When Do I Wake Up?

For some reason every summer in the last five, I hit a wall. 

I can't face my job anymore. I can't go on. I can't take it. 

 In July I travel up to London from the country to audition for a musical being done live on TV at Christmas.

 It's hot, there's a taxi strike going on, London seems overwhelming, intense, dirty but I'm a pro, I'm warmed up and I'm grateful to be seen.

I put my hand on the door to push it open and suddenly feel an invisible wall.

 I couldn't walk into another room and convince someone to hire me. 

I can't go on dragging my resume behind me to be judged or dismissed or ignored or sometimes occasionally, happily, acknowledged. 

I'd been doing it for 35 years. 

I take a deep breath and shove the door open because I can't not show up. I can't be late. Can't do that. 

 I see the same faces I've been seeing at auditions since 1980. I listen to the noises coming from the studio. It's a Rodgers and Hammerstein show featuring a possible four decent soprano roles. 

Everyone is belting. I hear Sister Act, for God's sake. Someone got the wrong nun memo.

 I don't belt. 

I think about the clip I keep seeing on Facebook of the actor Bryan Cranston speaking about auditions. Be yourself, he said.

I go in. I sing in my own, old fashioned legit voice. I do my thing, a pianissimo floated high note at the end. They chorus with approval. 

They hire belters for every role. 

I'm fine because I was true to myself but I still feel sad because my sound, my fach is vanishing. 

I go off on tour again. It's how I've kept going, kept my nerve- singing one woman concerts. I've been doing this all around Canada, my birth place for the last five years.

I've sung now in every province and territory except for Nunavut, The Yukon and Quebec and it's been extraordinary. From the beautiful islands off British Columbia to Newfoundland and the provinces in middle where the roads are so long and straight the saying goes "when your wife leaves you, you can see her leaving for two weeks"

 After the concerts I talk to the audience at the door. They thank me for coming and I try to explain that it means more to me than they can ever imagine. 

I've looked out into a sailors church in the Arctic and seen an audience filled with First Nations (indigenous  Canadians) looking back at me, smiling and crying. I've wrapped their beautiful children in the train of my sequinned gowns for photos after the show. I've seen moose and bald eagles and seals and the Northern Lights and I've crashed a snowmobile on the ice road and I've swum in the sea and the lakes and I've made incredible friends.

And even though before every concert, I have a lead weight in my stomach at thought of going out there alone for two acts and even though I'm singing music that I've sung again and again and will probably drop dead singing, I'm incredibly grateful for the amazing things being able to go la la la at a decent ability has brought me. 

But despite all of that, the luck, the experiences and everything, I have to admit that the business itself makes me miserable. 

The rejection and disappointments, the injustices, the bitchiness, all of it.

I hate it and it gets harder and harder, particularly as a woman. 

I listen to my husband tell me that if it makes me so sad I can stop. Just draw a line. Finish. I wait for a sign. I know it would be the bravest thing to do, to quit but I can't do it. I can still sing and it seems wrong to stop. I hope I'll know when.

I still yearn for that hit I get on stage when it's right. It's a drug. I yearn for it.

I plow on. I have a run of auditions. I'm myself in them and that's all I can do. 

Then suddenly - I'm taking another jump.

I'm doing a play. I've never done a play. A straight play. 

Well, an incredibly gay play but a straight play none the less.

In the US, with amazing talented people, in a terrific company.

And bloody show-business reels me in again.

I'm still here...

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