Madness has reigned in my household this week. Yet again. MADNESS, I say. This time it is mostly self-inflicted: life has just gotten insanely busy all of a sudden. I really like being busy. I’m not good at siting still. Even now Adam’s out at a movie because I just couldn’t commit to sitting there staring at a screen for more than 2 hours. Maybe I should take up knitting so I can go to a movie with my husband… I just like to be occupied with a wide variety of things at once. Many plates a-spinning. Many balls a-juggling. It’s my ADHD at work (self-diagnosis alert!). I guess that’s why I’ve never been particularly good at having a desk-job. I’m not knocking a desk-job; I’m happy people can do it, but I just don’t have that kind of disposition. Being a flamenco-dancing, singing, teaching, blogging, counselling, music psychology researcher suits me just fine. Even if it means the money is irregular. Even if it means that every once in a while the planets align *just* so, and rather than my handful of jobs jobs striking their normally perfect balance of insanity, they instead each demand 100% of my time and cause my nose hairs to burst into flames and my ears to melt off my head.
This has been such a week. Why? I’ve made a list. Let’s take a look:
1) I’m doing a show on June 25th. It’s self-produced and here in Den Haag at a cool theatre called Het Nutshuis (pronounced “nootz-house”). Het Nutshuis is a totally amazing converted bank. The theatre I’ve rented is where the cashiers used to be. So cool! The website for my new production company is here: www.operadans.com. OperaDans is my baby. My unruly, money-guzzling, time-demanding, unappreciative, but soul-filling, beautiful baby… did I just describe a real baby? OperaDans’ first show is called Sweet Solitude and I’ll be singing English music by the American composer Samuel Barber. Also on offer are two very cool compositions by a young Argentinean composer, Diego Soifer. He’s a student here at the Royal Conservatoire. The show is all tied together with choreographies by two incredible modern dancers. Rehearsals have just kicked off and although all looks good, between now and June 25 my mind is completely on the show.
2) However, that-which-shall-not-be-named is almost ready to be submitted. AGAIN. I admit I’ve left it for too long. But what with the craziness between Adam and me, I just couldn’t face it. There was also something stopping me from diving back into editing, re-writing, and mucking about with it… did I say mucking? I meant f*cking. I just didn’t want to do it anymore. I ADMIT IT! But then, the 5 am anxiety-induced wake-up calls started setting in. Again. Again, because for the past four years that-which-shall-not-be-named has had the power to rouse me from a dead sleep and guide me stumbling and bleary-eyed to the computer at any hour of the night. I began to hear its siren call again about two weeks ago and decided that I needed to get it out of my life once and for all. So I can finally get a good night’s sleep. For god’s sake. I’m going GREY over here. I’ll be sending it off next week. Don’t ask me about it. I’ll let you know.
3) I’m also singing in a show on the evening of Tuesday the 26th with my-friend-Marga-the-flamenco-dancer. It’s at a local high school with some of the students from the Spanish class. We’ll be performing flamenco songs based on Yerma, a play by Federico Garcia Lorca. The students will act out the text. This performance is all that’s left of the flamenco opera that Marga and I started working on a couple of years ago. There’s an old blog about it here. My hope is to revitalise this project and present it as an OperaDans production in the future. But that’s some way away. For now, this mini presentation is keeping the pilot light flickering.
4) I’m also up to ten singing students a week, which (despite the part-time hours) requires nearly full-time work. I love it.
What else?…
Oh! Last Sunday Adam ran his first marathon. This was the next step in his training for the Transalpine Run. His time was an *astonishing* 4 hours 3 mins. Amazing! Ok, there were tears (yes, his), and ok, he had to ask a kind spectator along the route (who was enjoying the race from her garden) if he could use her toilet for an emergency call- nay- SCREAM of nature (think Paula Radcliffe), but wow, he did it! And I was SOOO proud. By the way, although I don’t really like running and was only there as Adam’s moral support, I also managed to join in on the 5 km race. My time was 28 mins. Not even close to winning, but everybody got a little medal. Yay for shiny! We have another run tomorrow: The Hague Royal 10. Adam will do the full 10k. I’ll stick to the 5k and meet Adam at the finish line. Medal in hand.
