Stretched Too Thin

Dear friends,

I am struggling. I am the mother of an ever-increasingly-active two-year-old boy. And I am the choir director of our church, as well as the main chanter. These two callings do not work well together, especially as, stretched thin by those demands, I am thickening in the middle. (The baby is due the week before Holy Week.)

Today I received word from a friend on the parish council that he and another parish council member have been receiving complaints about Teddy's behavior. I did not ask for details.

It seems that I have different expectations of my son than everyone else in the entire parish, except my husband. This morning I was filled with joy because Teddy was singing along with the choir more than he ever has before. Instead of just "Lord, have mercy," "Kyrie, eleison," "To You, O Lord," and "Amen," he was singing the trisagion hymn and parts of other hymns in both Greek and English. At the same time, I was frustrated that he still kicks and bangs on the pews, with his feet and with his little cars. I am fine with him standing on a little box to see out of the choir loft, but this makes several members of the choir almost terrified that he'll fall down. He was stopped from going downstairs (after I had specifically said that he should, as he wanted a certain favorite parishioner who was downstairs and I told him he could go and see his Vickie) by one of the choir members who really upset him by picking him up and trying to keep him in the choir loft. She asked doubtfully, "Can he go down the stairs by himself?" People, he's been going up and down those stairs for months. By himself. Carrying toys and whatnot. Plus, I *told* him to go downstairs. Another choir member, better known to Teddy and myself, picked him up and talked to him, but he was still upset enough that I had to hold him almost the rest of the service.

He knows when the Gospel is. He knows he must either be held by me or sit or stand quietly. He sings, "Glory to You, O Lord," at just the right times, without any cues besides what's going on in the service. On the other hand, he's a wiggly two-year-old.

People usually come to me after I'm wrung out with trying to at least contain him when he's been acting up all through the services and say, "Oh, he was so *good* today!" So I appreciated being told that there have been problems with his behavior. (I wouldn't have brought him to the whole parish council meeting if I hadn't needed to tell the parish council things ... and, no, I don't trust my husband to remember them; he's got his own things he needs to take care of.)

The choir and I can't agree on a time for rehearsal. They say they'll come during Orthros (great, but I'm in church) or after Liturgy (I'm exhausted by then; again: I come to Orthros), but not after Vespers on Saturday. So then they're frustrated at sight-reading on Sunday morning. (I am one of very few people who can read music, and even for "Amen" some of them (who very much need to) just won't look up. Now I know what my band directors were always talking about.)

I don't mind preparing the music, and I don't mind singing planned (or unplanned) solos, even though this morning when I was going to review the music, I broke the plug for our electronic keyboard at home and have no idea whether I stayed in tone 4 for the hymn in church. Fr. Peter usually runs the rehearsals, as he's directed choirs properly before. We've talked about recording the hymns ahead of time and putting them on the church website, but there never seems to be time ... without a noisy boy in the background.

God gave me a husband and a son. The choir literally tricked me into being the choir director. (The parish has no money budgeted for a choir director next year, and there are few parishioners who are able, let alone willing, to step in.) It's painful to listen to this choir when there is no director. It's horrible to watch Teddy act up or cry and I'm not able to get to him because I'm in the middle of conducting a hymn. I love having Teddy in the choir, though. I love having him sing, even if he's playing with his trucks at the same time.

Because of the upcoming little one, my time as choir director is necessarily temporary, but with these new-to-me complaints, and with Teddy's increasing wiggliness, I think it will have to be shorter than I had previously expected.

Please pray that I am making the right decision. (I am sure there will still be complaints about the choir and about Teddy's behavior, myself chief among complainers as among sinners.) Teddy, my Theodore, my gift of God—he must come first. As my husband pointed out today in his focus on godparents: I will be judged for my efforts in bringing those in my care to Christ.

As usual, I wish there were an easy answer. Preferably involving ice cream. However, as in giving birth, the only way out is through, taking all my concentration and energy, for a most worthwhile effort.

O Lady who entered into the Temple today as a small child, the Holy of Holies who are yourself so near to God, intercede for me to your Son.

