Crying skies September 25, 2010

My mother said that it always rains for funerals.  For yesterday to have been so beautiful, I can’t imagine where this rain came from today, except that it’s crying for mommie.  No thunder, hardly audible, but steady throughout the day.

It’s amazing the difference 30 days make.  This time last month, I was wildly anticipating this blog, feeling that I had a mission and a target.  My mother was alive, but a couple of days from the last straw of pneumonia.  I thought she would recover enough to at least have some more time at home.  After all, we had at least 2-4 more months according to doctors and how well my mom claimed she felt.  I haven’t sung in days now, except for some humming I did in mom’s ear.  I probably won’t sing again until the service. I must sing over my mom.  She never made that request of me, I just always told her I would.  She didn’t think it would be possible, but singing was the strongest bond we shared.  One last song in her “presence” is not grief, it’s devotion.

What’s next?  A new chapter is to come.  I’ll resume the pursuit of opera with voracity.  But for now, I’ll grieve with the skies, grey and stilled.

Question of the day: What is a healthy grief process?

7:04 am September 24, 2010

Dear Mom,

Today was a beautiful day.  The sun rose to clear blue skies and white clouds dispersed throughout.  Joy cometh in the morning, they say.  I hope that’s what happened to you, but certainly didn’t look that way.  If you were still here right now, you would tell me you were sorry for doing that to me.  You would have never wanted me to be as scared, as upset, as devastated as I am to lose you like that.  I know you didn’t really want to leave me, that you wanted to see more of my life unfold, make sure I was really going to be okay,  see the dreams you wanted for me to come true.

I keep thinking that you’re going to somehow come back to coherence and I’ll be able to tell you all the details as I’ve done so many times before once you healed.  To tell you how you were restless in the mid-afternoon the day before, that two cups of yogurt were your last meal, and how your breath pattern became increasingly shallow, short apnea, long…repeat.  You’d  be proud of how I knew that it was “time” and how I went to your son and his girlfriend and said, “It’s time for us to be around her.”  Your son was slow to come, his goodbye was short and cool.  He had cried at your bedside in days before, saying “Momma, please.”  He was scared too, I guess.  Don’t truly understand him, mom.

“It’s okay, mom!!  You can let go!!!!  Let go, mommie!  We’ll be okay!!!!!”  I shouted over and over again…you didn’t hear me and kept on fighting.  Over the night, different family members talked with you on the phone, the last was your sweet niece who said she loved and missed you so much.  I had to mute the phone so she wouldn’t hear the rattle growing from within you.  You leaned your head towards the phone in gentle twitches as she spoke.  I knew how much you would have wanted to say to her, wishing you could have had her come to you for a visit even just one more time. 

I felt your feet and have to confess that I found relief when your cooling feet told me that your pain would be over soon.  I thought it would be peaceful, that the breaths would come farther apart until eternal sleep took over.  Convicts who receive the death penalty die more graceful than you did.  Why?  Your life, lived with such honor, strength, beauty, and vigor should have ended with the same dignity.  I paced the floor crying angry tears as I shook my fists at whatever it was that caused you to convulse as fluid rattled and consumed your respiration.  It wasn’t fair that you couldn’t just slip away as I kissed your hand and stroked your forehead.  I know you would say you were sorry that my last memory of your lovely face was that of…drowning…but then I think back to that face and it wasn’t agony I saw.  I don’t really know what to make of it.  Surprise, maybe?  All I know is that I hope you weren’t aware of what was happening to you.  I hope you didn’t see my helplessness and tears, but saw that I dug down in the depths and found some bravery to enter the room again, take your hand, and ride out the next ten minutes.  I hope that somewhere in your mind my smile flashed by, bringing you comfort of amazing times we shared.  

I was glad when you quieted as the light dimmed in your eyes and your head looked away from me.  And one…..two……..final breath at 7:04…like your sister, it was open ended as an ellipse, but with an undercurrent of longing.  You didn’t want to leave me…

All of us gathered round looked at each other, eyes red and wet.  We knew it was coming, but couldn’t believe it.  As much as I had even prayed that your suffering be short, the rapid downturn was unreal.  Everyone cried and scattered.  No hugs.  No one hugged me, mom.  No one.

