today I met two extraordinary women
two fellow cancer survivors
who make music and art
with humor and joy.
they touched my heart
and lifted my soul.

happiness is singing in the choir
and sharing food
and sharing stories
and honoring one another’s contributions

that feeling when you’re at your
first in-person singing lesson
since before the pandemic
and your goal is to spend the next six months building back your range
ideally back to a high C
and in that very first lesson
you hit it
and it didn’t feel strained or scary
it was just there
and you feel relief and joy and fear and excitement

here we go.

What a thrill
To stand in such a beautiful space
To be in awe of the architecture
The mosaics and the stained glass
To breathe in the history
And to have the privilege
To sing gorgeous music there. 

The music of Zina Goldrich and Marcy Heisler
A celebration at 54 Below
Streamed into your living room in New Jersey
It is delightful
It is fun
It lifts your heart.

We’re singing Bloch’s Sacred Service
It’s some of trickiest music I’ve learnt
In terms of lyrics
In terms of its epic-ness
It requires patient learning
Bit by bit
To put it all together
But the music is divine
When all those delicious harmonies come together.

​Oh my god I have missed performing
The exhaustion of rehearsals
The learning of the notes
The drilling

Sitzprobe with the orchestra
Is there anything better than live music?
And singing in a room with 100 people?
What it took to get here this time
Two years of not being allowed to do this
Then rehearsals, all socially distanced and mandatory mask wearing and making sure every one is vaccinated
And a PCR test
And a rapid test
And emails back and forth and QR codes

And here we are at Carnegie Hall
And all the bells on earth shall ring!
And all the souls on earth shall sing!
Alleluia!

To sing Bernstein
The Chichester Psalms with its complex rhythms and time signatures and clashing harmonies and sumptuous beauty
And Bernstein's daughters are in the room!
Legacy, remembering
Passing the torch
Yisahak!

And Take 6 are extraordinary with a lightness of touch and a joy from over thirty years together
And Mikaela Bennet is stunning with that crystal soprano ringing across the hall
And when the Northwell Health Nurse Choir come onto the stage in their bright blue scrubs
My heart is in my throat
You will be found
Remembering all the nurses who looked after me seven years ago
Brought me lunch on a decorated tray with candy because they knew
I was sad I was missing out on Halloween
Thinking about what these smiling lovely people have been through in the past two years

Hark the herald angels SING!
Bless Harold
And feel so thankful that you are here.
Amen.

Imagine your whole life
You wanted to be in a musical in New York City
And one day
It is announced
That your chorus
Will be performing
Lady in the Dark
at City Center

You audition to be in the semi-chorus
Which is later called the chamber chorus
You get to go to extra rehearsals
And be moved around by Doug Varone
You watch his extraordinary dancers
In action
And remember how much you used to love to dance
Before fear and self-consciousness and demons took over

You sit in rehearsal
And marvel that
Tony Award winner Victoria Clark
Is right there in front of you
She sings “My Ship”
Not three feet away
And you want to melt in the loveliness that is her voice

You watch director Ted Sperling
And feel amazed
That after all those years of listening to
Titanic and Light in the Piazza and Floyd Collins and Anastasia
On repeat
You get to work with and
Learn from this extraordinary person

It's not just the big names you learn from
Julie Morgan, associate conductor, and her eye (ear?) for detail
Your fellow cast members
Especially the high school students
Remembering what it's like to go through this process for the first time 
The joy of sharing rehearsals
The hours spent together

Rehearsals fly by all too quickly
One week will it ever be right
Then out of the hat it’s that big first night
The—
Actually, no overture in this musical
Straight into a scene

Your make-up is on
Your tiara is perched on your head and
You sit backstage in the dim blue gel light
A lady in the dark
Watching the hustle of all the people
Running costume pieces across to stage right
Placing prop popcorn boxes stage left
Stage hands and costume assistants and musicians and security guards
The actors are the last part
Or perhaps the audience is 

​There is a line in Michael Gow’s Away
“Fancy doing it night after night like in America. Plays go on for years there. London too." 
Our play only ran for 3 days
A limited engagement
I wished it could’ve been longer

But in the moment
To stand on a stage and be
A part of creating gorgeous glorious music and
Tell stories
A dream. 

On Monday
I spent the morning figuring out of I could step in last minute to a new play opening on Thursday
I desperately wanted to do it
But there was an overwhelming amount of text
Which was completely unfamiliar to me
Perhaps if I’d been sitting in on rehearsals beforehand
Or vaguely knew the show
I hated to turn it down
In the afternoon I had a delightful singing lesson
In the evening, I went to chorus rehearsal

On Tuesday
I recorded a song at The Growing Studio
Spent a glorious hour and a half in rehearsal for The Big C Cabaret
Collaborating, coming up with ideas
In the evening I ushered at Frozen, it was
Kids Night on Broadway
It’s so special to be a tiny part of people’s first theatre experience
Seeing their eyes light up when they walk into the house
Their joy at the end of the show

On Wednesday
I was a patient for the morning
Well, a pretend one
After years of actually being a patient
I’m now getting paid to be one
In a program training student doctors
I help to evaluate their communication skills
Develop their empathy
Give them practice in connecting
In the evening, another chorus rehearsal
The delight of realizing Mairi Dorman, cellist extraordinaire, was a part of the concert
The thrill of sitting in a room of professional musicians
Watching them work
They make it look so easy
But you know the thousands of unseen hours that have led to this
“Effortlessness”

On Thursday
Another day of being a patient
In the evening
The Cat Empire in concert at Brooklyn Steel
I haven’t seen them for 8 years
They were glorious
As they walked on stage I was overwhelmed with nostalgia
I’ve seen them live around 20 times
It bought back memories of first year uni
Of Flea, and Flick, and Anita, and Kensington
Of Vicky, and Len, and Richie, and Kris
Of London and Brick Lane and how
The music of this band now spans almost half my life

On Friday
We had dress rehearsal for the chorus concert
MasterVoices Presents Night Songs and Love Waltzes
It’s exciting to have it all come together
To be a part of Ted Sperling’s theatrical vision
To sing in a venue like Alice Tully Hall
In the evening we sang
Schubert and Schumann (Robert and Clara) and
Brahms and Sondheim and Mendelssohn and Gordon
It was thrilling to watch Anderson and Roe up close
Chemistry and musical mastery
It was lovely to go home with my love

On Saturday
I ushered at Frozen
Made my way to Williamsburg for Iron City
Spent the evening improvising for tourists
And running delightful games

On Sunday
Back to Iron City
For more improvisation
In the evening
Home to my love

To paraphrase The Cat Empire
An Aussie-Spaniard screams for more… ​

I knew the Met Opera was beautiful
But in real life
It’s truly gorgeous
It actually took my breath away

The performance of opera is enchanting
The grandioseness of it 
Whole arias dedicated to expressing a single emotion 
How do they sing like that?
The history and the tradition and the skill of it

It reminded me of Abuela
She would have loved it
She took me to my first opera
Carmen at the Sydney Opera House
I was twelve or thirteen

Now I’m a grown-up and I live in New York
I gave my first solo performance last week
The thrill and adrenalin rush of it
I can’t wait to do it again
The next day, back to stuffing Playbills

Today, a matinee at the Met
Thanks to the kindness of a friend
The dress rehearsal of Il Trovatore
The scale of it all, overwhelming and incredible

The audience, mostly school kids
Made me re-see the story through teenage eyes
The characters aren’t much as role models
In this day and age
The gender politics disturbing
But the performances are astonishing

How lucky I am
To be here. ​