That's the thing, really. My whole life has been a woman's march. I questioned everything from the get-go, and deep within believed that women had the right to sing their passionate songs, to walk their own walks, to take the journeys they needed to take to get where they needed to go. I've marched to a different drummer, alright, and that stunned look in my eyes these last thirty-five years or so has been by way of saying, "Why on earth doesn't this work? Why isn't an infrastructure in place to encourage women, single or not? Why are we such an afterthought? Why is it so very hard to stay authentic and powerful? Why is it so hard to even survive?" Things are changing before our very eyes now. This year has been the catalyst for changes I never thought I would see, and I rejoice in that.
Speaking of rejoicing, the decision to stand and face my wave of pain has elicited some very hard aftershocks. But it has also done something almost magical. I suspected that it might crack open a door to hope; last night, even better, I followed a thread of online music to real joy. I discovered a good recording of the Mozart Requiem, which I believe I sang only once, forty years ago, with the huge symphonic chorus, the Cathedral Choral Society in Washington, DC. To my shock, not only do I remember my alto part and most of the words, but most of the other parts, choral and orchestral. I sang with total abandon, even with the soloists, without needing a score. I "conducted" and intuitively aligned with the piece's expansive emotional expression. It reminded me that, at my essence, I am a musician. In the eighties, when I basically gave up choral and organ music in frustration at not being able to sing English cathedral music with the men and boys, I gave up joy. I gave up "me." I won't do that again.
If I don't march tomorrow, I'll sing more Mozart instead. I see that the translation of one of the lines of the Dies Irae is, "all creation is awaking." Yes it is.
