stage fright

Even though my doctor told me not to sing until my vocal chords heal, I just had to sing a rendition of Elvis Costello’s ballad Alison for my boss’s going away party last week. It was a tribute I could not forgo, no matter how impaired my vocal.

I was in the midst of a bad cold with lots of congestion in the week leading up to the performance -- just a few days before I had no voice at all. Which meant I had to rely heavily on my breath for projection of the notes and words. This turned out to be not such a bad thing.

Getting up on stage was something else again. Boy do I have stage fright. I’m so scared I physically shake, my palms sweat, and my heart races. I think I’m scared of being judged harshly. Which reveals, I think, that I must tend to judge others very harshly. Otherwise, why would I be so scared?

One thing that trying to overcome stage fright does do – that to me is totally unexpected – it makes me less judgmental! Every time I go up and stand before a mass of people and bare my soul, and ultimately screw it up, it makes me less apt to judge other people unduly. It gives me empathy. It also makes me totally happy.

I’m not sure why going up on stage and laying it all out there makes me so happy. Maybe because it is so “in the moment”, or maybe because each time I do it I feel I have overcome such a great barrier in my own psychic pathology that I feel like Rocky or something.

Whatever the reason, it is cathartic. It suspends time and turmoil, treading into that floating consciousness somewhere between my feet on the stage and my head floating out to Jupiter. On the backbeat of course! Leaving every earthly care somewhere down along the curb and gutter.

I closed my eyes and left the room while I stood there on stage. Behind my eyelids I found an ecstatic phantasm of presence in the absence. My heart slowed to the beat of the music, and I waited for my turn of the rope and jumped in. I sang my heart out.

I belted every line. I hit those notes out to the audience like a major league batter. And it seemed every one was at least a base hit. It was like I grew and grew and grew, until I was too big for the room. I expanded to the ceiling and out into the crowd. What a feeling!

Then when the song ended, I landed. I shrunk back to normal size and fumbled my way back into the tables and chairs, tinkling glass, and the drone of the gossiping crowd. Did they applaud? I haven’t any idea. I was not in the room.

My boss liked it though. That was enough.
Farewell friend, and good luck.