Chant stand

Well, today what I had hoped for happened, and I'm not sure whether I was ready.

None of the chanters showed up at the beginning of Orthros, so Fr. Peter filled in for them as he had before. And filled in... and filled in. Around the Doxology, he lifted his eyebrows and beckoned me up. I picked up the bulletin (with the hymns for the little entrance) and went up.

It was really quite terrifying. The first Sunday of each month is an all-English liturgy. Strange as it may sound, I am not used to singing many of the hymns in English. (I know what they mean, but they're more comfortable in Greek.) And I hadn't heard "my" versions in such a long while I was terrified that I would forget the melodies of what I do know. Fortunately, my husband was able to stay with me for most of the Liturgy, even though he turned over some things to me abruptly.

I received many compliments of which I feel unworthy, and I have been most definitely recruited to sing in the chapel choir. (During the school year, the assistant priest leaves the main church after Orthros, leading the school children to the chapel. They have liturgy there and are dismissed to Sunday school.) From what I understand, the church secretary has been running the chapel choir; when I mentioned that I hoped it was okay that I was putting off people who wanted me in the regular choir, she asked me why. I told her I wanted to be with my husband. She gave a big grin and said, "I thought so!"

And now back to the regularly scheduled Post-Liturgical Nap.

Choir Concert

On March 24 we had a nice little choir concert. There were lots of points of confusion, but everything seemed to get straightened out. The turnout was rather low, due to a monastery trip which many people seemed to take advantage of, and the presence of a bishop at vespers, but we did make a little money for Fr. Alexios' school in Kenya.

Dn. Virgil sang two solos and after the intermission I sang a solo and we sang a duet. It was really rather terrifying, since I hadn't sung "Una Voce Poco Fa" in *such* a long time, and I am not pleased with how the end came out, but all the people in the audience seemed to like it. To get over my stage fright, I relaxed into the feisty character: the theme of the song is "I'm so innocent, docile, biddable ... but! if you cross me in love, watch out! I've got tricks up my sleeve and I'll be like a viper and lay a thousand traps!" I think almost every single person mentioned that they liked the way I turned the page. (Silly me. I forgot to number "skilled page-turning" in my talents. Heh.) I was sad that nobody seemed to remark on his solos, though later someone said she had. (There were two other soloists, but they (and I) sung in the second half, so maybe the people forgot about Dn. Virgil's first-half solos. But I really liked the German song he sang, and am still hoping for a personal encore ... when I remember to ask for it again.)

Hopefully, I'll be successful in my continued requests for the DVDs to be available.

Dependency

Dn. Virgil is gone to New York this week for a senior trip to the Archdiocese.

Tomorrow, as previously noted, is my birthday. My birthday is forever doomed going to occur in Lent. The past two years he has made me a birthday cake from scratch. Last year's was all crumbly and lumpy, like a chocolate volcano. I was so disappointed to find out I wasn't "allowed" to come on the trip, so disappointed to realize that he was going to be away on "my" day, that I started missing him early. And very emotionally.

I realize that it's over-emotional, but that doesn't mean that I've been able to stop. It's a good thing I have tasks to accomplish to take my mind off the fact that there's a husband-sized hole in my life right now. I am beset with thoughts and images telling me that he'll be in an accident and I'll never see him again, but I don't think those are from God, so I am doing my best to pray hard to dispel these thoughts. I still tear up, like a giant baby, about once an hour at work.

Being at work is good, except that I'm getting to the part of my to-do list that I've been putting off (it's not important, but I should still do it) for a couple of months now. It's a little weird not to be putting out fires, but I'm pretty sure this is only a brief reprieve, so I should make good use of this time. In the evenings, I've been making plans to go to the gym (last night), and go grocery shopping and have dinner with a neighbor (whose husband is also on the trip), and attend the choir rehearsals. There's also quite a bit of administrative stuff for the concert to prepare for: getting a hold of Fr. Alexios for information about St. Mark's and whether he'd be able to say a few words during the concert; getting together with Diana to go over solo pieces; getting binders and music and information to people who need them; and getting the program finalized and printed out. And I need to schedule a confession, always a difficult task. I came too late to chapel last night to find a priest to ask.

