Month: July 2010

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Bicyclepiphany

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know that I’m not much of an athlete. I am pretty proud of my progress with the Body-for-LIFE program (it’s way past the 12 weeks now, but I’m 20 lbs. lighter, so yay), but I’ve been exercising just at home using videos and our Bowflex. It’s not like I play team sports or participate in any triathlons.

Last month, I housed one of the out-of-town tenors in The Crossing (he was here for the Month of Moderns), and he went running almost every day. I started asking about his running habits, and before I knew it, he had cajoled me into running with him three times a week. I don’t think I did that poorly, but my hip really started hurting every time we went out, and I have decided not to continue with the routine now that he has gone home.

(I also knew that I probably wouldn’t be keeping up with my exercise routine while on vacation, but I think every once in a while we all have to take a break, so I’m not going to be too hard on myself).

I mention all this now because this morning my cousin (who my dad and I are visiting) suggested that we all go bike riding through Chico’s Bidwell Park.

I’ve always had a difficult time with bicycles. My dad taught me how to ride a bike when I was nine or ten, but for some reason I really resisted learning, and while I do know how to ride, I never got very good at it. Biking in traffic freaks me out, and I could never figure out which gears were which on my bike…so anxiety always creeps up whenever even the thought of biking comes up. Nevertheless, I know the best way to counteract anxiety is to meet it head-on, so I agreed to go biking. But I warned my cousin that I wasn’t very good, and I hadn’t done it in a long time.

To which he responded, “That’s not a problem. Chico is very flat, and we won’t go fast.”

Bicycle tireMy cousin loaned me his everyday bike, and he pulled out an old one-speed from his shed (which he had to hose off because of all the cobwebs). My dad had brought his own bike on this trip, so he was all set. I test-drove the bike up and down the street, and once I had assured myself that I still remembered how to ride, we were off to the park.

Chico is a small town in the heart of Northern California, almost halfway between San Francisco and the Oregon border, in the middle of almond country. While we were out biking, people were honking and waving at my cousin, and it really had the feel of a Midwestern town from the ’50s, where everyone knows everyone else…such a difference from Philadelphia or New York or even San Francisco! (Okay, it doesn’t hurt that my cousin owns one of the bars in town).

And I had fun! We biked through parts of Bidwell Park, which, at about 11 miles in length, is one of the largest city parks in the U.S. We didn’t bike the whole way through…we made it about three miles in, and my cousin wanted to turn around and go back. I wasn’t tired at all, but I was hungry, so I was happy enough to stop and eat some Thai food in the middle of town.

But while we were biking, I realized my anxiety was melting away. I could easily shift gears on the bike I was riding, because shifter had all the gears numbered, which was so wonderful and new! On my old bike, I was constantly guessing as to what gear I was in, and which way was higher and lower. And because Chico is such a small town, I didn’t have to worry too much about traffic. We kept to the smaller side roads and crossed the larger roads at the lights, plus the cars always stopped for us (I’ve never seen that happen in Philly!).

And I realized that the reason I never liked going biking was that I didn’t have enough positive experiences like this, where I could go at a nice, leisurely pace and feel confident. Even the few times I have gone biking with my husband, I always felt like a big wuss because I got so nervous around intersections.

The thing is, I know cycling is better exercise for me than running, especially since I have a bad knee. So maybe I should spend some time biking on my own when I get home. I live in a suburban neighborhood, which has a lot more of those smaller, quiet roads, so I can work on my confidence on the bike before I venture out into traffic. And then, just maybe, when I feel like I’m up to it, I’ll join a bike team and train for a triathlon.

First, though, I have to find a bike that has a shifter I can understand. Baby steps.Shifter

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Orange Juice and Aviation

Most of the time I don’t like talking to people on the plane. The last time I sat next to a chatty airplane passenger, I was on my way to Boston to start college. And while that person really wanted to offer advice on starting out in the world, I just wanted to be alone with my thoughts and fears.

Since then, I have learned to surround myself with various fortifications to prevent chatty in-flight neighbors (books, magazines, and the ever-important MP3 player with headphones), but today none of them worked.

The girl was one of the last to board the plane, and she sat in the middle seat, dashing my hopes for elbow room throughout the flight. But I kept to myself and she kept to herself (except for when she told the lady on the aisle about 2 minutes in the air that she really had to pee so she might have to leap over her when one of the lavatories opened).

Then the beverages came around. Southwest Airlines doesn’t serve food on its flights, so we got a snack pack and an orange juice, which I promptly spilled on myself before I managed 2 sips! This resulted in me having to call the flight attendant and mop up my tray, my lap, my iPhone…all the while, my neighbor helped by holding things and talking about how she was surprised it hadn’t been her who had spilled something, because she had been up for the last 36 hours.

I couldn’t resist asking, when given such a blatant invitation, “Why were you awake for so long?”

I didn’t have to open my paperback for the rest of the flight, she kept me so entertained.

Turns out she reconnected with an old flame, someone she had always thought of as a soulmate, and for whom she had been carrying a torch for lo these 8 long years (one-third of her life!). They spoke on the phone a few days ago where he revealed that he had been in love with her this whole time too.

No, she was not on her way to visit him, much to my disappointment. Instead, thus trip was to visit her grandfather, who planned to pass his knowledge of traditional Navajo jewelry-making to her. She had just graduated from the Moore College of Art & Design, and although she had just signed a year lease in her Philadelphia apartment, based on what she was telling me, she wouldn’t be staying in Philly for too long.

All in all, she was a sweet, open girl…very green, but talented with the pencil (she showed me some of her sketches, which were really lovely).

She has some aspirations to become a singer-songwriter, but she doesn’t know how to read music. She played some of her songs for me, and I suddenly realized exactly why one of my composer friends hates pop music…not because of its lyrical content, but because the musical make-up is simple and pedantic. This girl, of course, was just imitating what she was familiar with; so the songs were, like her, sweet and honest, but not really engaging or exciting. It seemed to me that she would be much better off concentrating on her visual art.

She asked me about myself, too…she was interested in what married life was like (probably dreaming of Mr. Eight-Year-Crush), and when I told her I was an opera singer, she wanted to know if I had any recordings of myself. I said yes, and played for her some snippets from my recital. She said my voice was “like one of those birds with shimmering plumage that you would love to touch but can never get close to.”

Of course I was flattered, but even more than that, I saw a girl who just wanted to absorb everything like a sponge, and it was nice to talk to someone like that on the first leg of my trip. When we landed in Houston, I gave her my card and told her to find me on Facebook.

The second leg of my trip, from Houston to Oakland, was fairly uneventful. I napped and tried not to spill anything else on myself. After all, I only packed one pair of pants for this journey!

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The Crossing: Month of Moderns II

I know I was going to write about my learning process. Trouble is, I’ve been too busy learning to write about it!

I’m really excited about the concert I’ll be peforming in today, though. The Crossing is in the middle of its second annual Month of Moderns (a festival of new music), and we’re doing some really wonderful stuff. I’m especially excited about the piece by Lansing McLoskey that we commissioned for our “Levine Project” (works inspired by the poetry of Philip Levine). His piece is called The Memory of Rain, and I feel like it really captures Levine’s juxtaposition of industry and nature quite brilliantly.

Here is a podcast of our conductor, Donald Nally, discussing Levine’s poetry with composers Lansing McLoskey and Paul Fowler (we will be premiering his commissioned piece for the Levine Project next week).
[audio:http://www.supermaren.com/Audio/Crossing_Volume_4.2.mp3]