Words that sing

My offering for Bloggers Unite for Human Rights day:

If banned from speaking, the soul will die,
And each stifled voice starves the world of life
What choice is it – to be silent or lie?
If banned from speaking, the soul will die.
From the smallest domestic unuttered cry
To the greatest source of political strife.
If banned from speaking, the soul will die,
And each stifled voice starves the world of life.

It’s strange how you can get a lot done even when you start a working day feeling dreadful. This morning I couldn’t concentrate, was feeling tired and out of sorts after a deeply unsettling (though I think eventually positive) conversation with a friend. I thought I might as well just go back to bed because I’d never achieve anything.  I had no energy and a real reluctance to get started on anything.

How did I get out of that state? I started tinkering with my to-do list, found something small and simple and got that done, then somehow things started to flow more easily. I think a cup of tea and my favourite choc chip cookies probably helped too!

As the end of the day approaches I realise I’ve made a lot of progress. Glad I resisted the urge to crawl back under the pillow! Would probably have made me feel worse…. sometimes focussing on something concrete is a very effective distraction. 

Now, off to a yoga class with some new friends I’ve made recently.

(PS - apologies for the erratic posting schedule - my home internet access has been out of commission since last Wednesday which is a real nuisance!)

I’m getting back to doing real singing practice again after a fairly long hiatus, and it’s throwing up some interesting challenges.

I recently commented on a poll over at readwritepoem, comparing the pleasure and naturalness of my experience of singing and of writing poetry:

The difference is the expectations I place on myself. Poetry I write for myself, principally, and thus it gives me great pleasure. Singing had become something I did for others and so it became an effort. Hard to judge whether my poetry gives others as much pleasure as my singing - but I feel it certainly achieves more pleasure in others at a cost of much less pain to me - that’s what I mean by it coming easily.

I’m working my way back to singing naturally and easily too - but it’s a slow process once you’ve lost that sense of freedom and ease.

I think I’ve done less singing in the last six months than any other time in my life. Which was partly a combination of emotional fallout from the breakup and the challenges of moving to a new job and a new country. But I think more importantly it’s been to do with the pressure I put on my singing in an attempt to become a professional singer. The high standards I set myself. And the blows to my confidence of receiving a succession of rejections - including rejections from courses and companies working at an amateur level. Anyway, with all of this I lost the confidence in my own ability to sing.

For a while, I just floundered, feeling I was betraying myself by not pursuing this dream that had been part of me, yet finally realising that there was no way I could pursue that dream at that time. I had to give myself space. At the same time, I was rediscovering writing, which felt like a far more natural and personal way of expressing myself, without the pressures of singing. I even started writing my own songs, which is a fascinating and satisfying process.

Now I think it’s time I started reclaiming my voice, and my singing. Recovering the joy and the naturalness - while at the same time not being lazy about technique. I have learnt a lot over recent years about finding my natural voice and trusting it to sing. My expectations got in the way there - I kept trying to produce the sound a particular way, rather than doing some basic things that free the voice to express its full resonance and communicative potential.

But it’s hard. Expectations get in the way of everything, but without expectations you don’t get anywhere. It’s a zen-like paradox! Somehow I must find the middle way in my singing. Wish me luck!

Yesterday’s melancholy song:

I had learned to live in fear,
The voices in my head
overflowed the air:

“Without you I’ll never be.
“I’ll never be!”

Exterminating by backspace:

I key in and expunge
echoes of voices from afar
take a knife to blatant out right lies:

“You called it constant drama - you never knew.
“You never knew!”

The sound of another morning:

Into the dark recess of my mind,
the eager sun sneaks in bits of light
from my earnest reflections:

“The voices in my head were never really there.”
“Were never really there!”

I go on without my disguise:

Brightening parts my world,
and brings me home again
without the mask I hid behind:

“The me that I have always known.”
“Me!”

This is a patchwork poem, drawing on poems by:

Writerwoman at The shores of my dreams:
Gautami at Rooted
Lissa at Just Writing Words
Paisley at Just Paisley

I’ve done a little tweaking here and there, but they’re basically their words, not mine, so many thanks for permission to play with these great poems. You can find out what these poets have done with the same original material and learn more about patchwork poems at the Patchwork Poetry blog.

I also owe thanks to dakini at flickr for the lovely photo….

Post 101 seems a good milestone to reflect on what I’ve been blogging about over the last three months and where I want to go with my blog next… a lot has happened since I started this blog in February.