I could be bitter, I could be mad, and I could point fingers, but I won’t.  I could turn a way from God for treating you like that.  But I won’t.  I could just try and erase the memory of your last 20 minutes on earth.  Erase the fact that the last time you said my name, it was in distress as I tried to turn you yesterday.  But I won’t.  I’ll bear all of it along with the calls to your nephews, your best friends, my best friends, your sorors, your pastor and hearing the devastation in their voices.  Crying with them over the phone.  I’ll bear the thought of how the news traveled around this city and even  country.  How the devastation of losing you traveled ear to ear.  Not for the sadness of it all, but for the fact that their tears mean that they loved you so and you touched their lives immeasurably.  I will bless God for allowing me the privilege to witness your final week of life up to the last moments clear of regret, nothing left unsaid.  How you died will haunt me for a while, but how you lived will guide me for always.  Believe that, my dearest.

Later that night, hours after I helped the nurse wash your body, sat with you and waited for the funeral home to pick you up still feeling like I could hear you breathing, and watched the hearse ceremoniously drive away, I held a tiny new life in my hands at a dinner table.  A beautiful baby girl that you had wanted to see, but were afraid because you were sick, looked up at me with steady eyes and a circle mouth.  You were so heartbroken when your best friend died, a friend who shared your disease and lost the fight just two months before you.  She was scared too, but held you up all the while.  I believe she took your pillar of hope with her.  But what’s most important is what she left behind.  A beautiful great-granddaughter that I rocked in my arms as her mother pronounced me godmother.  I cried with pain and joy that the circle had come into fullness. 

So mom, I close with a heavy, yet anticipatory heart that a new chapter begins.  A chapter where you join the covering of God and the memories we made together sit alongside my plate of daily bread.  I love you with the marrow of my bones.  You were the best part of my life.  Thank you for CHOOSING to be my mother…

Question of the day:  Thinking back on the sorrows in your life, can you capture the joy and purpose within those times?

End Stage Chores September 23, 2010

I am a person who likes to do household duties in my own time and when I am by myself.  Can’t clean with watchful eyes around.  Another one of those quirks about me like the don’t-call-me-Sam thing.  Here’s where I think it came from.  Growing up, my mother would assign me chores just about every Saturday – dust this, vacuum that, clean the other.  When she was home I would, for instance, do the bathroom or THINK I had done the bathroom, only to have her come behind me with her “white glove” and point out every little speck of anything I’d left behind.  She’d often fuss at me for doing what she called a “half-ass job.”  We’re talking like 8-10 years old, here people.  For some reason, I never minded doing the work so yeah, it hurt my feelings when she would say that.  I didn’t intentionally slack on anything, I just would miss some things from time to time.  But, increasingly often as I got older and she could leave me at home by myself, she would leave me lists of what she wanted me to do.  She would be gone for hours on end at some meeting, social function, a friend’s house and I would have all this time to do the things on the list.  I always timed things so perfectly to be done just before she came home.  The smell of Pine Sol freshly in the air, the tracks of the vacuum cleaner striated across the floor.  She would always come in and dote over all that I had done, noticing every detail of my effort.  I couldn’t help but grin at all the praise and hugs. 

I remember the thought question for my very first beauty pageant, Miss Zetarette! Question:  “Do you think it is important that children do household chores?”  My response: “Yes, I think it is important so that children learn how to do it now so that they can take care of their own chores in the future.”  I won that pageant.  The truth is, I love cleaning.  Part of it is the immediate gratification that comes as filth transforms into clean by the power of my two hands.  With my “inherited” white glove precision, I pursue the hidden corners and far reaches assailing every one with solvent, with suction, with elbow grease – as my mother used to say. 

For a couple of weeks, I had in my mind that I was going to clean my mother’s house and get it ready for her next stay home.  We had it arranged that she would stay with my brother M-TH and I would be home TH night through Monday morning so she could stay at her house on the weekends.  Well, this arrangement only worked about two weeks.  My brother brought her back home sick from a trip to Tunica and I never got around to my cleaning binge until today.  I was just going home to check on the kitties, feed them, and wash a load of clothes. 

