Processing the process

Dearest Blogosphere,

Lots and lots has happened since I last wrote, only a week ago, and it's complicated to wrap my mind around the organizational and emotional ebbs/flows of the first "real" week as a Master's student.  I'll try not to be too long-winded, but there's so much to say; luckily though I finally have time to sit and reflect a little tonight, before tomorrow's first real day of classes (and I thought I'd have a seminar, but it was full when I tried to fill out an override form today...d'oh!  So classes for me = Weds).

Last Tuesday was full of logistics and amusements, extra-specially peppered with communications from "home" (which is pretty much anywhere in the States at this point).  I practiced a great deal and did more work on my schedule, and in between enjoyed an especially windy yet sunny (read: not humid!!) day walking between home and the music school, only about 15 min away.  Was hit on by a hilarious middle-aged French speaker, who actually stopped his car and leaned out the window to say obviously sketchy things in French while his light was green and mine was red; I just smiled awkwardly as he got the honking of a lifetime from the cars behind.  Otherwise humorous were the accents of a few Canadian "valley girl" types walking behind me, talking about (uh-buh-oht) all their favorite "uhh-ohtfits" and probably judging my not-very-chic ripped jeans and t-shirt.  On the walk home I stopped by St. John the Evangelist, another church at which I'll be auditioning, and was delighted to realize it was the same place that Noah had his lesson with Bill Porter, the McGill organ teacher, when he and I were up here in January for my audition.  Back then I sat in the sanctuary and listened to N play the same short phrases over and over, attending to very specific articulation, while I went through my heinously long 8-piece medieval-through-Baroque audition program I would be performing for the judges the next day, thinking through gestures and word-for-word translations.  How funny to think I'll be auditioning there...tomorrow!

Anyway, the extra-special parts of Tuesday were, firstly, receiving mail (!!!!):  a wonderful postcard from Elisa Dolowich, lovely highschool friend; an equally great postcard from Cameron Arens, college bff; and hilarious payroll deposit slip from the Yale dept of music...well, someone got my change of address form!  I made a smoothie with some added chilled hibiscuis tea in celebration, which was a big hit, and then did class research some more.  That evening I had another chance to reconnect with home, and called my dear friend Jessica Poter, who now lives in LA having graduated Yale with me in 08.  We've gotten into a tradition of my singing the Mexican birthday song "Las mañanitas" to her on voicemail every year, so I thought she might let it go straight to voicemail - but, she picked up, and we got to catch up a little bit on her special day.  Needless to say I still called and left the song-message after we talked, so as not to break tradition, but it was great to hear her voice and imagine her goings-on in Hollywood.

Wednesday was a big day:  my first lesson with Sanford Sylvan, new teacher and generally awesome and famous dude, and also Noah's arrival that evening (not to mention his half-birthday festivities!).  I'll admit I felt the pressure a bit to sing well even on a day that I would have loved to devote only to cleaning, cooking, and prep, but it was a 30 min lesson and it turns out, he is a wonderful teacher.  The point of the short lesson was just to get to run through audition repertoire a little bit before my auditions which are all this week, and he was very encouraging, very much "on my side."  I walked away elated and really believing I had a shot at all, ahem, 6 auditions in the next couple days, and got to go home to do final stages of cleaning before Noah arrived around 5:30.

How exciting to have him here once the apartment was finally set up!  He especially admired my bookcasefull of toiletries (v organized) and the nice flowers on the kitchen table (ginger flowers - huge and magenta).  We went to a couple of surprise places for the half bday, both on St. Laurent and both excellent:  Coco Rico, a Portuguese chicken-and-potatoes establishment, at which we got so much food I still have too many leftovers; and a fancy restaurant called KoKo (ha, they're the same!) which had excellent desserts (pineapple cobbler!) and stylish cocktails.  We fretted briefly about attire being "downtown chic" at KoKo, since N had mistakenly left his fancy clothes at home on a hanger draped over the chair next to the stuff he took, but I dressed up and they didn't bat an eyelash.  We got to bed early since I had to get up for 10am orientation, and since Noah planned to practice 4 full hours while I was busy with McGill stuff.

