Behold, thou hast made my days

"I need to write, I must write, it really is time I wrote"... At least it's only been three weeks.

After yet another long Bank Holiday weekend (what else are weekends in May for anyway?), I actually find myself with a lot of work ahead of me: not only do I have three busy working weekends singing ahead of me, but also have a not inconsiderable amount of writing to do.  It seems that somewhere along the line, I became a professional writer without realising it.  This will be the third time this year that I'll be responsible for the programme notes that accompany the termly concerts laid on by the Cathedral Choir, and I've also been engaged to collect the texts for this year's CD liner.  Not only that, but I'm also going to be typesetting chorale tunes for the orders of service for Trinity term's main event, a reconstruction of Lutheran Vespers, which will include two Bach Cantatas, accompanied by string band.  This is all on top of the weekly services, preparing for Saturday concerts (including a Messiah) running three weeks in a row, prepping solos for the Cantatas and looking for a new job... And I don't just mean a part time one here.  Of course, the final draft of the notes will be up here, but hopefully before the concert this time...

All in all, this has been a pretty weird three weeks since last I sat to write. Being told how beautiful my self-expression is never seems to sit right with me (although I accept this graciously), as it's always felt like hard work... But hard work that's obviously paying off.  It's often not about simplicity, more about being absolutely and critically accurate to how I feel, which is not a something that comes readily that often.  As much as I never believe the hype about anybody else, I certainly don't believe any hype about myself, so I don't get tripped into getting too confident and making mistakes that could have been otherwise easily avoided.  Getting used to new routines and rhythms (and not just my own) is never what I'd class as easy, especially as I really, imperatively, desperately need to eradicate some personal bad habits that have become so ingrained of late that the people (think choral scholars, &c) whom I have only recently met might even call characteristic, defining.   The more I think about it, the more obvious it seems to me that there are two matters at the heart of it, one being a matter of faith and the other being a matter of punishment.

Faith comes and goes at the best of times, but there's always been one thing I've never been able to commit to believing in, and that's me.  It's not really a massive surprise to me, and probably not to you, trying to keep the faith where I am concerned has always been a struggle - I don't really think it's worth it most of the time.  My faith in those around me, on the other hand, has always been relatively secure.  This might explain my relative intensity (which burns forever, of course) in even simple relational matters, as I seem to pour a lot of reliability into people simply because I am so loath to believe in myself.  Dreadful, I know.  I've only just began to get a hold on how intimidating this must seem as well; better late than never, I suppose.  

Punishment?  Is that with or without sin?  Usually without.  In what is most likely to be a byproduct of not having any faith, I am always the first to punish myself.  Quick to decry my abilities as a singer, player, writer, cook, or just as a human being in general, and it is this that has been at the heart of many problems over the years.  Decades (yes, really) spent telling myself that I do not deserve to succeed, that I don't even have the right to try have left parts of me bitter and empty.  It has kept me away from jobs, choirs, orchestras, relationships and ultimately, happiness.  I guess I started blaming myself for everything all those years ago in a move to avoid conflict; arguments are often easily solved once a culprit, a scapegoat can be identified.  It's an odd tactic really, but it's been surprisingly effective for quite a while.  Shutting down my ability to take chances as a way of avoiding failure has been how I have lived my life for too long.  

It is time to find another way.

This isn't going to default into some witless pep talk, don't worry.  For saying I have a weak hold on believing in myself, I have even less belief in those.  Like I said last time, I've had enough with self-destruction as a life choice.  It's not really rewarding, I'm sorry.  I've been telling people recently that I need to rewire my head: I don't need anything new, just to rearrange what's already here... If you can stretch to that metaphor.  Rather than find a new identity, to get any more pieces, it's more to fit everything back into place (and give away the last piece as well).  Being introduced to the concept that it's alright  to have faith in myself and take that plunge, that my self-belief is in fact a necessary part of having faith in somebody else is new and unfamiliar.  It's not unwelcome... It's just I'm not remotely used to it.  With any luck, I'll be able to rectify a lot of the damage that I did to myself over the last year to eighteen months, famously documented.  I've always considered my personality to be more gestalt than anything or anyone else, that I'm almost as many different things as there are different people; many reflections of the same face.  If I can do this final push to unify my often conflicting personas, then maybe I can actually acknowledge the strength that other people recognise and praise me for.  All sorts of things I would never even begin to imagine about myself have been uncovered this weekend gone as well.  Maybe I can actually grow up a little on the way.  Maybe I can dare to succeed.