Over this week, every morning she woke up with eyes wide open and sweetly greeted any one of us with a cheery voice.  This morning was different.  No response.  Silent.  Still breathing.  Looking straight up to the ceiling.  I knew then.  the pit of my stomach knew.  I arrived to her home, the lot she found at the top of a little hill and watched go up brick by brick.  It was a foundation and a pile of red clay and boulders when she first saw it.  She saw its potential and the opportunity to select its structures and fixtures – paint, cabinetry, doors, carpet, stain-glass window wall cut out, enclosed sun porch…  Today, with my gut of finality brewing, I lunged into action.  First the kitchen where I had cooked many a meal for her, many times to her chagrin because I’m an incredibly messy cook.  I tried to think of the last meal I’d cooked for her.  Couldn’t remember.  Next, the vacuuming, passing by every accoutrement she’d placed on each wall space, in every curio.  She’s always been so feminine: pinks, golds, flowers galore. 

The entire time, I was working under a deadline, expecting mommie to come home any minute, to dote on all I’d accomplished.  I prepared her home in the white glove way.  Washing away the residue of emptiness.  Stirring the particles of her faint lingering aroma.  Cathartic cleansing, purifying the space where her spirit would surely visit once more before the ascent…

Question of the day: Is your house in order?

…and Mommie loves Sammie September 22, 2010

I am adopted, but I was never an orphan.  Thank God that it wasn’t found out that my 23-yr. old mentally ill biological mother was pregnant until five months.  It was too late to turn back then.  I try to wonder what she felt about carrying this baby knowing that she wouldn’t be the one to take care of me.  It seems that she never even considered that she would.  It wasn’t a decision.  It was just the way things would be.  I’ll bet my grandmother gave her a hard time, may she rest in peace.  I can almost hear her voice chastising about how she wasn’t “going to take care of any baby” and that my mother “should have known better.”  Yet, all the while knowing that in her heart she wouldn’t be able to part with me.  My mother’s version of the story was a little different, that the conversation was simply, “We have to go to the doctor.”

I won’t go into the turmoil of my early childhood, the seven years that it took for my family to figure out just who would raise me.  Initially, it was child protective services under the frequent visitation of my family, then my Aunt Vicky and at times my grandmother.  There was a stint in California, probably the happiest memories during this part of my life.  It was breeze, sun, and sea with neighborhood child’s play mixed in.  Oh, and a little cousin, now a great big chef cousin, as a sibling.  As with all good things, it was short-lived.  Took over 20 years for me to ever get back to my Cali. 

And then there were summer visits with my Great Aunt Janey.  The first was when I was six.  She kneeled at my bedside the night before I was supposed to leave and we both cried and said over and over how much we’d miss each other.  How quickly that two weeks passed.  The second time, the anticipation was out of this world.  We had to clean the house from top to bottom because the “white glove” was coming!!  Being the ripe age of seven, I packed my own little suitcase.  A wardrobe of polka-dot and flower prints, several colors of jellies (remember those girls?), and probably a hairbrush to tame my hair.  It had been freshly fixed for the journey from Columbus, OH down to Huntsville, AL.  There were few higher excitements than to know that her black Lincoln town car was going to pull up to the house any minuted and those gushy lovey arms were going to embrace me.  I sat by the window and announce to the arrival.  Tired from all the preparations, I slept in the car the whole 8 hours.

She was the aunt every family child wanted to stay with.  The one who took you on pony rides and made sure you had the best of food.  One day, I was playing in my room at Aunt Janey’s and she called me into the kitchen to talk with my grandmother, her sister, who called often to check on me.  I skipped down the hall, smile big and wide.  The sun was coming through the wall of windows and shone on her face as she said, “Your grandmother and I were just talking and want to know if you’d like to stay with us for a while.”  Without hesitation, “Yes!  I want to stay with you!”  And a while turned into forever.  Aunt Janey, Sara Janette Brown King, officially became Mom on January 26th 1989.  It’s almost a second birthday and we used to celebrate it until this one year when she thought I told a lie about taking a bath.  I really had taken one, but for some reason she was convinced I didn’t and punished me all day, making me stay in my room.  I brought Jesus into it at that same kitchen table.  “Jesus knows I’m telling the truth,” I said over mixed vegetables and baked chicken.   

