Sunday Afternoon Fellowship

I got to hear Douglass Fitch preach again this weekend, but this time I was a little too preoccupied to hear the message. I think it was something along the lines of "Just say yes," which works out perfectly, because I already wrote about that.

I was preoccupied because I was singing in the service and I was nervous. I was nervous because I hadn't been able to attend any rehearsals, being that they were held during the workday. This is a problem that keeps cropping up - more and more I find that these musician-types aren't confined by the typical 9 to 5. When I told Martin I had to work, he seemed surprised - just as surprised as I was when he told me that rehearsal was being held at noon on a Thursday.

So anyway, the 4-piece band and the 3 other singers met twice without me, and I'd been trying to learn the songs on my own. The idea was to have each of us lead a song while the others sang backup, but after my experience last week I was not so comfortable singing lead with no rehearsal. So I opted to sing backup vocals only. Basically, I wimped out.

I dedicated myself to learning the harmonies throughout the week. I put the songs on my iPod and listened to them repeatedly: while running, while on the BART, while at work. I almost felt secure in my parts by the time the service rolled around, but I should have figured there would be some changes to the program.

First of all, one of the microphones didn't work - and we only had two to start with - so the background singers were left without a mic. Then Gisele looked over my lyrics and began to point out phrases and say things like, "Oh, we're not going to do that part. Our version is different."

"It's not like the recording?" I asked, alarmed.

"Well, it basically is...Except we don't do that part either. And we do a little thing in the middle...You'll figure it out," she assured me, reading the nerves on my face. "It's easy." Then she left to distribute programs and I turned to Emma Jean to deconstruct another tune.

"Your song is straight off the track, right? There aren't any changes?"

"Right," she confirmed. "Except we do it in another key. It's here - hmmm. No wait - hmmm. Huh. Is that it?"

Gisele was called over to help us determine the key and I was seriously dismayed when she began singing the harmony - a completely different harmony than the one I'd learned. The congregation was gathering, we were due to start any minute, and it was dawning on me that I was going to have to fake the whole thing. Suddenly I was glad that my microphone didn't work.

My fears proved unnecessary, since the Sunday Afternoon Fellowship is a pretty laid back affair. Still, I do not enjoy winging it during a performance. I come from an extremely rigid choral singing background, where 'winging it' is akin to 'horrible disaster'. It instilled in me a fierce desire to rehearse the hell out of every piece. But also, I want to be as prepared as I can, because I never want people to think that I don't take this seriously. I always want to give a good show, no matter if I'm headlining a world tour or singing for a couple of friends in my living room.

I think someday this dedication to preparation will serve me well, but right now it just sort of makes me afraid to take risks. For instance, I shrank from the microphone when Gisele asked me if I wanted to lead the opening song. "Emma Jean can do it," I said.

Wiener.

The program took a left turn when Douglass spotted several members of the Glide Ensemble in the congregation and called everybody up to sing. And Vernon, freshly returned from Europe, was pressed upon to lead the song. "I don't know this one," he muttered to Emma Jean, but he gamely took a lyric sheet and felt his way through it. And of course, it was lovely. Even though the makeshift choir struggled to find its place in the new key, even though there was no discernible end to the tune, we still made music together.

And when it was over I was showered in hugs and exclamations: "We're so glad to see you up there! Thank you so much for singing!" Even Gisele and Emma Jean thanked me profusely for joining them. I was a little taken aback, since I barely did anything. I was just another body up there, but I guess sometimes moral support is just as good as vocal support.

And I guess sometimes, when someone shoves a mic in your face, you just ought to take it. And wing it.

Maybe next time.

Oh, doo-dah day

My friend Boz has been visiting this past week and I took him to Glide yesterday. He skipped the 9:00 AM celebration in favor of breakfast, and I planned to collect him in time to score a good seat for the second service.

I hadn't soloed in quite awhile due to my strep throat, so I figured the odds were good that I'd get called on that morning. The congregation doesn't realize that the choir rarely has advance knowledge of what we're going to sing. What we rehearse on Wednesday night may not have any bearing on what we sing Sunday morning. As a soloist, I have to recognize the opening chords of my song and get down to the microphone in time to sing the first phrase. It can be more than a little nerve-wracking.

But yesterday I was hoping for the chance to sing. And I was glad that Boz was coming to the second service, so that I could warm up during the 9:00 AM and feel a little more secure with my song. We hadn't rehearsed it in quite awhile.

Sure enough, the final number of the morning turned out to be 'Smile Again'. I heard John murmur to the band, "Keep your head up!" which is a line repeated in the chorus. Suddenly a wave of nervousness flooded through me and my legs started trembling. I took a few deep breaths and directed a silent prayer toward the stained glass window in the balcony. For some reason, I always feel like God is hanging out back there.