I chose not to get too bogged down in how much of an idiot I am to myself.  The brief recollection above is enough, this is a different mission after all.  The past speaks for itself, and I have no cause to torture myself any longer.  I'm preparing a serious way out of Truro as well, in what is as big a shock to you as it is to me.  The truth is... I'm beginning to understand that while I may not have a definite five or ten year plan yet, I don't think that life in Truro can serve that.  Things are changing, and fast as well.  I'm very aware that I have to commit to this for myself though, as easy as it would be to do it for someone else.  To be perfectly honest, that's still the strangest bit really... But this has to be about me, or I really am doomed.

Tune in next time though, where I talk about something else entirely, and might even cut some pictures in.  How exciting.

See, see the Word

It's finally time to take my finger off the Self-destruct button.

This has been a long time coming, obviously. Work, the inability to sleep, heavy drinking patterns and good old fashioned apathy have been the main elements of the radio silence around here for the past few weeks. To be perfectly honest, I have been quite busy... Which I shall detail over the next few hundred words and however long of our lives I spend writing and you spend reading.

I sit, wrapped in a sleeping bag in an apartment on the Prince of Wales road, Norwich. Yes, I rise from furthest west to find furthest east once more... Until my return journey which must either commence at 9 in the morning or not get back on time for evensong. This is an immense gamble with delays and the chance of getting stuck through London (is it warmer down in the tubes because they're closer to hell? Discuss for 40 marks) but who knows! It'll probably all work out just fine, and I'll roll down the hill straight into rehearsal, ready to resume my rightful place as the first Decani Alto Songman... No sorry, Lay Vicar. What is in a name, after all? It's going to be a long trip back though, that's for sure. As much as this weekend has reminded me that as much as I hate the actual act of travel itself, the value of doing so is inestimable, and that Norwich truly is a Fine City. The fact that I couldn't get into what must be the scummiest nightclub in town in shorts and sandals reflects the fact that I have simply spent too much time in Cornwall, where no such dress code exists in the many pubs that surround not only Truro but also around the wider Cornish land as well. That and I tend not to go clubbing as I got tired of being surrounded by crowds of sweaty people gyrating to music that is just far too loud, being ripped off for a pint of foreign lager a long time ago... Christ, how old am I?

Let's step back a week or so though, and take a sea voyage to the Isles of Scilly. Truro Cathedral Choir's bi-yearly tour to the islands rumbled on in traditional fashion, with a well-attended concert and a non too strenuous evensong on the main island's church of St. Mary's, and a short hop over to the sparsely populated island of St. Agnes, famed for its miniscule chapel and a fine hostelry, The Turk's Head. Pink Gins, annoying the locals with Brahms' Requiem, and a good helping of Barnsley banter are my lasting memories of this year's trip, and as usual, lasting sunburn is my only real souvenir. It's not as hilariously bad as the battenburg legs from the UEA Haydn day, but the difference between my burnt and unburnt skin is almost as extreme as you can get. Think Lobster.

One episode saw myself and a companion stuck in the shop on St. Agnes for some twenty minutes, while the rest of the choir headed for pub lunch. It's as if we were somehow transported to the 50s (Pepsi Max notwithstanding), as this wondrous place served not only as a general store, the post office, but also where the good folk of St. Agnes come to talk about the weather. As experiences go, being on the Isles is rather surreal for me; the number one oddity has to be not locking your bicycle up on the street. Look, I know I know I know... Everybody knows each other so it's not as if you could ever get away with knicking anything, but still...

Thankfully though, the tour seems to have been a great success once again. A personal highlight was my introduction to the Barnsley Rap, which ought to be required listening for just about anybody really, but mostly for Midlanders, for whom it should be a telling and witty satire of a typical bloke. Another fun moment was being told to quieten down as an inpromptu Deutsches Requiem love-in moment interrupted the local folk night in the Bishop and Wolf on the second night. Also, the so Great White Sickbucket was surprisingly... Survivable. For all the talk of necessary sick bags, acupuncture bands, travel pills and staring at the horizon, it seemed that the Gods smiled upon us, as it was possibly the smoothest crossing of the whole week, even between the islands. But who wants to hear about boats?

