Stage Fright? ...Now?

I am two weeks away from tap dancing in an established music festival which could draw up to 450 people. I am high enough in the billing that my name actually appears on the poster that's plastered around town and circulating social media. As far as I know, nobody has tap danced in this festival before.

 

I am rather terrified.

 

This is strange for me. Even as a kid, I never got stage fright. As I waited backstage for my first ever dance recital performance, I waited for the nerves to show up, but they never did. Twenty-five years of performing and they never have.

 

I've tap danced in front of bigger crowds than this. But usually those performances are in darkened theatres with audiences who came fully expecting to see dance. An outdoor mostly-folk music festival that's marketed to a somewhat faith-based and generally older audience is NOT the same thing. When I submitted my proposal, I half-expected to be laughed out of their email inbox. Instead, they offered me a slot.

 

I have spent literal months agonising over which songs to use. They had to be pieces I either already knew or could memorise thoroughly enough to perform comfortably (which limited my options severely), and they had to be accessible for an audience that has almost certainly never seen tap dance before and is at this event for the acoustic guitar music.

The day before the performers were publicly announced, I finally settled on my final set list.

 

I'm starting them off simple, with some classic, upbeat Michael Card. Then we're moving to a similarly upbeat-sounding Steve Scott (but with more pensive lyrics). After that, there is the obligatory DA song, which will make absolutely no sense to anybody in the entire audience (but the tap dancing sounds cool), and then I'll hit them with the biggest risk -- an NF song. Like an honest-to-goodness rap song (*clutches pearls*). It's a huge risk, given the target audience, but my choreography for that song is absolutely show-stopping. I cannot follow that with anything else currently in my repertoire. I have to end off with this one.

 

I keep reminding myself that I have spent my entire adult life launching myself off artistic cliffs... and surviving. I keep reminding myself how so many people look at the barriers I've pushed back on and how they've called me courageous, with a blush of awe in their voices. I keep reminding myself of all the other faith-based audiences I've accosted with my art and how many of them actually loved what I did, even though it was (*gasp!*) dance. I remember how my most recent tap dance performance (in Newsies) brought down the house every single time.

I can do this. I have done this.

 

But I'm still terrified.

Music Day - Arise

 I've been playing this song a lot lately.

I was first introduced to Flyleaf in 2010 at 'Rock The River' in Edmonton. My best friend was a fan of theirs and continued feeding me a steady diet of their work. I bought most of their first two albums around that time. They enjoyed semi-regular rotation on my iTunes for a couple years... and then I forgot about them entirely.

Until my husband introduced me to Breaking Benjamin.

Both bands play similar levels of hard rock (or at least Flyleaf did at the time; I haven't heard a single note they've played since 2012's New Horizons). Breaking Benjamin led me back to Flyleaf, which now has a nostalgic shimmer, so of course now their appeal has increased in my books.

I didn't take much notice of this song when I first bought the CD, but I do remember thinking it was nice. Earlier this summer, I started craving this song. So, for most of the summer, I took it like a drug. I generally don't repeat songs, but I'd play this one three or four times in a row.

It's a song of sadness, but also hope. The vocals and the thick wall of guitars rise and fall together perfectly. The song feels a little bit like a prog rock song, though it clocks in under four and a half minutes. It kicks off with a muted bass, and immediately Lacey Sturm's vocals swoop in and brood right along with it with quiet determination.

Tell the swine

We will make it out alive

There's a note in the pages of the book

So sleep tonight

We'll sleep dreamlessly this time

When we awake, we'll know that everything's all right...

Then it crunches into the pre-chorus and chorus, spinning soaring guitars rising and falling above each other as Sturm cries out with a hope that perhaps she doesn't quite believe:

Hold on

To the world we all remember fighting for

There's still strength left in us yet...

Maybe it's the cultural context. We've now been in lockdown for most of the last year and a half. And the undiluted hatred I'm seeing among people I love and care for is so draining and everything feels so hopeless. I worry that we're past the point of no return, relationally. There are friendships and families and relationships that will be permanently damaged -- a LOT of them. And looking into the future and seeing those damaged relationships destroy the rest of my generation just sucks the wind out of my sails. Even if the virus was gone tomorrow; if all restrictions and all of the COVID-19 deaths stopped tonight, there would still be so much that will never be fixed. What hope is there? Everyone is so bitter and so angry.

Hold on

To the world we all remember dying for...

In March of 2020, we all shut down and wore masks for the greater good. To protect each other. Nobody questioned it. It all seems to utopian now. We sacrificed our lives, our jobs, our hobbies, our paycheques, to keep our loved ones safe. We died to our previous lives to keep each other safe, to preserve the world.