When I approached the mic I'd regained a measure of calm. The anticipation is always worse than the act; once I open my mouth there's nothing to do but plow forward. You've just got to sing.

"Tell me how you feel..." I began. "When you're all alone / No one to say, 'I love you' / You feel all your hope is gone." My voice came out strong and smooth and I relaxed into the song.

"You call your best friend / And she's not there / So you wind up feeling empty / Feeling like nobody cares." I glided through the first and second verses. Things were going well, and I felt confident enough to throw in a few vocal squiggles.

That may have been what tripped me up.

After the second verse there's a bridge to the chorus. As we approached the bridge I felt a flicker of confusion; it didn't sound as though the band was heading in the right direction. Instead of building to a crescendo they were pulling back, and seemingly leading me toward the quieter vocal improv section. Had we already done the bridge? My brain hit rewind as I tried to remember, but everything was a blur except those damn vocal squiggles. I was so focused on my embellishment that I'd lost my place in the tune.

Afraid of being left out there on my own if I belted out the bridge, I began the improv - and immediately realized that I'd skipped ahead. Crap. I'd jumped right over the bridge and the chorus and cut to the finale. Oh well. The song would just be a little shorter.

"Ooh...ooh, ooh..." I crooned my way through my mistake. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dee dah doo dah, dee dah doo dah..." Have I mentioned that vocal improv is not my strong suit? Feeling like a bit of an ass, I made a mental note to enroll in that improvisation class at the Berkeley Jazz School.

I glanced behind me at the choir and threw them an apologetic smile. "Oh well," it was intended to say. "Let's just take it to the finish." But the choir didn't come in with the chorus - and rightly so; they were looking at our director, which is what I should have been doing. But when I glanced over at John he was frowning like thunder and I panicked and launched into the improv section again.

"Oh...yeah...Doo doo doo, smile again..." Oh dear God. Why wouldn't they cut to the end? The band just kept playing so I just kept ooh-ing, and then I started gesticulating with my free hand to seem more sincere. "Oh yeah!" I sang, waving my left hand spastically. "Dee dah-duhn, dee dah-day! Smile again!"

I made a quarter turn to the left to grace that side of the audience with a few doo-dahs and glanced surreptitiously at John. He was scowling at me. Wide-eyed, I shot him a pleading look: End it! For the love of God, end it! But the band played on. They launched into the verse again and I followed them helplessly into a third round of be-bop hell.

With glassy eyes and a plastic smile, I tried to communicate to the audience that everything was A-OK. "This is the way the song goes," I ooh-ed at them reassuringly. "No need to feel worried or uncomfortable. There's supposed to be three verses of improv here, honest!"

Beyond the dull roar of panic in my ears I heard John holler to the guitar player, "Take it up!" And with a metallic Thwang! we lurched into the new key, mid-verse. Undaunted, I threw out an "Ooh yeah!" before I recognized that the band's crescendo was intentional; they were trying to drown me out. Tim began his guitar solo and I took a step back. The smile stuck stubbornly to my face but inside my heart sank; the vocal improv section comes after the guitar solo. I was going to have to do the whole thing over again.

Oh, kill me now.

Usually I say a little prayer during Tim's part, something along the lines of, "Lord, please guide me through this next section." But God appeared to be just as shell-shocked as I was. In my mind's eye I saw Phil Hartman dressed as Jesus, shrugging his shoulders at me. So I stretched my face into a grimace-y smile and plunged ahead into one more round of vocal gibberish.

We reached the pinnacle of the song, where I belt out a note and sustain it for eight beats. Halfway through, I felt all the moisture in my mouth dry up at once. I finished the note with a croak and desperately tried to conjure up some spit to get me through to the end. But I couldn't do it; my tongue felt like sandpaper. I rolled my eyes heavenward, but now Phil-Hartman-as-Jesus had covered his face with his hands.

I stifled a coughing fit. "Yeah!" I hacked. "Ooh yeah!" I wheezed. "Smile again! Smile again!" With blessed relief I heard the choir rolling to a stop behind me and I heaved out a final phrase: "SMI-I-I-LE again, yeah yeah yeah-eh-eh-eh!" Then I gave a weak smile to the congregation, a quick hug to each of the pastors, and scooted my ass right off that stage.

It was over.

After chugging a bottle of water and hiding out behind the robe racks for a few minutes, I went to find John. Glenn and Eddie (the bass and drum player, respectively) were sitting on a bench in the hallway, taking a break during the sermon. "Hi guys," I waved sheepishly at them. "Um, I'm sorry about that."

They chuckled. Glenn shook his head. "Don't sweat it," he said. "Yeah," added Eddie. "You did all right. You kept going. At least you didn't get that 'deer-in-the-headlights' look." Then John came out of the office. I met his gaze with some trepidation.

