Stuck In...

I got the EvilEye™ from my choral director during a performance with Judy Collins last winter. We were in the middle of The Water Is Wide – my favorite tune of the set and perhaps the biggest reason I look forward to singing in that show every year. It’s such an amazing piece and sounds so good with the keyboard and the background vocals. We had arrived at the third chorus where the key change happens and the feeling swells and the alto part is marvelous and…I got utterly lost. I completely forgot I was performing. The moment swept me away and I didn’t want to let it go and…ugh, apparently, I was just a hair off from the rest of the group. So I got a much-deserved EvilEye™.

I have that problem, though. Some moments are just so incredibly beautiful that I can’t seem to let them go. I want to squeeze out the marrow…to experience the moment to its absolute fullest…freeze-frame…hold on…keep it going…stop time…

…but time, of course, won’t stop. Not ever.

And then…when it’s finally, clearly over…when day breaks…when the sun sets…when it’s patently obvious that there is absolutely nothing more to be had… Only then, it seems, will I…sadly, reluctantly…let it go.

The feeling is like air rushing out of a balloon...and I crash back to reality with a sickening thud. Life’s EvilEye™.

I was a huge Anne Rice fan when I was younger. Her vampire characters were always warned by the elders to not drain the last of the victim…to stop short of feeling their death. I should take that advice when it comes to these moments. I’m holding them too long…feeling their end…experiencing their death. And the death of the moment is really much too hard to take.

I need to learn to let go while there’s still life left…and trust that it won’t be the very last moment ever.

And if the night runs over
And if the day won't last
And if your way should falter
Along this stony path
It's just a moment
This time will pass