I hate being called Sam.  Don’t aske me why, just hate it.  My biological mother mostly calls me “Mantha” and occasionally “Mannie” or “Sammie.”  I love being called any one of them.  My Aunt Janey mommie, being the prim and proper lady she is, always calls me the full “Samantha.”  It wasn’t until I got married that she began calling me “Sammie” mimicking my now ex-husband’s constant….uhhhhh…beckoning??  Over the past few years as we’ve gotten even closer, completely setting aside mother-daughter post-teenage differences.  Trust, there was more than a reluctance to subtract the total of 46 chromosomes that tried to make us less than kindred spirits.  I’m thankful for the right mind and heart to have finally mastered such math… 

Until recently, she only wrote “Sammie” in cards.  A couple weeks ago, we coined an exchange of affection which I live to hear each time she can still say it.  I say, “Sammie loves mommie.”  Then she says, “and mommie loves Sammie.” 

Question of the day: What are some of the most defining moments you’ve shared with the nearest and dearest in your life?

Comfort measures and dress rehearsal September 20, 2010

I sit. Bedside.  Once again.  Actually, I’ve been here for a few days, offering the full extent of palliative care and love to see my mother through her final days.  It won’t be much longer now.  Eating has stopped.  Asleep more than awake.  Morphine patch.  I try not to cry around her.  to leave the room, put my head behind her pillow.  You always think you have more time until you run out.  The mother as I’ve known her has already left me.  I miss her.

Yesterday, we think she gave us a little MOD dress rehearsal.  We were obviously not performance ready.  All of a sudden she  opened her eyes clear and bright, focused on the ceiling.  She then said, “It’s time to look up.”  My heart immediately sank, clinched, and probably stopped.  My brother was standing on one side and I on the other.  There’s been conflict between the two of us until recently and I guess she thought this would be a good time to try out the following  just-before-the -Lord-takes-me speech: “I want you all to go on and do what you’re doing…”  Her breath became labored and seemed increasingly shallow.  My brother fled the room and his girlfriend came in as my heart then proceeded to break.  I tried to tell her what my mom said, and just lost it in a blubbering mess all over my mom.  Then she, obviously very lucid, began crying and moaning, “We are going to all march up to Washington, oh Lord…”  All I could sputter out was, “I’m sorry mommie, I’m sorry.”  “Is that it?” my brother peeked his head in the room and said.  Even if she was planning on leaving us at that moment, she stayed.  We weren’t ready yet.  I won’t be specific about my brother’s state when he returned hours and hours later, but he brought Taco Bell, which made it a little alright.

Readers: you’re going to have to help me through this.  This blog was about a race to my opera career launch so I could tell my mom with certainty and evidence that I’m going to make it.  They said 4-6 months, so why are we here at only two???  Sure, I can be inspired to honor my mother’s memory and voraciously pursue fabulous feats.  But I won’t get to see her face and happy tears.  Needless to say, this will be the hardest time of my life.  Who knows how I’ll process through this.  Any day now, the nurses say…I’ll never be ready.  I’m at the top of the 50ft drop of the roller coaster, except I am not expecting the thrill part.

In less and less frequent moments when my mom is alert, she is so cute, now.  She has this almost goofy innocent smile, like she’s seen you for the first time in a long time, which is usually within a matter of five minutes.  I’ll plant the picture of that sweet face in my mind always, but sure hope I get to see it a few more times.  The awesome thing about these last days is that she’s at such peace and even when in pain, her faint voice lilts and her eyes smile.  But I know, the next time, it won’t be dress rehearsal…

Question of the day: What does it mean to be ready to let someone go?

Dying on a High ‘C’ September 19, 2010

Last summer I sang the role of Suor Angelica, another one of Puccini’s tragic heroines who self-inflicts her death.  Months, well actually, a year before I had her in mind.  I knew how complex the story was, yet so universally relatable.  I learned the main aria, Senza Mamma, the pivot point in the opera where she’s just learned that the son she was forced to abandon years ago because he was born out of wedlock, died.  Up to the point of this piece, none of her fellow convent sisters really know much about her while buzzing on about her despondency and the life they speculate she came from, that of aristocracy.  But, one illicit pregnancy meant exile to the nunnery and the loss of her birthright. 