Loving - When I started this blog I was still very much preoccupied and miserable following the break-up. In particular, I was deeply frustrated at being unable to express, to my ex, what I had been feeling and learning. The blog has really helped me here - somehow expressing these things in a public forum has helped me to feel that I have said what I needed to say. And while there’s no reason why he should ever read this blog, the fact that it’s theoretically possible for him to read this honest and frank version of my experiences, has had some of the same effect as writing to him would have done. Already I find I am writing about him far less than at the beginning, and I suspect there won’t be much more. Though I am continuing to write the “Songs to heal a broken heart” cycle and will be posting the recording of one of the songs shortly, as promised. 

Singing and Writing - In February I was confused and frustrated with my singing - finding that most of the music I was used to singing was too emotionally loaded for me to be able to sing it without crying. And feeling deeply frustrated that this came about at a time when I should have been trying to make progress professionally, doing auditions and so on. Both through blogging itself and through posting my poems, I have discovered a new creative outlet in my writing. This, and my newly discovered song-writing, seems to allow me to express myself in a way that’s even more important to me. I’ve also relaxed about the professional singing - it’s not the only thing that matters to me, and I think I would probably find it deeply frustrating and demoralising to do it professionally. I’m exploring a new creative path, and somehow doing it with a new integrity. My writing, and the singing I do, are much more intimately connected to who I am.  There will definitely be more poems - and I’d like to start writing some short stories as well as the poems. And as I start to get back into my singing again, and try to find performance opportunities here, I think I will be writing more about singing too.

Living - I was also deeply frustrated at work, not feeling challenged or stimulated, and feeling dragged down by the boredom of doing things that were routine. I also felt that there was nowhere for me to go in that career path, but didn’t feel ready to move on to anything else. Suddenly an opportunity came up, and I was successful in getting a new and challenging job which has brought me to a new country. The new life has its challenges, but I’m already making progress in tackling the loneliness inevitable in the early days (a social engagement almost every day this week which is great!). And there is a satisfaction in finding myself up to the new challenge - it requires me to go beyond my comfort levels. This isn’t really a work blog, because describing too much of what I do would completely blow my anonymity, but I will probably continue to reflect, in general terms, on things that might be of interest.

Sharing - A very important part of this journey has been making connections with other bloggers and watching their thoughts or artistic endeavours or emotional lives develop day by day. I have particularly enjoyed the collaborative writing - it’s fascinating to see how other people respond to different material. And the encouraging comments I’ve received have been a deep satisfaction. The listeners are an an important part of the storytelling, and to have an audience both perceptive and supportive is a real encouragement.  I look forward to continuing this dialogue and meeting new blog-friends!

Thanks for being part of my journey, readers…

I don’t believe in miracles

Or at least, I’ve never seen one that struck me
As truly miraculous, beyond chance and doubt.

And where others see miracles
I see the chances of life
The vitality of thousands of interactions
Seen through the prism
Of the human wish to see patterns.

A wish to see the world
As a movie which we star in
Where divine gifts and mysterious forces
Bless or curse our path - with intent.

(like a puddle, thinking how perfectly
the hole around it
seems to have been made
to fit its unique contours)

I’m just an extra, enjoying my journey through the backstage of the world
It’s not about me, but I am me. And I enjoy what I see.

Who am I to say,
that the pattern you see
Is chance, is pure illusion?
It’s clear to me that’s all it can be
But I don’t want to hurt your dreams.
- though I will, if I think they will hurt you too

For there are people who exploit
This wish to believe -
Cold reading. Horoscopes. Psychological tricks.
Exploiting the wish to believe in miracles
To create a financial miracle of their own.

I have been hurt, too, by the illusions that others believe,
the special sensitivity they claimed to possess,
the fear-driven intuition they called extrasensory guidance.

I have nearly been killed by a driver who thought himself
Divinely protected and therefore able to take risks
With the lives of himself and his passengers

(It matters, oh how it matters, what we believe.
For what we believe shapes what we do and what we are.)

Is it a gift, to believe in miracles?
Is it deprivation, to believe they are not miraculous?

I don’t feel deprived… I just enjoy
The passing slideshow of the diverse earth
And take joy when my searching eye
Finds a special beauty in random chance.
Without making it more
Than a natural thing.

(The joy of rolling a double six
just when you needed it. Of drawing just that card
from the shuffled deck.

Almost more pleasing, for being random!)

Everyone is always at the centre of their own rainbow.
Not because of rainbows.
But because of humans being human.
Our creativity. Our hopes. The stories we tell.
These, if you like, are miracles I can believe in.

This poem-ish reflection was a response to a post over on red ravine, about miracles. I wrote in response:

I think it’s all about what you want to see. We are very good at finding patterns when we want to see them. Some people see the dot of earth on the iris… Others just random splashes. Others see a pointy-nosed mouse face looking out from her left collarbone…

Is it a gift to believe in miracles? Should sceptics like me butt in when people talk about them? I don’t know. I know people take a lot of comfort in miracles and strange coincidences.