Fast-forward just over one year.

I have seen families literally torn apart because some have and some won't get the vaccine. A year ago, we protected strangers at all costs, and now we would rather cut contact with blood family and friends we've known for decades than get the one tiny shot that would actually protect them.

We died in March 2020 for a world that, it seems, will never, ever come back.

Sing to me about the end of the world

End of these hammers and needles for you

We'll cry tonight

But in the morning we are new

Stand in the sun

We'll dry your eyes...

Often it seems better and easier to hope for the end of the world than it is to hope for the restoration of this one. This one feels beyond repair, and there is nothing left but to wait for it to be over and remind each other that we have that hope, at least.

The song slows again -- Sturm crooning Sing... sing...

A breath.

And then the cry of courage -- arise!

The end is both sad and triumphant -- the world burns in the background, guitars thrashing along with the flames, and we have survived, yet we mourn what we have lost in the fire. The anthemic final chorus, repeating until that final a cappella, is a heart-wrenching cry.

Or maybe I like this song so much because I relate to it on a personal level -- the world always burning around me and the desperate fight to find hope and survive and rebuild myself, over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, mustering up strength from nothing within myself again and again because more often than not I've got no-one to draw from.

Title: Arise

Artist: Flyleaf

Album: Memento Mori

Year: 2009

iTunes here; YouTube here.

Hold on

To the world we all remember dying for

There's still hope left in it yet...

NaNoWriMo Progress Report - Day 13

I feel like this year I'm having the NaNoWriMo experience Chris Baty describes in the monumental book No Plot? No Problem! (the book that introduced me to National Novel Writing Month and singlehandedly turned me into a writer who actually writes rather than just dreaming about writing).

He describes going in with zero plot and truly making it up as you go. He describes Week Two -- a week when everything in your novel is crap and you just want to quit. He describes the lifeless anaemic characters finally beginning to perk up and DO something in Week Three. And for the first time in ten years of month-long-novel-writing, I'm checking all these boxes.

While I try not to plan much at all, I do usually have a strong enough idea that I know I can squeeze 50,000 words out of relatively easily, even if I don't quite know how that plays out yet. I'm not usually worried about running out of plot (though I've had to stretch some of the novels a bit to make 50k). But this year, while I did have a bit of an idea, I had no earthly clue how I was going to get from point A from point B without making it too easy for the characters (that is, writing the entire plot arc in 10k and having to filibuster for the other 40k). This was the first time I'd really had to make a conscious decision to trust myself and my ability to write myself out of a corner -- something I've rarely had to actually do on this scale. Usually I have at least one ace up my sleeve, but I didn't this year. I had no escape route, no back-up plan. I felt like I was playing FreeCell on Windows XP -- there's no undo button, and if you make one wrong move, you lose, no second chance. It was a huge act of courage to even start the novel this year, not knowing how well I can actually write myself out of a true dead end.

I'd never really experienced the Week Two blues. Usually Week Two is when I tip the second domino chain into motion and really get in the pocket. The first week was historically the worst for me. But this year, Week Two was abysmal. One of my characters was dead and the other two had literally no personality (or social life -- so I didn't even have interesting acquaintances I could write about).

But now, suddenly, the characters are beginning to develop emotions. They're beginning to react to stuff and have opinions. At the moment, one character has just accused his best friend of getting his sister pregnant. I knew this was a plot point, but when I put it in I was surprised how angry the brother was, and how the accusation drove the friend to despair. The friend knows it's not true, but he has no way of proving it, and the sister's dead so she can't say. I had originally thought these guys would be grieving her death together, but last night at the write-in they suddenly stopped speaking to each other and that made things a little more interesting because now they're going to have to repair their friendship AND solve the mystery. Even more interesting -- my character who was all gung-ho about solving this mystery literally just gave up on it and has accepted that maybe the deadly fire was an accident after all (the other character never did care about whether or not it was an accident -- which also surprised me). So now they have to repair their relationship AND decide that actually this is worth investigating AND solve the mystery. I feel like having enough story to make 50k isn't quite impossible anymore -- it's only mostly impossible.

I'm currently at 24,677 words. It's almost halfway, but it really doesn't feel like it. I feel like there's still so many words between here and 50k and I'm trying to hold off all my plot points so I don't run out of story. (I need a subplot. Unfortunately I am terrible at subplots.)

