Monday, October 29, 2007

Changing Times

Can anyone tell me where October went? I would love to know.

I guess the fact that time is flying is a good sign – it feels like I got here just yesterday, but a whole month has flown by. Time flies when you’re having fun, they say.

I had a “cultural” experience with time today.

I woke up this morning, moderately refreshed and happy to have had a day off. I turned on the ipod and let the Handel fly, like I do most mornings, and proceeded to sit down as I wrote my morning pages. As I let my subconscious spew onto the page, I hummed along with various singers singing my favorite Handel arias and realized the following fact: I had won the battle against mucus!

For the first time in a week my voice responded easily without feeling like it was a car that won’t start. The jalopy in my throat felt like it morphed into a new-ish sportscar.

I thought ahead through the day’s rehearsal plan: Finish working on the finale of Act 2, run Act 2, dinner, and then come back to run Act 1. I could actually sing out today and get a feeling for pacing! As I finished my morning pages, I jumped for joy and continued my daily routine. I did some yoga, ate some breakfast, hopped in the shower, and scooted off to the opera house. I glanced down at my phone as I walked in the stage door, waving to the security guard. 14:45. Damn, I thought, I only have ten minutes to warm up – I’ll have to speed through my exercises in order to get on stage in time. I ran up to my dressing room, whipped out the pitch pipe, and started making the crazy noises that constitute my daily warm up, cutting corners where I could in order to be on time. 15:00 struck, and I zipped to the stage, which was completely empty.

Where was everybody?

I looked at the clock over the stage management console.

14:00.

Apparently, the whole daylight savings change occurs at a different time here in Europe than in the states.

I had absolutely no clue that the time had changed at all. Discovering the time change like that really threw me for a loop physically. 21:30 struck in rehearsal tonight, meaning we had an hour to go, and I wanted to collapse and cry with fatigue. Between the time change and the fact that my body still needs to build some strength back after being sick for a week (something I discovered the hard way tonight sometime towards the end of the Lindoro/Mustafa duet in Act I), I left rehearsal feeling like a shell of myself.

Honestly, I’m strangely hungry right now, and I’d like to eat my exhaustion and frustration. But I’m going to resist and go crawl into bed.

1 comment:

Lou said...

it's a real pain figuring out when the time changes. my stupid VCR thought it was this past weekend (because it's a VCR and thus old and antiquated and not programmed appropriately since the gov't decided to move the time change date here in the US). i was fooled momentarily but knew it was actually almost 4 am and i needed to go to bed!

thanks for the well wishes about court, it went well...even if very brief. glad to hear [read] u're feeling better. mucus is gross.