Thursday orientation and practicing went fairly according to plan, though I did have a stroke of incredibly good luck:  the girl with whom I was chatting during the reception, Cheryl from Calgary (...who has the same exact accent as Margaret Carey...!), is starting her Master's in the accompanying program, and practically up and volunteered to accompany me for my auditions!  *What* a relief, and she was even free right then - so we went to a practice room right next to Noah's, and banged through some rep.  We grabbed a quick lunch (really, really quick) and then were off again to the library orientation, at which point I finally met Noah's friend Clayton who is an organist here just starting out, and we chatted a bit and exchanged numbers.  I finally headed to the voice orientation meeting, where I got many if definitely not all questions answered by Valerie Kinslow, the voice dept chair, and then finally got some time to just relax and hang out with N.  We headed out to grab dinner somewhere on St. Laurent, and were delighted to find an amazing street fair going on, most of the road closed, and nearly all stores decked out with booths carting their wares in front.  We meandered a bit, trying to decide between various food options, but then came upon the famous Schwartz's deli, which (magic??) had no line... that was it.  Reminiscent of Louis' Lunch in New Haven, Schwartz's serves up *the* best smoked meat sandwiches along with enormous, amazing dill pickles and super-sweet Cott's black cherry soda on the side.  A transcendent experience, to be sure, and I gave N dregs of my sandwich when he finished his first and looked so sad at his empty plate.

As it turned out, we had walked far enough up St. Laurent to be closer to N's friend Clayton's; so, having received a "help meee" text from him, we walked over to his place to be greeted with hilarious if quite unfortunate tales of the internet electrician flakiness/failure.  We then called Conrad, who was very stressed with recital prep but "had time for a beer," and met up all together in the Latin Quarter at a totally amazing beer garden that Noah had found in my guidebook:  a converted Victorian mansion, with a huge huge patio out back full of tables and nice little groups relaxing on the warm summer night.  We stayed quite late, which was retrospectively maybe not so smart since N had to move his car at 9am the next day, but it was great to talk with all three of them, who all seemed so much more social and at ease around one another (Obies...plus beer).  We exchanged pleasantries with some ridiculous townies on our ways home, and then hugged goodbyes since who knew when N would be seeing either of them again.

The next morning we'd planned to get to the Atwater market early, but the day before had been entirely too full and gogogo for me; so we slept in instead.  We walked to the music building where I finally nailed down a recital date (May 21st!) while N practiced some more, and we happened to see Clayton and chatted for a while.  Went back home to drop things off, then went over to St. Denis, a popular shopping street, to get a few fun things at an excellent cooking store I'd browsed a few days before;  N got a wine decanter as well as an adorable two-person sushi set, and decreed he'd soon learn to make his own sushi, and I got various things, most importantly including a pretty and not-too-heavy wok.  We headed straight over to the Atwater market after that, determined to complete a day of shopping even if late-started, and I got some delicious fresh food for the coming weeks:  figs, amazing cheese, green beans, baby bok choi (!!!).  We'd put off food long enough, so after dropping off the winnings we headed to Pizzedelic on St. Laurent, a gourmet pizza joint at which we ordered some amazing spinach artichoke cheese dip plus extravagant pizzas full of salty meats and crazy mixes - goat cheese walnut tomato, yum.  Still more leftovers for me, but I couldn't complain!

Saturday was sadly the day N had to head back to the Have, but we definitely made the most of it; I wanted to be sure we went to the Botanical Gardens, but we were disappointed to find it raining when we woke.  Oh well, we said!  I let N sleep in and made some pretty good carrot/golden raisin/walnut/pineapple upside-down muffins (seriously, you put pineapple slices and brown sugar/walnuts in the tin before the batter, then invert...very cute) as a send-off gift (I know I know, more food!), and having had a couple each we braved the depressing drizzle and went off to explore the beautiful gardens.  I was so happy to discover that not only were we now both students, and allowed the student discount, but I am a Quebec resident...so $10 tix for each of us, woohoo!  I especially liked how so many parts of the gardens reminded me of different people and things: aloe plants of all the people I associate with aloe juice, yum; roses with Grandma Phyllis and also with the week in Innsbruck hanging out in the rose gardens with Cameron, and also with the New Zealand botanical gardens in Wellington; the Japanese gardens of course with Dad and family; etc.  We had about 15 min left before parking ran out, so N enticed me to see the Insectarium just for that amount of time...ah!...and I actually enjoyed marveling at all of it except the gigantic hairy bigger-than-my-hand spider that N pointed out, only to then rub my back in an intended comforting gesture that felt EXACTLY like a spider of that size on my back.  AHH.