I just love how opera composers concoct reasons to make people want to die.  Always for love, though, which I guess is reason enough.  Hence, the first and only options she considers in coming to terms with her son’s death is eagerly making a potion to kill herself.  Now here’s the kawinkidink…suicide equals damnation…”Ah! Son dannata!!!” she cries, AFTER taking the potion, of course…sigh…the biggest Ooops in opera…sigh again.  And double of course, she spends the next 20 minutes of the opera singing High ‘C’s’ and staving off the moment of death until she is assured pardon from heaven, eventually confirmed in the haunting hallucination of her dead son.  And some angelic singing from her sisters.  All this, I must mention, in a heavy nun‘s habit!!!!  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining.  It was one of the best experiences of my life.  My stage director, and voice teacher, staged me to sing the final High ‘C’ flat on my back singing “Salva me”  after having already rolled around in agony – knee pads required… But the reviews…Well, read for yourself:

The title character in “Suor Angelica” has died many, many times in this opera’s long history. But it’s hard to imagine a performance sticking with me more solidly than Samantha KnJoi’s in Sunday’s California Opera production at the Shaghoian Concert Hall.

KnJoi, a recent transplant to Fresno from Huntsville, Ala., shoehorned such angst and passion into those dying moments that I heard several audience members gasp. Singing her final aria, she combined anguish with a placid, beatific resignation to her fate. At one point she ended up flat on her back, singing straight up into the rafters of the Shaghoian, and her full voice still soared. In the most exquisite image of the afternoon, a young boy stood near her feet beckoning the dying Angelica forward. Was this her dead son urging her to heaven or a mere hallucination? In the grasp of the ecstasy of her voice, you were hard-pressed to know the difference.

I never could have imagined prior to that, even through the countless rehearsals in front of bedroom mirrors that I’d be able to die so well in public.  I wasn’t sure I could let out  all of the histrionics that I’d played out behind closed doors and let them be witnessed by hundreds.  But what I did become aware of throughout the run of the show is that opera, although magnified is so true to life.  Lovers hearts shatter, and heroines die, and sacrifice is the only survival.  No one ever gets what they fully want, but we give, sometimes dying before  the actual take.  Alas, the way of God.  It is in giving that we really accomplish anything…

Suor (Sister) Angelica won the prize of forgiveness in the face of certain damnation after roughly seven years in estrangement to family and her darling son.  She gave her talent as an herbalist to heal ailments of her nun sisters and subsequently used this same gift as the weapon to free herself.  I have to keep believing that there are things within us that we can use to as weapons for our greater good, minus the suicide part.  Yet, we can die to certain things that harm us, inhibit us, keep of from doing what it is we were put here to do.  I hadn’t really thought of my character’s plight that way until now.  I knew walking into this role I had a huge responsibility to the passion of the composer, the technique of the voice, but I was reluctant until late into rehearsals to yield myself to the entire experience.  It couldn’t be Samantha’s catharsis, obedience to stage direction, and divatastic High ‘C”s.  It had to be Angelica’s  real-time process of abandonment and shame, translation of every bodily muscle, cries of both elation and anguish.  It wasn’t about me.  By the dress rehearsal that I had given myself over to all of that, letting it transform me.  It’s what makes me so hungry for this singing thing.  I don’t have to wake up the same person as when I went to sleep.  With each aria (solo piece from and opera) and/or role, it’s another view of life magnified.  Another way to get the point across that we are all one in the same struggling to fulfill desires and make meaningful connections.  

If only I could die on a High ‘C’ every day…and sing to tell the story…

Question of the day: Have you ever taken the opportunity to explore opera and find it’s likeness to everyday life?  (I dare ya…it just might mimic YOUR real life 😉

A new body… September 10, 2010

I just saw my mother for the first time in a week.  Had I not been so anxious to throw my arms around her and kiss her forehead, I might not have reached her before stopping, stepping back, and gasping at how tiny and pale she looked.  About a month prior, she lay in a similar bed on a different hall in a different room and her still voluptuous frame consumed the bed.  This time, the bed looked to swallow her.  She hasn’t been eating.  Can’t keep food down.  Nothing appeals to her diminished taste buds.