Anyway, this long Bank holiday weekend has really been all about one thing, and one thing only: the celebration of The Chief's wedding. As usual, nothing is quite as it seems, as I gather the actually marriage happened months previous (not that I knew at the time), much like the birth of his first born son (also another surprise (although presumably not to him)). This weekend has been somewhat of an emotional rollercoaster. Even being back in Norwich is amazing, especially when you consider the ridiculous journey it took to get here. I hate travel at the best of times of course, and having to sacrifice the best part of an entire day to crossing the country. There's also something weird about sitting in one place transporting you to another place... Okay, enough navel gazing. I also know that it isn't really that ridiculous, but this is about me hating long journeys so I don't care. I've never been a fan, but eh, it's kind of alright. The biggest problem is money, not distance after all.

Arriving on Friday, I felt like a tourist in my old city. Dressed in a particularly Cornish flavour (shorts, sandals, heavy cable knit), I made a break for the Norwich branch of the Gourmet Burger Kitchen, which I actually felt paled in comparison to Truro's own HUB Box, before reporting to the Bell Hotel for a swift pint... Where I had to leave my luggage in the middle of the floor while I waited for service... Just who does that?! I used to drink there every week and now I feel like a tourist! Thank God I didn't have a camera around my neck. I actually walked through the Lamb Inn first, on a fruitless search for Blue Moon. I must have looked like a right pillock, dragging my huge red luggage around town until Sensei came to pick me up.

The Wedding of the Century certainly lived up to the hype. I've been saying it with a wink ever since I was invited, but you know... It really was. A choir of eleven, a brass quartet and an organist filled the delicate confines of St. Peter's, Merton with sublime music and some very loud hymn singing. Having donned Doctor Bond's Morning Suit especially for the occasion, I even chose to accessorise my outfit by matching my phone case to my tie. I'm in on the official photos and everything! Even the weather was with us, and glorious sunshine greeted us as we left the church at the end of the ceremony. It seemed that fortune was our friend rather than foe, as the reception continued on apace, with a sung grace of Our Boy Billy's Ave Verum Corpus, complete with the pre-requisite English cadences, and a fine sit-down commenced after, itself complete with plenty of fine wines; perhaps the finest wines available to humanity? As the evening drew the Best Man's speech really was the speech we deserved, and the speech we needed. After service, a Jazz band assembled, which led to the usual 'dance until you can hardly walk' routine, but by 'eck is it worth it!

Okay, enough with the recounting of every detail already. Some of the finest things this weekend have been focussed on being accepted by people I've never met. I seemed to fit in quite well with The Chief and Toon's Durham pals who served as ushers and the choir. I even managed to accept compliments (just say thank you first, even if you don't quite believe it) about my voice! Having recently turned away from my old 'lightening countertenor' image, maybe it's time to turn back and actually believe in myself. The Christening in Spamcroft the next day was a bit of an opportunity to let rip, even though my raw throat stopped me going full tilt. Good ol' Bill to the rescue with his Mass a 4, and the mighty Cwn Rhondda at the end to really storm some barns. 

Over this past weekend, I have been reminded what it feels to be a whole and good person again, and it's as welcome as it is surprising. I cannot stress it enough and I couldn't put too fine a point on it, but don't have adequate tools at my disposal to express it. And there's no point in rushing after all. Verily, I say unto you; a total revolution, like a huge whirlwind that has shattered and uprooted some deep seated issues and uncovered feelings long buried, I thought once for my own good, but have finally managed to change my mind which is nothing short of a miracle in itself. Even though I want to feel angry and annoyed for always punishing myself, it's time to stop that, and learn to move on. If I don't... well, I really will be consumed utterly by my bitterness. I've had long enough finding out if self destruction really is the answer (seems inconclusive), and at least try something else entirely. It'll be tough, because that's all I'm used to, but I might have more success if I try another way. Because if there's one thing I've learned, there's always another way.

It's time for something new, yet familiar. I will no longer lock myself away. One thing I slowly worked out that was a problem with my last blog especially, was that I would spend a couple of thousand words unpacking my issues, but then never doing anything constructive about it. In a way, this has been an incredible act of self-sabotage, and critically I must, I have to, it is my duty to turn away from this. Rather than defining myself by my limitations, I must define myself by my victories, by what I have earned and what I have accomplished. Heavens, I might even start traveling more often...!