Discipline into Momentum

I've told myself the best thing to do in all the chaos/whirlwind that outside the music brings is simply keep to one windmill. I'm tilting at writing daily.

I found a box of books today on the sidewalk. Don Quixote/Man of La Mancha dog eared at the top of the pile. Name carefully written - in pen - on the flyleaf of each book. Who Adele was and why her books are neatly boxed on the corner eludes me.

Man of La Mancha rips me back to my father working for IATSE Local 33 in downtown LA and me sitting quietly in a free theater seat as Richard Harris tried once more. Dulcinea's song - born in a ditch etc. - had more of an impact on me than the impossible dream song. I sang it under my breath for weeks, trying to figure out how it was true for a young, untried, unchallenged girl who'd never even seen a windmill, let alone a soldier.

Back then I did think that singing a song meant living the exact words. I considered hitting Hollywood & Vine, bought a short dress. A bit of time living Dulci's world simply brought me a huge wave of frustration. I was trying to find a way into a world that was so far out of my range of experience that no bridge short of leaping into full time immersion would get me the reality I wanted to convey.

I wanted to convey that feeling of being Dulcinea, excelling at one life and yet aching to try another one - knowing the ins and outs of one way of being as another person beckons from inside you. Finding a guide to show the way out of the now, but not finding the trust needed to leap after them as they navigate the corners easily. The same corners that bruise you as you take turns too fast, or lose sight of your sherpa as you hesitate.

It took me weeks to figure out that my frustration at not being able to join Dulcinea's world was the same as Dulcinea's rage at Quixote for showing her a world she could never live in.

I learned from Man of La Mancha that for veracity in singing what counts is the feeling. Not the reality.

Dulcinea was wounded, battered, triumphant, powerful. She saw a world outside her own and reached/withdrew/reached/withdrew for and from it. All that is needed to sing her song is the feeling of hesitant yearning, the fierceness, and the frustration.

Years later I found a windmill at the ocean end of the big park in San Francisco. They're huge. I can't even imagine how much courage Quixote had.