I’m sure that there are others who have visited/will visit my mother and be taken aback.  And like me, they will fear it to be the beginning of the end.  It’s amazing how sickness works, how it steals color and muscle tone, breath.  Tonight was one of few times I wasn’t really prepared to face the reality that awaited.  The clock is cheating us…

I’m a real person especially when it comes to tragic information.  I want to know all of the facts, to be completely prepared, to know what’s coming every step of the way.  Two years ago, I diagnosed her cancer before the doctors did.  Adrenal cancer goes from maybe to certain at more than 6cm.  Hers was 8cm.  She had moon face, edema, and pain in her side, all consistent with eight different website list of symptoms for the disease.  This way, when the doctors broke the news, I had already begun coping, already had my hand in hers. 

For my dad, they just showed up at my college apartment doorstep.  I was coming back from a date.  There was beer in the car.  My car was parked away.  Boy, did that one look bad as my brother, along with my minister at the time, stood awaiting my (late night) arrival.  I guess it’s good they were “early.”  “Leamon passed,” my brother said solemnly and stroked my hand.  Stunned, shocked, mak truck feeling.  It took some months of therapy to internalize that one.  I would be laughing one second, crying the next, pondering ways to destroy myself while fearing that I actually would.  The worst summer of my life.  I was 19.

I’m paranoid about “the phone call.”  I don’t want to be far away in another city and state and have to hear second-hand that the clock has stopped.  I want to be there, bedside, to witness the last minute, the last breath, the TOD call… I was there for my grandmother.  We were gathered round.  I loved how her last breath was open-ended like a surprise or ellipse.  Her heart kept beating four minutes after and I put my hand to her chest several times to check so I could let the nurses know.  I couldn’t believe how little time it took for her to get cold, just minutes later when I leaned over for one last kiss on the forehead.  But I wouldn’t have traded it for the world.  It was a tangible peace like no other, to see the suffering stop and the toil to wash clean from the face.  Ten years later, I miss my grandmother so very much and dreamed for the first time ever since her death last night.  I think her presence is a part of the preparation too…

This is going to be hard no matter what events lead to that which is final, but I pray that God will grant me the blessing of seeing my mother through.  But in the meantime, I will love on and laugh with her as much as I possibly can, enjoying every possible second that ole cheatin clock will give me.  As I left her room tonight I asked, “Is there anything that you need?”  With big desperate eyes she said, “A new body…”

Question of the day:  In the face of hardship, do you think it’s healthier to tune into the hope or reality of the situation?

What the cuss??? September 9, 2010

PROCEED WITH CAUTION: THIS ONE IS THE PG-13 VARIETY.  DO ME A FAVOR, THOUGH.  IF YOU START READING IT, FINISH.  I THINK YOU’LL BE SURPRISED AT THE METHOD BEHIND MY MADNESS AND STILL LOVE ME ALL THE SAME 🙂

I cuss.  I cuss a lot.  Not in public so much and not in situations where it would be disrespectful or anything.  Can turn it off/on whenever I like.  If the company I’m in doesn’t mind my mouth and/or has potty mouth of their own, I cuss.  In other words, if I filter my tongue, it’s out of respect, not because I want someone to think more of me than they ought.  And maybe I shouldn’t do it at all.  I do anyway.  And all the words, too.  Not just the sorta bad ones.  I think it’s partly a repercussion from living in California.  Even the pastors and prayer group leading Christians cuss like sailors in California.  At least I don’t smoke…anymore…  Or drink excessively…often…  What’s funny about this is the fact that when I write, I don’t cuss.  Don’t even think about it.  My muse cusses a lot in her blog which probably means she cusses even more in person.  But it’s her.  I respect her true-to-self writing.  Bravo, JP!!

My mom says “shit” at least once a day.  But it’s adorable when she says it.  Not vulgar at all.  She even tries to give it a real muddy inflection, but it still comes out just sounding like flowers and a spot of tea.  All her friends share the same favorite expletive and it is likewise charming when they say it.   Coming out of their mouths, it’s not a bad word in the slightest.  It always makes me laugh hysterically because it’s such and event every time!!!  Oh, and get this…they say, “Excuse me, Samantha” every time!!!! LMAO!!  Seeing as how I consider being around them as a no-cussing zone, they have no idea that I’m the one who should be begging their pardon!

