Getting the Band Back Together

mood: dancey
pandora/ipod: "dig it down" from the cirque berzerk soundtrack

Had an amazing first band rehearsal last night for Cirque Berzerk 2011. Crazy. It's been a year and a half since we wrapped the Summer 2009 run and it was as if no time had passed. I only flubbed one (or two...hee) entrances and even though I haven't done much singing during the interim, it felt effortless. My muscle memory is working wonders.

Our band, in case you don't remember my previous ravings on the subject, is unbelievable. They're freaking pros, every one of them. So much so that it makes me feel like the redheaded stepchild of the group. Literally. I think it's because the music is so out of my element - or at least felt so at first - and the performance style much more fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants than your normal, everyday Mozart opera performance. We have no written music, and half the time no one can tell me what key we're in. You just sort of DO. Which for me, at least with singing, is a little scary.

What's funny of course, is that my singing with the circus and my writing career are totally intertwined. As a friend pointed out to me last night, it was 3 and a half years ago that I started down this path towards the scary, sheet music-less circus band. At about the same time, I began writing. In fact, is was just after our first circus performances back in the summer of 2008 that I wrote THE WITCH'S EYE, and signed with my Rockstar agent a few months later.

Writing can be scary for me. It's a big, dark unknown, an empty page which I'm supposed to fill with meaningful words. Sometimes, I want to close my laptop, shove it under the bed and never, ever look at another double-spaced, 12-point Times New Roman manuscript document again.

I had the same feeling at my first circus band rehearsal when the director said, "Sing something here." Um, something? Where's the music? Yeah, no music kid. Be inspired.

I almost walked away that day, feeling very much like I couldn't do it. I've almost walked away from writing a bazillion times, feeling very much like I couldn't do it.

I haven't walked away yet. And my life is so much richer for them both.

So, to my Cirque Berzerk band buddies - Alpheus, Johnny, Antonia, Kevin, Jessica and Peter - much love. I'm glad I stayed.