she comes in colors everywhere

A woman came into the restaurant tonight that I swore I recognized. I somehow decided that she belonged in a memory from Marlborough, that she had come to our school and told us about her feminist journalism in Chile and El Salvedor...I also remembered her being a mother of a student there for some reason. I asked her about her Marlborough affiliation, and she claimed she had none. She was extremely talkative about some event she'd just come from where the men were assholes, and seemed a little loopy, as if she'd just taken the world's last Qualude and was relishing it's effect with two very strong cosmopolitans to top it off. Her face had clearly had some plastic surgery, although I couldn't pinpoint where. Her hair was dark brown with purplish hues to it, and pale pale freckled skin. She was strikingly familiar. When I delivered her second cosmo, she grabbed my wrist and announced Mollie! Bulimic! Her name was Paula, and we'd been in in a grief group together at Sierra Tucson. She'd watched me tear up a bataka one Friday morning and I'd listened to her wail through a letter to her ex husband. It was the strangest thing that I couldn't pull up that memory of her until she reminded me, that I had absolutely convinced myself she had come to speak at Marlborough. Truly strange. Anyhow she was clearly not doing so well which of course she refused to admit- she was very adamant that alcohol had never been her thing, that she'd been in for prescription drugs and was now totally together and I shouldn't worry about her having her cosmos. Riiiight. Anyhow, we reminisced a little about ST and people we remembered (she's in touch with no one. I almost gave her Bill's number). She insisted upon giving me her phone number, inviting me to dinner at her house with her husband and her now 8 year old son Jean Paul, and that we absolutely had to do yoga together at this place around the corner. It sounds like a barrage of offers but it was really quite sweet, as if she saw this as an opportunity to be connected to someone from when she felt better, stronger (or at least that's what I'm imagining) and is hoping that that'll return when we do some power yoga. Or something. It was really an out of the blue coincidence that she came into my restaurant and sat in my section, especially considering that she clearly wasn't sober and seemed to be wanting someone to talk to. She went on and on about the work she was doing and the psychiatrist she was seeing and didn't once ask how I was doing (which I know probably shouldn't bother me but it did) and it was a little tedious but it was nice to just stand there and listen. It made me really sad that I could remember liking her in ST, and that she was the kind of person I'd so quickly judge outside of it. We did exchange numbers and I don't know that I'll ever hear from her again, but it was just a strange interaction that I don't know what to make of and wanted to mention. Unnerving that she wasn't sober, though. I really hope she's okay. Hm.

Onto far more hopeful things...I had a FANTASTIC night conducting the Tufts Chorale yesterday evening. We were going through the Thompson Alleluia which I'll be conducting in two weeks at the Fall concert (I'll actually be in print on the program...I'm such a cheeseball), and I just felt so much more confident than I had the first time I'd stood before them. There's a part towards the middle of the piece where this eerie series of modal wails resolves into heroic measures of emphatic Alleluias, and each time it resolves there I can't keep myself from grinning. I love making eye contact with these singers when they're in this piece, and each time the piece peaks there I don't even attempt to hide it. And here's what's amazing: they grin back. I get energy from them that I'm giving, I get the responses that I'm asking for. I used to be awed by how Andy could begin a piece, and within the first two notes hear that it wasn't right, and without a word cut us off, reset, and cue us in again. I did that three times in this rehearsal. Andy sat on the piano bench for the duration of the rehearsal, occasionally whispering suggestions during breaks, but he would never tell me exactly what to do with my hands, it would be more along the lines of "the sopranos need you here- they're going flat in these measures and they need to know that you trust them to reach those notes and sustain them." And so I think to myself, if I were a soprano, what would I need to see from my conductor to know that he trusted me and that would also remind me to better support my breath so the line doesn't fall flat? Well, it would help to see a hand mimic the arch of the soft palate so I could remember to round the vowel, and I'd need to see excellent posture from my conductor, that would remind me of what my body needed to be doing and where to support the breath. So I did that. I drew my shoulders back (because I have this tendency to hunch like a neanderthal because I'm so face-first engaged with the piece), I gently arched my hand, and to prove that I trusted them, I looked at the tenors as opposed to the sopranos. And they didn't go flat. Not only that, but their pitch was supported and buoyant and richer than it had been all night. We came to the end of that section and Andy interjects "Mollie that's awesome! I'm starting to think what we do up here really matters!" He then had the choir go tell me a few things that I was doing that were working (and yes, a few that weren't) and it was nice to hear responses that didn't surprise me, and that validated strengths that I had always hoped I'd have when it came to conducting but had never been told so. I heard that I had great expression, that I had very clear beats, that I needed to be more delicate with my cut-offs, and that I connected to the choir and carried them well. It also helped tremendously that they laughed at all my jokes, and were amazingly supportive of me. This, from my peers. This from people I didn't (and I suppose don't really) know. It was great because I knew then that they wanted me to succeed. When I conducted chamber choir, the only reason I got through it was because I knew they were on my team, and I can't wait to get a chance to rehearse this piece with the Chorale again. Andy says you can't conduct a piece until you feel as if you've written it. It's taken me a few months to get to a place where I can comfortably conduct this piece. I'm amazed how anyone can manage a concert consisting of more than one song.

Anyhow, that was yesterday. Today was MEDA, followed by restaurant (I made 21.62% tips tonight!) I'm working tomorrow night as well, Halloween, where they'll have a pre fixe and decorations and a dj and all sorts of madness. I'm supposed to costume it up and I haven't got any decent ideas. I had hoped to do something brilliant with a chicken hat atop a mostly blue outfit with either a cord (or maybe corduroy) and be Chicken Cord-on-blue (get it?? Chicken Cordon Bleu?? I 'm awesome), but unfortunately I haven't any chicken accessories and it's a little late to go shopping. Marci did buy me Dracula fangs and some fake blood so I think that's probably my best bet. Maybe I can dig up a cape somewhere...

I'm feeling very very beat and pretty lonely right now, and I should definitely get to bed as I'm meeting Kate for breakfast and work tomorrow morning at 9 at a place called Bakers Best where the muffins are mediocre and the coffee is bottomless. I'm anticipating making my first crack at my personal statements for these grad school apps on which I'm losing momentum mostly because I don't think I'm ready: the whole application thing has begun to feel premature given my lack of experience, and I'm feeling discouraged because I don't have 3 people to ask for recommendations- only Andy, and I can't ask Anthony from BCC because I've only known him for 2 months. Ugh. Okay, well, that's where I'm at right now. Bed it is.

p.s. a piece from the little women soundtrack just began on my playlist and it's bringing up this strong urge to watch that movie right now. It's comforting because it's soundtrack is christmassy, because it's about unbreakable family ties, and because in the movie, the sisters spend a good deal of time baking and the pies get a lot of camera time. I've spent many an afternoon at a piano bench plunking through the theme. It's a good place to be.


I can hear the bells