Hoping to hit 26,700 words today. The official goal for today (Day 14) is only 23,333, but I've been trying to gain an extra day of word count every two or three days so I'll be finished (or extremely close) by the last week of November so I'm not trying to catch up on the novel AND keep on top of school AND open our massive Christmas musical.

If Society Could Change One Thing...

Do you want to help people who are struggling with mental illness, depression, grief, suicidal thoughts? Like, actually help them, without simply posting a hashtag that means LITERALLY nothing?

I'm serious. It's relatively simple.

It's this: don't ever say, 'you can come talk to me' or 'if you need help, call/text me' unless you REALLY mean it. Before you say this to ANYBODY, consider the possibility that we will actually take you up on it -- that one day, your text tone is going to go off at 2.36am and it's going to be that one person saying, 'hey, can we talk?'

If you are honestly not going to respond in that situation, bite your tongue. Don't make that offer.

See, the reason a lot of us don't reach out for help is because we've heard this before and we know it means nothing. People have said, 'hey, if you ever need anything, let me know,' but then when we did contact them because we needed someone, they didn't reply, or -- worse -- blew us off. (I personally am willing to give you a few minutes or even an hour or so because I don't expect everyone to have their phone on their person 24/7, but being blown off has no excuse. It means you read my text and decided I wasn't worth it.) It's hard for us to figure out who actually means it and would stay up all night for us if necessary and who's just saying it 'to be polite.'

Look -- I don't want your politeness. I live in Canada. I have politeness up the wazoo. I want your actual care and concern.

Don't say it if you don't mean it. Even if it's awkward not to say it. DO NOT say it if you don't mean it. If everyone lived like this (not saying things they don't really mean), it would ultimately mean that the depressed/suicidal people in your life will be able to be more willing to reach out to someone because then they will know that when people say this phrase they mean it. Don't contribute to the negative experiences. Don't be the last person to break their trust in humanity. Don't be the last bad experience they have before their final experience of life.

From experience: it takes an astronomical amount of courage to even go to one person for help -- no matter who it is. Even if it's your best friend. I don't know the actual statistics, but I would venture to guess that most people only attempt to contact one or two people before they get discouraged and make a permanent decision (if you know what I mean). I contacted exactly one person. I trusted that one person to recognise the danger I was in and get me the help I needed. In other words -- I trusted that one person literally with my life. I had only enough courage in my proverbial gas tank to contact one person. It used the last of my mental energy. He had to take over from me. Thankfully he did, but if he had blown me off, I wouldn't have contacted anybody else. I wouldn't have had the courage or energy to contact anybody else and I would be dead right now.

Before you say 'let me know if you need anything,' consider this: Are you willing to hold this person's life and death and their entire future in your hands one day when you least expect it?

If not, don't say it.

It's a small thing. But if everyone lives by this principle, it will change the complexion of society enough to give depressed and suicidal people a greater chance at life.

Fear and Trust

Trust. Fear. Courage.

The latter two terms have been themes on this blog lately. My life since my cousin died has been consumed by fear -- fear of someone else dying. Fear of leaving. Fear of staying. Fear of creating anything in case it sucks. Fear of myself. Fear of others. Fear of God -- what if He kills someone else?

Courage -- I've written about it before, but I have not lived with a single speck of it. As mentioned before, I have created absolutely nothing since my cousin died. I lost NaNoWriMo this past year for the first time EVER. National Choreography Month is in less than a week and I don't have a single plan. I listen to music and I don't see the dancers anymore. I go places and I don't feel the stories anymore. It's like my soul died when she did. And now I'm just stuck in this meaningless limbo called life... this driving to the grocery store and back, this waking up at 8am and eating oatmeal, this sitting in front of my computer and refreshing Facebook because I have literally no idea what to write for any of my papers. How much can you force creativity? I had points before my cousin's death where I thought I was, but now I look back and think, you weren't really forcing it -- you were just complaining about 'lack of inspiration' because then people are impressed by your dedication to making art anyway.

Trust -- how in the actual world do you trust a God who lets a child die in the face of all the prayers for her life? How do you trust a God who claims to hear and bring comfort yet leaves you in the lurch for two years? How do you trust God when His very people turn against you and tell you you are not wanted or even needed?

I can't get out of this black hole called my life unless I trust Him -- but to trust this unpredictable, distant God with my already-broken heart is insanity. What if He crushes it even more, until it's mere powder, carried on a cruel wind? Is trusting Him with my pathetic life really any better than my pathetic life now? On the other hand, is this crippling fear of what more He will do to me justified? Is it holding me back from something good?

But how do you trust a God who is not averse to letting people die?