Last night, as I was going into the gym, I was chatting with a student coming out. He remarked that my being away from Virgil and missing him so much sounded like another form of fasting. Reading this post on fasting also helped me take a step back and evaluate how what I was feeling was dominating how I thought and what I did.

I have been leaning too hard on my husband. Yes, he can take it, and gracefully, but it's not good for either of us. I look to him for reassurance on everything. This morning, I got up on the third snooze (not the fifth or the sixth, as usual) and was out the door with time to get fuel and still be early to work (not five minutes late, or just barely on time). I even had to make all of my own lunch. I haven't sliced bread in months, much less had to get the loaf out of the machine.

I know comparisons are odious, but I look around at my peers and I see adults: one has a little baby and another on the way* and is going to Ethiopia to see whether their family has a calling to missions; another has a baby with one on the way* and is struggling to cope with being a stay-at-home mother and writer while her husband is gone much of the time; another is expecting,* with her husband gone, and yet extends the hand of friendship to me, inviting me over for dinner tomorrow night. I struggle for half an hour to reply to an email from the last of these, stressed because I have to make decisions about what I will do in the next two evenings, without any feedback from my husband about what I do or how I phrase things in the email.

*I don't mean to say that the only people I admire are pregnant, or that it's all I think about, but I am especially impressed with people who not only have things together to the extent of being able to handle (not just physically) the demands of being responsible for life besides their own, but are expanding in other realms of their lives as well as being gracious and hospitable. Writing out a list of these three, however, has made me realize that God has given them to me as icons, holding out a hopeful picture of the strengths he would like to share with me if I choose to keep working on myself.

Oh, it hurts to grow, but how little and small and ugly I am now! Pray for me, a sinner.

Ordinary

"Ordinary" comes from the Latin ordinarius meaning "customary, regular, usual, orderly." —"Ordinary People," Boundless, Roberto Rivera y Carlo

I finished the scarf I had been knitting for Dn. Virgil. I didn't really want to, since I hadn't finished the skein, but the sky dumped a lot of snow on us yesterday (enough for boots), he's going to New York next week, and it's long enough (longer than he wanted, which I thought was too short).

It curls, so I blocked it. Who says my college calculus book isn't still useful? (Along with four other math and computer science books from my husband's previous academic life, that is.) Then I went online, since it was still curling, and found out that knitted stitches are smaller than purled stitches, so stockinette stitch (where one side is all knit-stitched and the other all purl-stitch) is physically bound to curl. :( But I also found some patterns for simple scarves so I can try something else (like just plain knitting for both sides, for instance) for the next scarf. I think I will keep my eye open for natural fabrics (not terribly happy with the whole "acrylic" thing) which are multi-colored and purple.

I've also been trying to get things in order for his trip to New York. Last night (amid basketball watching, natch), we put together a list of things for him to take on the trip. We can't start packing yet because we can't get to our things in storage, despite having spoken to our neighbor and the Housing director guy. This is the latest in a long-standing series of problems in terms of the storage area in the basement and our being (un)able to access our pallet, but this is the worst: there's no space in the middle of the floor, so all I can do is turn on the light, turn it out, and let my husband know. I distracted him with Victor Borge, because he's getting a bit fed up with this, too.

So I put together a binder for him with choir music and solo (and duet) music for next Saturday's concert.

You are cordially invited to the campus of Hellenic College / Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology for a concert by the "Deacon's Singers" at Maliotis Cultural Center on March 24, 2007, at 7:00 pm, with proceeds to benefit the St. Mark's Orthodox School in Kenya.

Tickets are $5, and I think you get them at the door. We still need to talk to Fr. Alexios, who is a student here and who started St. Mark's school, about offering some comments during the concert.