"You forgot the turnaround," he said to me. "And without the turnaround we couldn't change the key."

And without changing the key, they couldn't end the song.

Ohhh.

I cringed. But then I rallied: "I didn't forget the turnaround. It didn't sound like the band was going to go there. I thought you guys had skipped ahead, so I skipped ahead too."

John replied, "You're the soloist. We'll follow you."

Right. I knew that. I felt a little dumb.

After a minute John conceded, "We might be able to take half the blame." And we all started laughing.

John turned to Glenn and Eddie. "She started going, 'Hmm, hmm, hmm,' and I was like, 'What the hell is she doing?" He bent in half, wheezing with laughter and the guys started cracking up. Tears were coming out of John's eyes, he was laughing so hard.

Well, come on guys. It wasn't that funny.

I toyed with the idea of falling into a funk, but decided against it. Instead I found Boz, stationed him in a prime spot, and squared my shoulders to do it all again. And I'm proud to say that at the second service, I kicked that song's ass.

This time I looked at John right before the turnaround. He rolled his eyes at me and looked away. I smothered a grin and leaned into the key change. And when the improv section came along, I sang those little doo-dahs like I was born to it.

The pursuit of excellence

Michael Phelps keeps me up at night.

Literally, I cannot get any sleep because the man breaks a world record every night at bedtime. As soon as his race is over I say to Monte, "Quick! Turn off the TV!" But it's too late; they've cut over to gymnastics and we're instantly sucked in.

I remember watching the Winter Olympics a few years back with my friends JoAnne and Rob. I was mesmerized by the figure skaters, the precision of their moves, the minuscule errors that shaved fractions of a point off their scores. "I wonder what it feels like to pursue excellence," I said to JoAnne. I honestly couldn't remember.

As a student I pursued excellence quite regularly. Not in every class, for sure, but on the odd project or paper. More particularly, I pursued excellence in my high school and college choirs, because my choir directors would not settle for anything less. We would work on a single phrase for ages, perfecting not just the notes and the rhythm, but the dynamics, the pronunciation, the emotion, the balance, the understanding, every single nuance until we could do it in our sleep. Or dead.

And sometimes I hated those long rehearsals, but oh! those moments when the music came together... I don't even have the words to describe how that felt. The best I can do is to say: It was like opening my mouth and exhaling light.

As I grew, I learned to appreciate the subtleties of creating a song. How sometimes, less is more. The way it feels when a note spins out of you and suspends itself on air. The delicate balance of a dozen voices leaning into one another, like a house of cards.

It was such a rigorous discipline, I surely would never have pursued it as an adult. But as a kid, I just liked to sing. And before I knew it, I was a Student of Music.

I was privileged to have wonderful teachers. They demanded excellence from me, and I was better as a result. It's an unsung benefit of the teenage years, I think - you're expected to pursue excellence as you grow. Once you're grown, not so much.

Excellence becomes a self-generated pursuit when you're older. And many of us forget how to do that amidst the daily grind and without the guidance of our formidable teachers. Adults are expected to get things done. It's the completion of the task that garners praise, not the skill with which the task is executed. I know that at my job the emphasis is often on getting it done now, rather than getting it done right. And how many of us never realize our full, fantastic potential? How often do we stretch to surpass our own expectations?

As I sat in JoAnne and Rob's living room, staring at the figure skaters on their TV, it occurred to me that no one had demanded excellence from me in a very long time. And I had forgotten how to pursue it for myself. The thought shook me, and left me a little sad. I wasn't doing much with my life at the time; I certainly wasn't doing anything excellently.

Flash forward to these Summer Olympics and I'm in a decidedly different place. (It's amazing, the difference it makes to have a goal in your sights. Everything seems a bit more...possible.) Some friends and I were watching Phelps power through the water in a preliminary race. "I could do that," I said as a joke. "I mean, it's just discipline. It's just hard work."

And somewhere inside that mouthful of crap is a nugget of truth.

Once upon a time, Michael Phelps was just a kid in water wings. It was discipline, hard work and the pursuit of excellence that turned him into the star he is today.

Watching the athletes this year, I feel the flutter of possibility. "Look what you can be if you really try," this little voice inside of me is saying.

And I am imagining.

Pump me up

Sometimes I go into the bathroom at work and whisper-sing rock songs into the mirror:

"You can go your own way! Go your own wa-a-ay!"

Then I do a little covert dancing and pump my fists a few times, like a boxer. I finish up with a wink at my reflection and emerge in a much better mood. Two minutes of this will improve my day by 15 degrees.

You should try it.

God said Go

A couple of weeks ago I couldn't create. I couldn't gain any forward momentum in my life. I felt like I was on the precipice of change, good change, but I was stuck. Looking around my messy apartment, I realized that I wouldn't be able to create art until I created some space.