I began my foul mouthage initially at the age of hmmmm…5 and a half (???), emulating the responsible adults around me.  I tried to teach my little cousin, 4 at the time, the words of cussingdom until this backfired into an epic fail.  Did he really have to breach the code of dirty word silence and shout out divulged words in front of said responsible adults???  Why, he most certainly did!!!  Of course they knew where he got it from…somehow I was spared a spanking, or a very long one anyway.  Then  5th grade rolled around and I was re-seduced by the in-crowd with the expression, “Stankin ass!”  Do not ask me why I thought that was a cool thing to say besides rebelling against being perceived as a goodie-two-shoes.  My mother taught in the next classroom over and there was a lot of pressure for a TK to fit in!!

Okay, so what does my penchant for cussing have to do with this blog, my mother and the singing??  Well, in my elevation in adulthood, my mother accepts the fact that these words are a necessary form of expression that one needs to utilize, judiciously, but at leisure.  Yes, I sometimes let ’em fly in front of her, but never at her.  One time a mouse chased me down the hallway and I needed a few to scream out.  I can’t even begin to tell you how many my divorce needed!!!! Pfffft!  If my mother can  tolerates and accept these choice times of worty dird usage, so can the rest of the world…

In my quest to become all the valuable person and opera singer I can be, I feel a responsibility to be myself.  My actual self.  People over the course of my life have seen me from different angles, some accurate, some not so, as it relates to my total personage.  Cussing and all, I’ve made a vow to myself and world to be completely real.  So much of what I’ve experienced in life has been counterfeit.  It wears the face of honesty and truth, but just underneath, is a cesspool of lies and ill motives.  I don’t want to be that way. 

Samantha is probably more than as you’ve seen her.  Yes, I’m a wonderful person.  Talented, intelligent, compassionate, loving.  But mixed in is a person who admittedly enjoys cussing, who makes mistakes, who falters on every hand.  I don’t make the mark.  And that’s not just some humble flattery crap.  I am truly flawed.  Here’s the good news; I like myself this way because I was designed to carry my own set of virtues and vices with a one-of-a-kind grace.  And so are you.  This doesn’t give us an excuse to be and do bad simply because we feel like it, but honesty with both our best and worst self is good policy, in my opinion.

Through my artistry, I want to share truths about humanity and life, infusing that into every note I sing.  Music is irresistible because it’s power to convey the full ray of light to dark without classifications and judgement.  I certainly want to be known for the best of who I am, but not held upon any undeserved pedestal.  I’m no better than you because I write this blog or am an opera singer or love my mother so endlessly.  At the same time, I’m no less luminous of a soul when I stand in the dimness of wrong.  I’m accountable to morals and the love of Christ.  I am convinced He’s not on His throne counting how many cuss words I said today that didn’t cause an ounce of hurt to anyone.  His agenda is much bigger than that, I know.  I mean, you can kill someone’s spirit without a single letter of profanity.  Death and life ARE in the power of the tongue, the WHOLE tongue.  Not just a few words of the tongue.  I cuss because it’s natural language to me.  But I could just as easily, though unlikely, depart from it. 

God made me to be an artist and I don’t plan on hiding behind any false assumptions.  I will respect my craft and uphold the decorum of professionalism.  I will work tirelessly to reach higher and higher with sound motivation.  I will keep before me the purpose of my gifts, that it is a service unto God and others.  I will recognize areas of learning and be responsible to self-correction.  I will triumph, I will fail, but rise again and again, myself…the good, the real, and the cussy.

Question of the day: How much of your whole self are you willing to share with honesty and transparency?

Red Eye September 7, 2010

I still remember my first plane ride.  I was five.  Destination?  California.  Companion?  My grandmother, may she rest in peace.  I don’t exactly recall all of the priming for our journey, but I do remember the packing and plan for wearing my favorite little blue dress.  I just knew I was going on a plane way high up in the sky.  And that must be a special thing because my grandmother rolled my waist-long with paper bag strips.  I’ve never had curls quite like that since. 

All went well with the flight until the pressure got to my ears.  I whimpered, cried, then screamed at the top of my lungs.  Flight attendants tried to instruct me on how to ease the discomfort, my grandmother, quite embarrassed I’m sure, tried to rock and console me.  I was beyond consoling.  It was crisis in mid-air.  The only good thing about my agony was landing about 10 minutes later.

Some 25 five years later, I attempted to get my only chance at a night’s sleep unfazed by ear pressure, dreaming about whales and sunsets…

Question of the day: Do you remember your first plane ride?

