Staying home again yesterday again was a good idea. I was much better today. I did not get to the center in time to watch the Friday morning movie and they showed The Young Victoria which I had missed at the shows. I will have to wait for the library to get it now. Anyway, rather than go down for that, (which I forgot about) I went to the local coffee shop (we have one now) and got pancakes and a coffee. They served me three large pancakes I could only eat half of for $2.00, much better than downtown prices, and what I would call a large cup of coffee was $1.25. They made that too strong for me though and even after I had them dilute it, I did not finish the cup.
I got downtown early for the chorus rehearsal and waited till the movie ended and the chairs were arranged for the concert and then we spent 50 minutes going over a few parts where we had trouble with songs. That gave us a 10 minute break while they let in the audience before we began the concert. One of our members is on the board of the Chicago Geographic Society and he had made arrangements with them to sponsor the concert. That was why we were able to have the extra musicians, an oboist, pianist and violinist. Tim, the director, played electronic keyboard which gave a very good trumpet effect for the march from the opera Aida. He wrote some amusing English lyrics to go with part of it too.
One song before Misirlu, I went back stage, so to speak, to change into my costume and Tim’s assistant Carol came back to help me. I had to go out and through the hall and rooms next to ours to come in the door. At an interlude in the song, when only the instruments were playing except for a few words and claps from the chorus, I danced down the center aisle and over to the side. Most of the musicians were facing the other way and Tim was facing the chorus and conducting them and the musicians, so they did not get to watch me and several of the chorus members were not able to see me either. I danced my way out when they were ready to begin singing again and went back to change again. The audience gave a loud round of applause at the end of the whole piece and several people came to me later to tell me I did well.
I stopped at Borders after the concert, because I felt I deserved to treat myself to something special for having recovered and being able to perform today. I bought a book The Write Type by Karen E. Peterson, Ph.D. She is a psychologist and writer who has studied the way the brain functions and come up with explanations of why writers have such individual habits and how to find the pattern that works best for us. I’m sure I have already figured out some of it, but much of it will give me one of those "Aha" experiences when we discover something that answers questions we have struggled with and it suddenly makes sense.
IT'S NEVER TOO LATE! 