Physically and emotionally, my house was cluttered. I wasn't sure what to do about the internal junk, but I thought a path might be revealed if I dealt with the external mess.

So for the past month, Monte and I have been cleaning out our apartment. We started with the bedroom, then the closet, then the living room and the office. And with each room that we cleared, my head began to clear a little, too.

During that time, I started on a whole slew of meds that wiped out my strep throat and allergies. I gave my voice a chance to heal. It returned just in time for me to sing at the wedding of my friends Dorian and Joyce on Sunday. And as I waited to reclaim my singing voice, my writer's voice began to emerge here in these posts. I forgot how much I love to write. Having a forum for my thoughts has helped me marshal my creative energy - suddenly I have a million ideas, and not enough time to put them into practice.

And all of it a sudden, it's like God said, "Go!" In the past week and a half, six people have approached me about gigs or collaborations. I've got to learn music for 3 events coming up in the next 2 weeks. The sudden onslaught of opportunity has me a little overwhelmed; I don't feel ready.

But I know two things: 1) Some of these projects will falter or be delayed, as is often the case in these scenarios. It's too early to get excited or upset about anything. And 2) I have to take every opportunity that comes my way right now. Even though it's my habit to fret about the details (What if I get too busy? What if I don't have the right clothes for that gig? How am I going to get to that rehearsal without a car?), things have a way of working themselves out. I just have to be receptive and flexible. I just have to say, "Yes".

Huh. Put that way, it's pretty simple. God says, "Go!" and I say, "Yes."

Well, all right then.

Smacked by my rack

Last September I participated in the 15th anniversary of Critical Mass in San Francisco. It was my first time doing the ride and I wiped out in unspectacular fashion: my back wheel got caught in a cable car groove and I flipped off my bike. It was unspectacular because I was traveling at less than one mile an hour.

Nonetheless, I managed to hurt myself pretty good. I went down hard and landed on my left shoulder. My friends had to drag me to the side of the road, where I spent a few moments in shock; all I could register was that my front wheel was crooked and my left thumb wouldn't work. Nobody had seen me fall, but I suspect that I was thrown over the handlebars. Leave it to me to be vaulted off my bike while practically standing still.

My friends fixed my wheel and my thumb gradually went back to normal, but I sustained an injury to my left shoulder that still bothers me today. It clicks when I rotate it and pains me when I lift my arm straight up. It's hardly a debilitating impairment, but there are certain things that I can't do anymore. For instance, I can't do a shoulder stand in yoga. I can't do certain hoop tricks on my left side.

And I can't get out of my sports bra.

Now to be truthful, I've always had difficulty extracting myself from a sports bra. They're so damn tight and slippery, you've got to pull like hell to free yourself. Many a time I've yanked hard on the Spandex, lost my grip and slapped myself in the face. I guarantee, nothing will piss you off in quite the same way.

I recently decided to take up running again, which required the purchase of a few new sports bras. I found a garment I rather liked: it's black with white piping and cute enough to wear as a top, if I ever have abs worthy of display.

My friend Gina and I went running on Saturday morning. It was a hot, sunny day and I was dewy by the time we finished stretching. We took our first few running steps and I was startled by the Boing! in my chest. "Whoa!" I said out loud. Gina looked at me curiously. "New sports bra," I explained. With serious spring-loaded action.

My buoyant momentum carried me for the first several minutes, but fatigue set in as my body remembered that it's out of shape. I was fairly drenched by the time we finished our run and my clothes were sticking to me. I bid Gina goodbye and headed home to shower.

Once home, I peeled off my outer layer and attempted to shuck the sports bra. Nothing doing. I could not wiggle free of the Spandex straitjacket. I wrenched around to view the back side in the mirror, as if that would help. No hooks, of course.

Flinging my right arm over my head, I fumbled until my fingertips caught hold of the sweaty fabric. I pulled and wound up with both my arms sticking straight up in the air, my elbows strapped to my ears. I felt pain in my left shoulder, so I shimmied the bra back down and planned my attack from another angle.

This time I crossed my arms over my front, grabbed both sides of the bra and pulled. The back of the garment wanted to give, but the front wouldn't come up. It was caught on my chest. My grip was slipping and my shoulder was burning, so I gave an almighty tug...and my elastic bosom snapped up and hit me in the face.

I was bitch-slapped by my own boobs.

My face stung and my shoulder throbbed, and I blasted out a couple of good swears. I couldn't believe I'd survived my first run in over a year, only to be injured while taking off my clothes. These are the kinds of things that happen to me.

But I can't be the only woman who's ever endured this. Right? Surely some of my well-endowed sisters have suffered similar embarrassment? If so, I want to hear about it. Drop me a line if you've been smacked by your rack.

Let me know I'm not alone.