Greek Whale Watching September 6, 2010

Last night after the curtain closed on sunset, I grabbed some seafood for dinner, lobster risotto precisely, and retreated to Monterey in search of a hotel that didn’t read “no” in front or in back of “vacancy.”  Too tired to continue my ritual Hotwire/Priceline analysis, on top of shoddy internet connection, a hacienda-like beauty caught my eye.  Hotel Abrego it was.  Although astronomical in price, the desk attendant got me with “fireplace” and the credit card was all of swiped once I took a tour of my would-be lux room.  It did have a fireplace, a king sized bed, a huge walk-in shower, a general homey atmosphere.  I could literally have lived there, had money been no object…

I didn’t want to leave my beautiful room this morning.  At 11:35am (checkout was at 12 noon) I was still vacillating over whether or not to ask for late check out so I could sleep more, maybe actually turn on the massive swiveling flatscreen, and take like six more showers.  But I decided that Monterey was waiting for me, this whole new stretch of territory I’d never been to before.  No matter how beautiful four walls and a slate-tiled shower were, there was nothing about sleep, tv, and bathing that hadn’t happened to me before.  The sun was shining in rare Bay Area form and with each zip of luggage, I felt the promise of good things straight ahead.

As I drove randomly about, it wasn’t long before I reached my first and what turned out to be final destination.  Ooooo, a Greek Festival!!  I’ve always wanted to go to a Greek Festival!!  Greek people and their food are da bomb hizzle!!!!  A short distance parking place greeted me and off I went to seek out all things Greek!!  The jewelery tables caught me first and I made a modest purchase.  A divalicious bracelet.  Nothing real Greek looking but divatastic nonetheless.  I had intentions of going back to buy a sterling silver ring or too.  Wanted to get around to all the vendors, settle on some Grecian grub, then wiled more money on a full stomach.  It never happened.

What good fortune awaited me, though!!  I was making my way around the festival and lo, Fisherman’s Wharf!!!! Talk about good tidings of great joy, a bag of chips AND a soda on the side!  Woohoo!!!  I was finally at the place Monterey postcards and travel specials were made of.  It was no Pier 39, mind you, but there was clam chowder and more seafood than one craving could take!!!  I kept on walking and lo, another sign!!!  Whale Watching: Next departure 1:30.  It was 12:45.  Just doesn’t get any better than that!  Deciding to risk my rental car return deadline, I handed over $40 and ran to get a jacket and sunscreen.  A swift peruse back through the Greek festival and a gyro later, I was all aboard!!

First up?  Sea otters and sea lions.  So cute.  Wanted to take one home.  Choppy, choppy waters made many sea sick.  Thank God I was able to keep my $6 gyro down… Next!  Dolphins jumping and flipping around…some….WHALES!!!!  A HUGE (like, duh) humpback, then another!!!  Such impressive and graceful animals, spouting out water and mucus ever so…so spoutingly!!  Our “tour guide” was so knowledgeable, spouting herself about all kinds of whale facts, narrating over every stretch of sea.  And then, the blue whales.  A momma and baby followed by another one who gave us a rare show.  Fluke!!! Twice!!!!  Yeah, before today, I didn’t really know what that was by name either.  It’s WHALE TAIL!!!!!!  You know, like in the national geographic or discovery channel, how the tail flips up and then sinks down into the ocean.  Our guide said that’s something rare to catch once, let alone twice in the same setting!!! Said we could go 5-6 years before ever seeing that again… Lastly, more dolphins.  I mean like hundreds.  Oh, and I thought those bad boys were showin’ out before!  HA!!! I hadn’t seen nothin!  As the boat picked up momentum, here they come alongside, sending us back in full marine style.  The flipping was higher, had to have been some triple luxe going on.  The jumping was farther, the wonderment was sweeter.  I leaned way over the side and hung my hand way down hoping one would give me a slimy swipe.  There had to have been 8 different languages represented amongst my fellow passengers and I heard “Oooo look!!” in every one…Here’s to the things of life that bring people together, that remind us that the common thread between us is not singular at all. 

Question(s) of the day: What kind of traveler are you?  Have you ever had an “accidental” vacation?  What are some things you’ve learned through your experiences away?  Where would you like to go?  What’s stopping you?  No, what’s REALLY stopping you?