Composing and Catherine Catastrophe

Wow, September is here and that feels strange. It is the first week of public school, and while I am not a student or an official teacher in a school system, the schedule change affects me in a big way. Most of my students are kids, so I am also beginning a school-year schedule, which of course means most lessons are late in the day. And, since I do teach part-time at a pre-school, I get to return to the world of three-to-five-year-olds learning Spanish. This year, I am also teaching Music at that same pre-school. Expect blogs.

We had our first Calliope rehearsal of the season last night, and, wow!, there is always a lot to digest in those rehearsals! Lots of new faces, which is way exciting, lots of new music, lots of new energy. I have had the honor of spending some time this summer working on a couple of arrangements for the chorus, so I am really looking forward to hearing them! Calliope has also agreed to learn a piece I wrote (many moons ago) in college, for the St. Kate's Women's Choir, and when we took it out last night, I realized that it had numerous errors (mispelled enharmonics resulting in unsingable intervals, that sort of thing). Eek! Luckily, a choir full of sweet souls can be very forgiving. We will see how it turns out!

I am also working on a few other pieces at the moment, specifically a Woodwind Quartet and an art song (Our Eyes Would Whisper For Us) for soprano, piano, violin, viola, and flute. Both of these are from the vaults, and one of those got a performance in its day, but looking back, I'm not sure how because it is terribly repetitive. Retrospect is a funny thing.

All of this energy toward composing is....making me a little crazy. Composing, I suppose like any art, is funny. You spend so much time creating, in a really personal, private space, and then, if you're lucky, you send it out into the world for many eyes and ears. And while you are in that private, cozy space, you forget that what you are creating is actually going to be public. I had a professor who said, "All writing is public." It seems strange, spending so much time in your quiet, small, cocoon of an apartment writing music, and then suddenly realizing that it will escape you, it isn't just yours anymore, it belongs to the performers, to the conductor, to the accompanist, the musicians who take it and make it alive. What you have spent your time laboring over is really just a set of guidelines, a roadmap.

And, if you are prone to insecurity and anxiety, handing over your roadmap can be a bit daunting, to say the least.

And, if you have spent three years not writing a drop of music because you were busy recovering from and eating disorder and chemical dependency, and if your identity has been wrapped up in success and failure, and if your biggest advocate has died of cancer along the way, you are certainly going to feel a little unsettled.

My friend Catherine, who passed away last October, sat by me in choirs for years. She was the soprano that sang my art song, the last public performance of my music until now. She watched me work and stress in college over a piece that finally was performed for a large audience. She likened the process of writing music to pregnancy. She said, "Liz, you have worked on this for months and months and no one has seen it, and now it is going to be birthed to an audience of hundreds of people." That rang very true to me too.

I can't help but miss her as I start to reclaim composing and choral singing. It is strange singing in a choir without her next to me. She was that friend I would go to when I felt anxiety about the pressures of the music world. She would wave her hand and say, "You are doing a good job, it's not worth your time to worry so much." She was supportive and patient with my many insecurities. Without her around, I feel a little lost putting my music out there. Who is going to be my biggest advocate? Who is going to listen to me banter my crazy-anxiety talk? Who is going to temper my worries with her good-natured humor? Who is going to ask me to write a piece for her children's choir? Who is going to make fun of my dreadlocks and piercings? Who is going to love me, no matter what, no matter how unstable or insecure I am? Who is going to love me through music theory tests, through endless choir rehearsals, through Germany and deep, deep depression, through drinking, through coming out, through bulimia, through detox, through a long absence, through her own struggles, through her house burning down, through her brother's car accident, through cancer, through hospitals, through chemo, through hospice, through morphine, through bed-stricken months? Who is going to love me like that again?

I miss her a lot. I didn't have enough time with her. I didn't thank her enough for being there for me. I suppose, as the fall approaches, along with the anniversary of her death, I will think of her more often. I have seen some leaves turning already, and it reminds me of the daily drives I made to her house last year, the beautiful leaves, the warm autumn, long Sunday afternoons at her family's house with her family, and Catherine sick inside, unable to see the changing leaves or sunshine, unable to hear the birds, unable to leave her hospice bed. And I also remember autumn in college, when I made a habit of picking up the brightest leaf I could find as I crossed the Quad, and I brought it to choir rehearsal and gave it to Catherine. "It was too beautiful to pass by," I said. She would sort of roll her eyes, clearly thinking I had some strange quirks, but she would take it anyway, and put it in her folder, where it would stay.

And she would smile at me, with her dark, pleasant eyes and jet black curly hair and tell me, "Thank you," before getting ready for rehearsal to begin. She was beautiful, with her carefree laughter and soaring soprano voice, and her compassionate, love-filled heart.

At a getting-to-know-you choir retreat one year, we had the task of alliterating our names, so that we would choose a word that began with the same letter as our first name and introduce ourselves that way. As we sat in a circle outside of our retreat center, amid the falling, colorful autumn leaves, Catherine chose the name "Catherine Catastrophe." We all laughed, because she was nothing like a catastrophe, not even remotely close. We adopted that name for her because it was ironic. Today I miss Catherine Catastrophe, the big, pleased, delighted grin that accompanied her when she announced her alliterated name, and her enormous capacity for unconditional love.