I’ve already burned through one novel in the space of about 48 hours (The Help, by Kathryn Stockett) and I’m keeping up with my iPhone Scrabble games as never before. In general, I’m not such a fan of down times. I feel lethargic and unproductive, and I have a perpetual sense that I just can’t figure out what’s wrong with me. It’s that damn leftover Midwestern work ethic.

But I’m also familiar enough with the artistic process by now to know that they are inevitable, like the ebb and flow of the tides or the blessed cool darkness after a bright hot day (did you hear that, weather? I said COOL darkness). And they are also useful. Like Rilke, I have faith in nights.

“Did you remember to be compassionate when you listened last night?” my engineer asked me on the second day of vocal tracking. He gave me the raw tracks to take home at the end of each day, so I could hear what I was doing and what I might want to change. Not being a studio singer (til now!), I’m used to hearing raw recordings of my voice: it’s called my voice lesson every week, or any recorded live performance. But being the recovering perfectionist I am (a topic I’ve never discussed in this blog before, I know) it did take a special kind of compassion to listen back. The mic(s) are only three inches away, you know. And being the recovering perfectionist I am, it’s taking a special kind of Zen mindgame to not want to get back in there and re-do every phrase I’m not perfectly (get it? get it?) happy with. But I’m getting there. I know there are things in there that I will always hear and you probably never will. And I also know that a snapshot of one moment only has to represent one time, not all time. And, I also know – and probably should focus a little more on – the fact that a) I am making this project a reality and b) it’s a pretty darn fantastic reality.

Can’t wait for you to hear it.

Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt.
Chase after money and security and your heart will never unclench.
Care about people’s approval and you will be their prisoner.

Do your work, then step back.
The only path to serenity.

—Tao Te Ching, verse 9. translated by Stephen Mitchell

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the fact that, in the not-too-distant future, this EP will be released and will begin to take on a life of its own. People will be able to hear it and perhaps for the first time in my life, meet me through my work without really meeting me. Not everyone will like it (I have a feeling that musical theater listeners are what one might call a niche audience). But I’m getting to be okay with that.

To be sure, there are plenty of artists I respect and even like, that I have not liked in every single thing they’ve done. Does it matter? Not a bit. Do they care? I’m sure they have no idea, and even if they did, what does my opinion have to do with their work? I admire artists like amanda fucking palmer, even though her music isn’t exactly my thing, but because she has the balls to put the word “fucking” in the middle of her name and create her art-to-the-masses site and blog and label and just, you know, do it. Not about to call myself “katie fucking zaffrann,” but you get the idea.

At my day job, I work in Customer Service for a major television network. We air a lot of different kinds of programming, and if I have learned one thing in my time there it’s that you can’t please everybody all the time. It’s an impossibility. (And dear me, but there are a lot of different perspectives and points of view in this world.) We even have a crafted response saying something along the lines of “with thousands of programs aired for a wide variety of viewers with different tastes, it is impossible for every program to please every viewer.” In other words: if you don’t like it, change the channel, and come back when you do.

Last fall I was walking through Central Park on a Sunday afternoon. It was a beautiful, warm day and the benches just below the Bethesda Fountain were packed with artists and spectators alike. A seedy, possibly odorous guy with a harmonica sat near an old gent in a beret with an easel and oil paints. A young violinist played away, well within earshot of the rollerblader with the hip-hop-blasting boombox. People chatted and strolled by and stopped to watch and listen; it was one of those tiny utopian moments with everyone coexisting, doing their thing and letting everyone else do theirs. New York Moments of this ilk are part of what makes the city great, and a big part of what has brought me out of my shell. Like I told my mom once when she was fretting over what to pack for her visit — you could wear a plastic bag, and no one would say anything.

I’m hoping that soon, the little girl that just wants everyone to like her will have been in New York too long to care. For one thing, it’s out of my control. For another, there are plenty of people in this world that I’m not sure I want to like me anyway. But really the point is that when it comes down to it, it makes me happy to follow this bliss and express the things in me that need expressing, and that’s what matters. If it makes you happy too, I’ll be thrilled! But for the moment, I’m not going to worry about that.

Heading into the studio in just over a week! I’m ready. Just gonna focus on the music and concentrate on flying.

Monday morning, I got up earrrrrrrly to celebrate the longest day of the year with some yoga in Times Square. As much as I loathe Times Square (with the fire of 1000 suns) and do my best to avoid it in my day to day life, I must admit that the sensation of lying in Savasana with the subway rumbling below me and the skyscrapers soaring above me (and the jackhammer rattling behind me) was, well, pretty cool.

Balancing and reaching up to the ceiling is one thing, but when that ceiling is the infinite sky, perspective goes out the window. Suddenly it seemed a precarious balance, all five feet five inches of me on two skinny legs. I felt myself wobble.

You are supported, the teacher reminded us. The ground is beneath you, supporting you. Trust that. We can extend because we are established.

I deepened my breath, planted my feet more firmly into the ground, and felt my stance solidify. We can extend because we are established. We can reach higher if we are grounded; we can stretch ourselves when we have built a solid foundation out of which to grow. The sun started to peek over the buildings and light up our faces.

All the days I sing my scales, vocalize and build that myelin around my healthy singing habits, I am laying the groundwork for the stretch, release, and LEAP that lies ahead.

All the days on the ground are what enable me to fly.

from black boy, by richard wright

(denise levertov)

For my part I tried out some new material, including finding a cut of one of my album songs (thanks, Mike Pettry). I have some vocal growth ahead of me before I can show that song who’s boss (me? a challenge? no!), and so to stand in a room – in front of people! – and sing the whole thing, through, without stopping or giving up or commenting on it – was a minor feat.

It sounds so elementary. And I consider class a safe space (I wasn’t trying it for the first time in the audition room, for pete’s sake). And yet, and yet. It still amazes me how nervous I can get before certain situations that theoretically have no stakes and no consequences.

But I wasn’t. I still have all the little stories I tell to deflect things; all the excuses I make and extraneous gestures and running commentary that is so apparent when I see it in other performers and yet it pours out of me from I know not where as soon as I get up in the hot spot. But I’ve come a long way.

And the most amazing thing, to me, was how un-amazing it was. There were no trumpets and I didn’t have a major breakthrough and I didn’t cry, or make my audience cry, either. I just sang a song, and I didn’t make it mean any more than that. In fact, I barely noticed how easy and unremarkable it had all been until later – because I guess sometimes the best kind of growth and change happens a bit at a time, when you’re not looking.

–V.S. Ramachandran, neurologist / neuroplastician

as read in The Brain That Changes Itself

mark helprin, winter’s tale

Even when I recognize Resistance so clearly, there are times I feel powerless to defeat it. (Now you know why I needed that War of Art book!) So I started small. I may not have gone to the two auditions I was planning on. But it was only 9 AM; all was not lost. I cleaned my house, sweating in the 80-degree humidity (that counts as exercise, right?) and ended up clearing my brain as well.

I had planned, by this point, to warm up and sing some songs from the album, write about it and call it a day. But the little voice told me to get my butt to one of those auditions anyway. So I did. And got a compliment, and a callback.

Just by showing up.