Cinderella!

Silence Is........Hard.

I have had the pleasure of being the musical director for our school’s production of Rogers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella for the past 8 weeks and our final show was Friday night. The past two weeks have been grueling for the cast and crew, but it has paid off— the kids have done a wonderful job!

I sat at the piano turning pages for the accompanist and cackled my way through the evening— the kids were full of closing night energy and had fun with their characters and songs. Throughout the performance I watched the faces of kids I’ve grown to love and respect and thought about what a great job I have. Not only do I get to help these talented young people learn about the creative beauty music brings to life, but I also get to help shepherd them through some really rocky years of their lives. It’s always challenging, but the reward is huge.

Saturday was spent sleeping in (something I haven’t done in forever) running charts for Maundy Thursday and Easter, and an hour of birthday shopping-- I didn’t buy anything, but I loved the time alone. Don washed and waxed my car as a birthday gift (I think he almost did himself in, as the construction grime from work had settled in a thick layer on my car’s red paint.) We topped off the day by going to dinner with our friends from the Westminster Brass. These great guys took me in when I was singing and traveling for Ligonier Ministries and became friends that would last a lifetime.

The complicating detail to this busy week is that I’ve been on complete voice rest while moving through tech and production week… I caught a bug near the end of January that left me with laryngitis, and teaching on it the entire month of February trashed my vocal chords. I discovered some things in the process…

I’m a talker. (For those of you who know me well, you’re probably thinking, REALLY?)

I have things to say. (ditto the aside above)

Voice rest is HARD for someone like me. I tried to write everything I needed to say, seriously, I did, but thoughts and ideas spring forth so fast, it’s impossible to write them all down. Thus, the dreaded whisper.

Whispering hurts when you do it too much, and adds great strain on the larynx. (I’ve had to stop myself a bazillion times.)

I cannot be quiet and direct the music for a show. (Duh)

Being quiet is torture for me— my mind is spinning out clever quips that I’m unable to write at the speed with which they flash into my mind.

Tomorrow I have to teach two middle school choir classes comprised of 73 6th-8th graders, and I’m trying to come up with a way to teach/review sight-reading without saying anything. I’m committed to silence… think I can do it?

I have a birthday coming up, and I just bought my own present.

If the night is clear enough, Don and I venture out for an hour or so to sit in some old lawn chairs and look up at the stars. One night not too long ago I complained about the angle hurting my neck, and we tried spreading a blanket out on the lawn. That night's sky was particularly beautiful. We'd been treated to water color clouds just after sunset, and when the moon came out, the clouds wandered across it's path and created whimsical scenes. The view from the blanket was great, but the ground was hard and bumpy, and a few bugs joined the party.

What we needed was a hammock!

I found one at costco.com that suited my aesthetic tastes and met Don's functional requirements as well, but the price tag was way out of our budget. I shopped around online whenever the opportunity arose for several days, and then voila! I found it on ebay for an unbelievably low price.

Last Thursday night, I came home late from a choral festival to find that the hammock had arrived, and not only had Don put it together, but he was in it, wrapped in a hooded jacket, staring at the stars. A cold front had come through the day before, and it was currently about 48 degrees. Grabbing my jacket, two sleeping bags, and a blanket, I piled onto the hammock beside him and gazed up into the heavens. Glorious! Since then, we've hit 3 out of five nights. There was supposed to be some meteor activity but we haven't seen any yet.

Tonight was damp and rainy and Don's at the firestation, so I must wait until the next opportunity to steal an hour or so under the stars. Until then, Happy Birthday to me!