus members and children
And you get a tiny glimpse of the costumes up close
And the sumptuousness of the fabrics
The detail of the stitches
The way costumes are re-made and refashioned and refitted
The way the set pieces are rolled in and out
And stored in the air
And the history of it all
Tracing back hundreds of years to opera houses in Europe
Even the very walls in the house can trace their origins back to a single grand tree from a forest in London
The history of art and music and
Story telling and luxury

I know I say it almost every Monday night
But happiness truly is
Singing in the choir
The joy of harmonizing
The joy of vocalizing together
The joy of discovering the music and
Figuring out how we can make it
Sing

Have I mentioned that happiness is singing in the choir
My god how it fills my heart with such joy
I’m so thankful I learned to read music all those years ago
It’s still a thrill to connect the dots
To sound
The challenge of switching from Sondheim to Handel
Musical theatre is in my bones
I get it
But the Baroque?!
I sometimes feel like
What is singing?
Can I even sing?!
It sits in a completely different place
In my voice 
Which is strange because it's the same instrument, but
The harmonies are different
The rhythms are different
The language, both textual and musical is different
And yet it still touches my soul
Uplifts my spirit