A Dream Deferred

mood: accepting
pandora/ipod: "i hate music!" by leonard bernstein, sung by barbara bonney

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

"A Dream Deferred" by Langston Hughes

A Dream Deferred.

Funny story about me. I never wanted to be a writer.

Not that being a writer isn't awesome. Not that I don't consider myself extraordinarily blessed and lucky to have a book coming out and some sort of minuscule talent in the writerly arts. But as a kid, as a teen, as a pre-adult I never once thought about being a writer. There was only one thing I wanted to be.

An opera singer.

A Dream Deferred.

I have a B.A. in Voice and an M.M. in Opera. I love to sing. I love to be on stage. And I love opera. Truly.

I was good. Pretty good. Good enough to attain a certain level of success but, in the end, not good enough to be on stage at the Met. But I soldiered on, struggled, strained, took small gigs, invested in my craft, struggled some more, cried a lot.

And one day I'd had enough. I wasn't at the level in the business where I wanted to be. I wasn't making a living at it. I wasn't happy. I didn't want to sing.

So I quit. Cold turkey. Just like that.

Hey writers, sound familiar? The struggle. The lack of fulfillment. The constant nagging voice telling you give up.

Is it any wonder I moved from one insane art form to the other? Prolly not.

When I left opera, I never EVER thought I'd perform on stage again. Ever. Ever. That chapter in my life (which started when I was five years old...) was over. Dunzo. Finis.

A Dream Deferred.

I saw Kiri Te Kanawa in recital Saturday night. Dame Kiri - for those of you who don't know and aren't big opera nerds like myself - is one of the greatest operatic sopranos of the last fifty years. Her Contessa in Le nozze di Figaro is, in my opinion, still unsurpassed, and you may recognize her voice in the recording of Puccini's "O mio babbino caro" that was used in my favorite movie of all time, A Room with a View.

So Dame Kiri is an idol and, what's even stranger, she programmed several songs on her recital that I've performed myself. Squee.

But about halfway through her recital, Langston Hughes' poignant words popped into my head. I still had that yearning to sing classical music. I was planning a recital program in my head, remembering old performances, fantasizing about all the repertoire I still want to learn.

My dream of being an opera singer was deferred. But what happened to it? Did it fester? Did it rot? Did it sag? Did it explode?

All. None. Well, two things happened. 1: my creative energies were focused elsewhere - writing. 2: I was lucky enough to be involved with Cirque Berzerk.

I thank my lucky stars every freaking day that my amazing friend Chantel basically forced me to audition for the circus. It has made an impact in my life that I literally can't express in words. (A rarity, trust me.) I might not be singing Mozart and Strauss, Poulenc and Argento, but I'm singing. Performing.

A Dream Deferred. A Dream Transformed.

I think what Langston missed in this poem is the idea that dreams change. I never saw writing or the circus in my future, but I was open to both when the opportunity came along. My dream changed, from singing Zerbinetta with James Levine at the Met, to singing "Dig It Down" in full clown makeup from a wooden scaffold behind four dudes on a trampoline. From walking into Tower Records to see my CD on display, to walking into a Barnes and Noble to see my book on the shelves.

Dreams change. Go with it.