We told ourselves we'd just make one more stop then he'd head out, but that stop took a bit of navigating - St. Viateur bagels, not too far from my place but just far enough not to walk.  Also according to my guidebook, this is a famous Montreal bagel establishment not to be missed even if one only has a day in the city; so, we bought a dozen bagels, some to freeze, but in our hunger ate 3 of them between us in the traffic on the way home.  There are few things better than warm bagels in a warm car on a cold rainy day with a loved one.

We made it back home and had one last food task to attend to:  at the Atwater market the day before, I'd splurged on a couple enormous arancini for us, but then we filled up on pizza and didn't have them.  So, what better way to send N off than with a baked ball of fried cheese and rice?  They took not too long to heat and were delicious with some arrabiata sauce I'd just bought at the grocery store days before.  Then a tearful goodbye, but once more - it was time to get going.  I read a little bit of Linda Meyer's book and of another childhood book, Ella Enchanted, and then started on the task of really assessing the year and next year.  Amid all this, Noah had found out that the choral director at Christ Church, Dennis Schrock, quit, such that N and another friend Arianne were asked to split the choral director position for the church...what?!  So needless to say, we both had a lot of organizing and life figurings-out to do, and are still working through those, but it's all seeming interesting enough if incredibly demanding.  Travel plans are having to be reworked, day-to-day scheduling for me is still completely in the air because who knows what ensembles I'll be in, let alone productions, and it's admittedly difficult to balance old and new.

But, N's visit was grounding, and I'm glad I had it to reminisce about while the real craziness with school started up.  Saturday night I sent the "what is going on?" emails; Sunday morning I got the replies and reworked the schedule again entirely.  Sunday I had been planning to practice a lot but then found out the building might be closed; then a friend called and said it was no longer on summer hours, so it was open, so I practiced a lot.  Sunday evening I got to read a lot and relax some more, having found out there were no Monday classes this week yet; but this morning I went downtown to turn in my schedule, and was informed that all my course override forms could be completed except one, which was already overfull, so no Tuesday class for me.  ??  At any rate, I also practiced a lot today, met up with Conrad who will be playing harpsichord for my early mus audition on Weds, and finally nailed down dates and times for certain auditions.  I had scheduled a Thurs 5-ish time with my accompanist for the opera audition, only to have the audition signups be posted today and discover that grad auditions can only be Weds, and undergrads only on Thurs; so, called her, and changed it, and now have three on Weds - jazz, early music, and opera.  Ha!  Not including classes and endless meetings!

Otherwise eventful this evening was my first studio class, ever.  This is something that lots of conservatory people are very used to experiencing, but it was completely new to me; we met the other voice students who are also studying with our teacher, and talked about recent and current experiences, thoughts about summer programs and good opportunities, etc.  I was relieved to meet more voice students, especially since many of them seemed intelligent and friendly (whew!), but also felt a little out there - there are only a few new people in the studio, and otherwise it was like a reunion of old friends talking about their summers.  Not to say I didn't get anything out of it, but I had to be careful...as the new girl, it would have been foolish to raise my hand and contribute, "Well, while most of you were doing pay-to-sing opera programs this summer, I was getting paid to yodel and Tuvan throat sing."  Even if I did want to contribute my experience with that stuff for the sake of talking about singing/money dynamics and gigging contracts and whatnot, it wouldn't be perceived that way even if I did talk around it a lot; so I listened and enjoyed.  I really appreciated how Mr. Sylvan acknowledged how, for each and all of us, these attempts at music and artistry are all such a process; something I've told myself often, and in many different contexts.  Lately I've been thinking about how important it is not just to acknowledge the process, but to say yes to it when one is willing and able - yes the process is there, and yes I'm willing to work.  As I prepare for these next three intense days of auditions and classes, I'll try to keep these things in mind - diving headfirst is the only way to more than accept a process, but engage in it.  And, as Mr. S so delightfully put it today, while we're up there auditioning, there's a woman in the world having a *baby.*  Seriously, contextualize, people!  Relax, it's not that hard!

I'll try to make updates more frequent...and more short.  :)  I miss you all and love receiving your comments, and am grateful to the internet for bringing your wonderful communications during such a new and transitional time.

Love,
Estelí