I am having the time of my life here in Portland - the weather is perfect, the city is green and lush, my colleagues are lovely, the hall is beautiful, and this is one of my favorite cities in the world to visit. It's mostly a favorite because one of my dearest friends lives here, and getting the chance to spend practically unlimited amounts of time with her is priceless, just like the Mastercard commercials. When I haven't been in rehearsal, we've been exploring the city's various restaurants and haunts, catching up, laughing hysterically, and just feeling giddy at being able to see so much of each other after not seeing each other for so long. I've firmly decided that Portland needs to be a regular stop in the future - I love it here.
The house is a wreck. Clothes are strewn all over the bedroom, Jeremy’s suitcases lie open empty on the unmade bed, papers cover the piano, music is randomly piled all over our living room, my suitcase from my jaunt to Italy is half unpacked and awaits a repacking for my trip tomorrow. I found myself saying to a singer who came to work with Jeremy today, "I'm sorry - I promise, we don't really live like this." Jeremy is trying to fit in his final coachings before he relocates to the Washington, DC area for a summer of work at Wolf Trap Opera. I leave for Oregon tomorrow for a weekend of Carmina Burana with the Oregon Symphony. What makes this trip unusual for me is that instead of coming home to an eager, excited, smiling Jeremy like I usually do, I will come home to an empty apartment next week. We both stare down what seems like a long tunnel of time apart, not looking forward to feeling lonely for each other.
Sunday afternoon is both a blurred swath of memory and vividly imprinted with detail on my mind all at once. I remember rolling up pieces of prosciutto for the little post-recital party we had at our place for my parents and some family friends at around 12:30, thinking that it was an odd way to prepare for a concert that was to take place in two and a half hours. I remember seeing the sun break through the promised grey sky, burning it to a clear blue, surprising us happily. I remember pacing furiously backstage, trying to channel my nerves into positive places. I remember moments that I felt fiercely connected to both the text and the music, time seeming to stand still. I remember some moments where time seemed to rush by as I desperately tried to catch them so that I could enjoy them. I remember wishing I could go back and have a second chance at some things. I remember feeling happy and proud of how it went overall. 
We cast ourselves into the Fiery Furnace yesterday for the first time and emerged not only unscathed, but to a standing ovation, which was exciting. It was so wonderful to see Daniel's piece so well received by an appreciative and enthusiastic audience. 
High Schoolers around the country today are participating in Day of Silence.
As I have worked to prepare Daniel Kellogg’s The Fiery Furnace, which has its world premiere tomorrow evening here in San Diego, I have struggled to find common ground with my character. The piece tells the story of the fiery furnace from the third chapter of the Book of Daniel, in which three young Jewish men, in order to remain true to their faith, defy Nebuchadnezzar by refusing to bow down to a golden idol of the Babylonian King. Nebuchadnezzar punishes them by throwing them into the fiery furnace, where they are witnessed walking with “the son of God” and from which they emerge completely unharmed. My role in the piece is Shadrach, one of the young men who is cast into the furnace. As I wrote in while singing Bach in Chicago, my relationship with my faith has been a constantly evolving one, and I have come to question it over the years, like I assume most people do. While I have always believed in a God, I question more and more the validity of the Bible being the word of God. I mostly take issue with how much focus there can be at times on the proscriptive and seemingly hateful passages in the Bible that seem to me to skew its larger message of faith, hope, and love. It seems to me that perhaps some human error seeped into it over the years. I’ve also come to question the idea of man’s unworthiness in the Bible – why shouldn’t we be worthy of God’s love? We are theoretically all God’s children, are we not? All parents’ love should be unconditional, and certainly God would be the one being capable of such greatness.
Daniel’s setting of this story begins with Shadrach leading a prayer of penitence, assuming responsibility for the sack of Judah and pleading for God’s mercy. He acknowledges that the wayward ways of the Jews were the cause of their current plight as they brought the wrath of God upon them.
As I set to learning this music, I had trouble reconciling myself to embracing this idea of a wrathful God – my emotional walls were instantly up, and I felt myself detaching from the piece. I wondered how I was going to find a way to commit to Shadrach and his logic. I judged Shadrach for being so misguided in believing that he and his people were only worthy of such incredible misfortune. I don’t believe that a performer can do proper justice to their character if they are judging them in anyway. Performing anything demands the utmost empathy and compassion.
This morning, after having struggled with this for weeks, I suddenly realized that Shadrach was not misguided at all, but actually wise and inspiring. Shadrach and his companions share my belief that God’s love for us is unconditional. He acknowledges what he feels are the mistakes of his people, and his wisdom is in seeing that the only way to move on is to learn from those mistakes with a humble heart. He does not in fact believe that he and his people are unworthy of God’s love, but are worthy of not only God’s love but God’s protection and mercy, as well. That he can maintain such faith that he is willing to risk his life by walking through fire after having endured the hardships of watching his homeland be conquered and then being held captive in a foreign land is inspiring. I would think that a lesser person would question the very existence of God after suffering hardships such as those.
We struggle with our faith in many things, not just God, and I found myself wondering this morning, if I maintained such faith in not only the good in the world, but also in myself during the times that are tough, what miracles could I accomplish? Every step would be a positive step forward, and I would never feel as if I had taken any steps back. I marveled that I was able to extrapolate a lesson from this Old Testament story. Sometimes it doesn’t matter what I believe when it comes to the Bible – lessons that apply to so many different aspects of our lives can be gleaned from its parables and stories, regardless.
In this transition from East to West, I seem to have lost an evening. My eyes, bleary and bloodshot with fatigue, feel heavy, and I am overjoyed by my decision to not wear my contacts today. 
My kitchen has become a disaster zone. It is the location where, earlier in the week, I burnt my arm on the iron in the midst of my cleaning frenzy. It is also where I cut two of my fingers when my knife slipped while chopping an onion for a dinner we hosted last night. Mildly annoying at most, but my left arm is now covered in Neosporin and Band-Aids. 
An older, more experienced colleague and I were talking about growing up artistically the other day, and he talked to me about observing many artists of my generation and how many have a difficult time growing from their “talented twenties” into more mature artists. It is a difficult transition, I conceded. We leave our conservatories; if we are lucky, we launch ourselves into the professional world; we struggle to establish ourselves as professionals; we start to speculate about things like career trajectory. It’s hard not to start feeling as if we have arrived somehow and the sense of expectation that comes along with that. Our dreams get bigger, and our desire to achieve them increases in its intensity. At the same time, it is easy to forget that there is still work to do. With a foot firmly planted in the hypothetical future, we too easily lose our footing in the present and the work that is at hand. A thought occurred to me: The more we grasp for what we want, that which we already have slips more and more through our fingers.
Walking around the neighborhood catching up with my aunt, a productive rehearsal with Jeremy, a visit with a best friend, a concert in Carnegie Hall with wonderful colleagues. I couldn't really ask for more.
The door opened, we glided out onto the stage, took a bow, and then I noticed that there were people in the audience. I began the first song of the evening.
Today was an attempt at being restful, with only a relaxed rehearsal work-through for our NYFOS concerts next week. Most of my relaxing involved consuming an inordinate amount of food throughout the day. The other part of relaxing involved trying to repair my desktop computer, which has been out of order for months now. It stares at me from across the room when I wake up in the mornings, imploring me to fix it. I heeded it's call today. Now that I'm overstuffed with food, I'm telling myself that at least I'm stocked up on energy for the week ahead. The computer is still on the fritz, but at least I have been trying all day.
It's the end of a long day, so I am going to go to a movie and have a proper date with my other artist, Jeremy.
