I did the work!

I had high hopes of writing a post a week about Emmeline, the opera I just closed, but those hopes fell away as tech and opening came and went. Now that we’ve closed, in addition to the usual reflecting on the process itself that I do on my own and with my advisor, I want to address something I’ve noticed while working on this show that I’d like to put out there.

Emmeline was the most wonderful, welcome distraction I could have asked for, and now that it’s over I am settling back into my everyday low-grade panic about post-SOT life. But I don’t want to talk about that, really, nor do I presume that anyone who might be reading this would want to hear about it. I’m interested, rather, in the idea of working on a show being a distraction from the anxieties that keep me up at night. Or, to reframe it more bluntly: just do the work!

I’m really proud of the work I did on Emmeline in that I just did the work. I’m not sure how else to put it but only after experiencing it did I realize what had happened. I just did the work without attaching extra unnecessary stress or stakes to it. In doing so, by just putting my head into the work, I was able to keep extraneous anxiety about the future at bay. And it was great! It was so welcome! I know being able to approach a process of this size with this level of ease has come from what I’ve learned here and from all the other processes I’ve been a part of that did not come easily. And that isn’t to say that Emmeline was easy. It wasn’t. But doing the work came with an ease that was so refreshing and exciting for me to experience before I graduate. Processes like Emmeline don’t come along often and I am so grateful this one came to me when I needed it most. For the rest of the semester I have to keep reminding myself of what I learned this past quarter: keep your head in the work and your feet will stay on the ground.