But I’ve also been hurt by people who believed in things like this, who believed in signs and patterns relating to me when there was really no such pattern. At the end of the day, I think it does matter what we believe in. And for me, believing that such appearances are random chance rather than miraculous doesn’t actually take the comfort away.

I walk in sunshine, yet clouds still dog my feet
My hopes are still tinged by the residue of old pain.
Endlessly in my mind fantasies of healing repeat.
How can I clear this debris from my brain?

This shadowy flotsam of broken dreams,
Of half-healed wounds and unspoken words…
I seek to escape these wistful themes
Yet they circle in my mind, like scavenging birds.

What nourishes this sullen, persistent cloud?
It feeds on my wishes for wholeness and healing.
My fantasies of speaking my truth aloud;
Of tying off the strands of our love’s unravelling.

I have scoured the darkness for wisdom’s rain
And healed my wounds as I sifted old tears.
But now there is nothing left for me to glean.
The searching is a habit, but nothing new appears.

The clouds are more a nuisance than a source of pain
And cold truth tells me there is nothing I can do
Scratching the scar just makes it hurt again.
Only refusing to look backwards will clear my skies anew.

I know this, yet my heart yearns to give its all,
To reach out and try to heal those shadows again,
Pouring the energy of my hopes into the pall -
Yet knowing there is nothing left at all for me to gain.

Soon now, I must leave those clouds to roam,
Let them drift unheeded until they erode.
But oh, the sadness of seeing clouds drifting alone
In a mist of old tears, at the end of that love’s road.

“Part of letting go is learning to live with the misunderstanding, the incompleteness and the messiness of it all” - Paul McKenna

And the dark times in our lives make us appreciate the good moments even more.

I think I understand, now, why I’ve recently been experiencing a bit more sadness about my ex than I’ve been used to in recent months.

It’s very simple - I feel lonely just now. It’s a loneliness that is an inevitable part of starting a new life in a new place. I am isolated in the office because of the nature of the job, which will not really change. And I’m isolated in my personal life because it takes time to meet people when you’ve just arrived. This will change, indeed is already changing, and I’m familiar enough with this process of relocating myself that I can wait patiently and proactively to make new friends.

But what I hadn’t expected was that feeling lonely in my life in general would make me feel lonely for a partner. Not my ex, but the person I thought he was when we first met - or someone with some of the same qualities.

I miss that feeling of having someone on your side, who’s there for you when you need them as you’re there for them when they need you. Someone who’s there to do things with - making it safer and more fun to explore a new country. Yes, I miss that. And the stab of pain at the weekend was the memory of how it felt to have those hopes so cruelly and suddenly betrayed - the pain of finding that someone who I thought was on my side didn’t respect or trust me. That he was damaging rather than strengthening my confidence and happiness. That he couldn’t bear to be in my company, and any contact with me was increasing the intensity of his distress and fear.

The wound left by that betrayal has largely healed now, which is why I was surprised to feel that pain again. The loneliness of starting a new life just brought it all a bit closer to the surface than I expected.

Still, I am already making progress in filling my new life with interesting people, and so I know this sensitivity will soon fade again. This process goes in phases of pain and learning - they’re much gentler now, and don’t distress me even a fraction as much as they used to. But still there is a lot to learn from each new period of sensitivity.

… is what it feels like at the moment to be conducting delicate discussions with my team and with external contacts in Spanish.

These discussions would be difficult enough anyway, but they are made so much harder by having to struggle for the correct vocabulary, not to mention constantly being unsure of the nuances of what I’m saying. My Spanish is pretty good, but I’ve not used it for a while so it’s rather rusty. And sitting through two hour meetings about complicated issues in Spanish is really draining my mental energy - not to mention giving introductory speeches to workshops! There are times, like now, when I just feel mentally exhausted and unable to think or speak any more, even in English.

It’s inevitable to feel under pressure during the first weeks of a new job, particularly one as challenging as this. I have been expecting that pressure, and I have been dealing with it pretty well. But when, as occasionally happens, I have the opportunity to speak to someone in English, I realise just how much of the pressure and tension comes simply from the difficulties of operating in another language.

Still, it’s a question of the base of comparison. If I could use Spanish as precisely as I can use English, clearly I would be a bit more effective at my job. But a more useful (and encouraging!) comparison is with how much worse things would be if I didn’t speak Spanish at all! It makes a lot of important things possible - without being able to speak Spanish there are people I would only be able to speak to through an interpreter. And it’s a true cliche that people do really appreciate my efforts. It will also get easier as I get more used to using Spanish and specifically using the common terms in my professional field.

So perhaps threading a needle wearing ski gloves would be a more accurate simile. Not easy, but so much better than trying to thread a needle without hands!