Anyone Can Whistle

Anyone can whistle
That's what they say -
Easy.
Anyone can whistle
Any old day -
Easy.
It's all so simple:
Relax, let go, let fly.
So someone tell me why
Can't I?

I can dance a tango,
I can read Greek -
Easy.
I can slay a dragon
Any old week -
Easy.

What's hard is simple.
What's natural comes hard.
Maybe you could show me
How to let go,
Lower my guard,
Learn to be free.
Maybe if you whistle,
Whistle for me.

Who knew this was a Stephen Sondheim song? I sure didn't! And after seeing him -- the Dalai Lama of Musical Theater -- last week at The Colony with all my ANMT brethren (my god, what a moment in time... I'll never forget that day!)... how could I not know that song and show? Hm... just another instance of something "typical" that I don't know.

I've had the song on cassette tape that Kevin Schaeffer made me when Shaun and I broke up and it never meant anything to me. Just cute.

But today -- this week -- these past few weeks... it hits me hard:

I don't know ANYTHING about really falling in love. And that not easy to take when you're this side of the proverbial hill.

Well... live and learn. :) I have to be okay with not knowing everything, don't I?

Last night at the Bodhi Tree I let a book "fall off the shelf" -- you know, gather wisdom from whatever happens to catch your eyeball. Well, it just happened to be Marianne Williamson's The Age of Miracles: Embracing the New Midlife. How's that for copacetic?

Then I opened a chapter where she was talking about making up all these excuses for why she couldn't be with this very much younger man because "why would he want to be with someone like her" who couldn't give him children, who was so much older, etc. etc. etc. (apologies to Marianne for not quoting her well).

AAGH. Just hit it all on the head and my insanity these for these past few weeks... and then I finally read something like AGE DOESN'T MATTER -- WE'RE ALL SPIRIT.

It totally calmed me down.

I forgot.

Spirit has no age. I won't forget again.

Second Day and all that jazz

What a big old crazy weekend... second day, eh, not so thrilling. Mostly because it comes right during the time I'm thinking about having a real meal (5 pm) and by the end of it I could eat... just about anything. Thank god I had a little maple syrup hard candy directly from Vermont (thanks Jeffrey :) in my purse... my, I'm turning into my mother with all her emergency foods, etc.

New news: we may be consolidating all our chamber orchestras on ONE concert for logistical reasons. Three of us have a massive group of instrumentalists to try to gather together and rehearse, so... why kill ourselves?

Although I'm not thrilled with splitting up my recital, I did put in for the concert to still be on my original date, Sunday, April 20, especially convenient since my classmate's recital is later on that evening. And I'm also thrilled at the idea of getting LOADS AND LOADS of people on a big huge stage (Thorne?) so I can hear "Pilya" played the way in all it's whacked out glory ;)

In the meantime... this whole thing is a logistics mess... and I have lots of scores to re-enter since I lost all my music when my PC crashed last November.

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But the good news: After a disastrous disappointment of not getting an online ticket to the ANMT 80-seat salon starring the visionary MUSICAL THEATRE ICON and my hero :)

Stephen Sondheim

... I got a ticket from a classmate, who had an extra -- SHOUT OUT TO YOU AND THANKS, MAUREEN! Then today, after many upset emails between members and staff -- ANMT fixed it all and moved the salon to a larger venue to accomodate all the members plus some. YAY!!! Now my colleagues can go too... whew... and guess where they moved it to? Yes, the Colony... the theatre I now work at! Life's so weird, isn't it?

Here's the man teaching students how to do Sweeney Todd's "My Friends" -- wonderful, eery... incredible. The man thinks character and motivation before a lick of music or lyric... witty as all hell and though it may not seem like it -- big-hearted.

Darn, I can't stop grinning!