We have all the choir pieces pretty much together, but there are lots of last-minute things to take care of, making sure everyone has everything in order for this concert, has a binder, etc. I'm getting frustrated with the people in the choir and my own inability to figure things out. It's also difficult to figure out what I'm singing (soprano line v. alto line). I'm tired of my husband (and my, but mostly his) hard work going unappreciated. Simple things like not telling him (although he asks every week) that someone's not going to be at rehearsal.

Anyhow. Going back to the "my hard work" things, I've put together a first draft of the program for the concert. You know, notes about the pieces, a la Dan Stowe, paragon of choir directors. I'll need to cut it down, since it's seven pages (for ten pieces, not including anything about the solos and duets which haven't yet been decided upon. Solos and duets: Dn. Virgil has a couple of short solos picked out (German and English), I have an Italian aria, we're thinking about a couple of duets (Loch Lomond - English, and Dunque Io Son - Italian), Mari has a couple of English pieces in mind, and Vinnie might do some. Diana is an angel to even consider all that accompaniment. It sounds pretty exciting to me. I don't know my choir pieces well enough to be happy about them, it's been years since I've done Una Voce Poco Fa (although when I was at ND, I downloaded 27 different versions so I could study what different singers had done with it: Marilyn Horne and Victoria de los Angeles were my two favorites), and I've never actually looked at the Dunque Io Son piece.

This morning while Dn. Virgil was at the senior retreat (to which I made him wear his "Irish By Marriage" pin, provided by my mother in years past), I slept in. Then I cleaned house - it had gotten pretty messy in days previous, when we were trying to find the Dunque Io Son piece. We never did, but Dn. V went to the library and got the opera score (Barber of Seville) and scanned in the piece and I printed out copies at work.

I'm still upset that he will be gone next week. It's bad enough that he'll be gone for five days in a row—we've never really slept apart—but he'll be gone for my birthday. I refuse to open any presents early, and I don't want to open them on my birthday (how depressing would that be? opening presents all. by. myself.), so I'm saving them for after he comes back.

Nine more weeks, right?

P.S. I do mean to respond to comments... more than just in my head, that is.

Fall Choir Concert 2006

On December 7 we had our choir concert. Either the night before or at the warm-up practice just prior to the performance we changed the unofficial "HC/HC Chorale" to the "Deacon's Singers."

Program(me)s of the concert include quite a bit of background information and translations, and are available upon request. Mugur took a DVD of the concert itself, which is pretty nice except for the zooming into giant heads, and, of course, any footage of me.

A brief synopsis of our concert:

• Iată, vin colindători! (arr. Tiberiu Brediceanu)
  
• Contrapunto Bestiale Alla Mente (Adriano Banchieri)
  
• L’Ultimo Dì de Maggio (Sebastian Festa)
  
• Der Abend (Johannes Brahms)
  
• Georgian Wedding Hymn (Psalm 44:8-10)
  
• Heavenly Light (Alexander Kopylov, arr. Peter J. Wilhousky, English text by Alice Mattullath)
  
• Jesus Christ, the Apple Tree (Elizabeth Poston )
  
• Lullay My Liking (Gustav Holst)
  
• Pastime with Good Company (King Henry VIII of England)
  
• My Lord, What a Mornin’! (Negro Spiritual, arr. 1924 Henry Thacker Burleigh)

Diana Eynon provided accompaniment for Der Abend, and when she was attending rehearsals, we stole her as an alto and as a conductor. Mari conducted the rest of the pieces, and is purely responsible for my smiling the entire way through the concert. (Her idea of making sure people's eyes are watching her conduct is to make faces.)

I had my first choral-related vocal solo (that is, first vocal solo aside from recitals from voice lessons), which was both exciting and terrifying, especially in consideration of the fact that I never managed to practice the solo outside of rehearsals.

It went well enough that we were invited to attend the campus Christmas party the next evening and perform some of our Christmas-y selections there. While we were up, it was decided that we would lead the general carolling. Which was unfair. We had a giant group of screaming children right in front of us, only to be appeased if we started singing the song they wanted (Rudolph and, ironically, Silent Night are all I remember). Also, since Vickie couldn't make it for this encore performance, Virgil sung her solo and had his first solo.