Life in Paris

Bio Part IV - The Artist of my Life

Lifeinparis — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 03:39:53 GMT

In the 7 years after college that I spent working a corporate job and working my art at night, my self-esteem was finally formed. I think it's never too late, but it does take some patience. It take time to see slow steady progress in things that one can be proud of. For me it was making money, saving a small nest egg, and advancing ever so slowing in music and art. Little by little, joy was seeping into my days, and I had found a strength to trust again that I can accomplish my goals.

So I trusted it. I trusted this obvious desire I had to travel, and speak french and go on an adventure all by myself. I had earned myself some time off from work. I had saved enough to give myself some time away to think and take a breath.

One thing was clear, now was the time. I had the $ and had no reason to stay. And if I stayed much longer, well it would be too late. Life was giving me a last chance at something I had wanted since I was 14. Nothing like a last chance to motivate me off my keester.

Coincidentally, I had bought tickets to the last Phish show (music group - jam band that I had loved since college). It was in Vermont, and in looking into Plane tickets, Montreal was the closest, cheapest city to fly into. That's how I ended up in Montreal. A friend talked extensively of the Jazz scene there. They spoke french. It was a foreign country, but close to home. There was simply no reason not to go. and believe me, I searched for one. I was scared for sure. But life made it just too easy to resist.After staying in Montreal for a few days after the concert, I just knew I could do it.

A year later, I drove through middle America, Hope Marie my doggie in the back, sick with a travel tummy, and my car jammed pack with art supplies, books I hadn't read, and my keyboard. I had never felt so free.

I arrived just in time for the Jazz festival, and I was flying high.

Took a few weeks, and then the loneliness hit. I realized that having too much time can be a curse. I attacked my stack of books, visited Starbucks daily, and practiced my ass off on the keys. But still I needed more. I need a network of people and places to be.

Music was again the answer. I started private lessons, and got to know some locals at some jazz bars in my neighborhood. The myth was true that the city was so alive with jazz. The music I was hearing at the dives around the corner, no cover, totally fresh and experimental. Man, I was in heaven.

A miracle then happened that really set me on my current path. I was wandering the city, taking picture and exploring, when I saw a building I found to be the most beautiful building in the world. I was drawn to it. I ended up sitting for hours on it's graceful steps leading to... well it took a while for me to start to be curious about that. About what the building housed. But suddenly I realized that all the students around me, smoking their cigarettes, had instruments with them. I had landed at the steps of a music school. And I was so envious of these kids, I was so jealous of them. I had never realized how much I wanted to go to music school myself. How much I wished I had had the balls, the guts to follow my desire. Since I was 14 I had hid this desire from myself because it didn't fit into my idea of the world. But the desire was still there. So many years later, it never died. It was only waiting. Waiting for me to be ready. And it hurt to face it, but it also brought the sweetest news ever... that it wasn't too late. I didn't know that day. In fact, it wasn't until my next private lesson that I realized I was being given yet another chance at yet another buried dream.

My teacher coincidentally brought up the idea of auditioning for a music workshop. An atelier where you play in a jazz ensemble under the guidance of a professor each week. The auditions were in a week, and here was the clencher... it was in the building I had fallen in love with. McGill Conservatory.

Though I had no confidence in myself that I could make it in, the coincidence of it all made me realize I had to try. I couldn't not try.

And well, I did get in. And my new life began.

How forgiving life is. How many second and third chances do we get? I was now given the chance to be one of those students I had been envious of. I spent the next 4 months playing jazz standards in that beautiful building with 4 other musicians. It was humbling, to see how much work i had ahead of me if I really wanted to play jazz. But I had the kindest teacher I've ever known. He believed in all of us, and gave his sunshine freely. And I was encouraged. Life was telling me that life would help me, if only I'd dare to follow my heart's desires.

In reality, my life has passed so slowly, so many days, so many ups and downs. But to write about it here is so satisfying. To make it into a simple story. A plain arrow pointing so clearing to this moment as I write this. After two years in a jazz school in Paris, about to start my 3rd, I've become accustomed to the pieces of my life falling into place. I'm a much better musician, and a much better french speaker but mostly I'm much better at trusting. Trusting my desires have been the key to becoming the artist of my life.

Bio Part III - Rise and Shine

Lifeinparis — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 02:49:57 GMT

I went to France to study abroad for a semester in 1997. Strasbourg, capital of the then newly formed European Union. I could see the EU complex from my balcony, but it's significance was lost on me.

As were many aspects of my experience there.

Those 5 months seemed so long, so far away from what was my whole world. Not Texas per say, but a boy that lived there.

A boy I had met just prior to leaving.

I think when one is accustomed to sleeping through their life, this is the hardest habit to break. I wanted desperately to awaken and take charge of my life, but my will just wasn't strong enough to turn away from the traps lulling me back to sleep. There were just too many of them every single day.

This boy awoke in me my love of music, but he all too quickly became another excuse to keep sleeping. For it felt as if I were really to awaken, he'd be gone. I loved him more than I loved myself, more than life, more than God.

And I came back from France no longer empty. But I was filled with nothing but thoughts of him. Worse was my complete sense of failure at having spent most of my time in France wishing I were back home with him.

Needless to say, despite a sincere love for each other, our relationship was not healthy and after a few turbulent years, my fears were realized. In order to really awaken, I had to loose him.

And in his absence, I had only my love for music. If for no other reason, it was a connection to him. And so by his most cruel actions, he was my kindest savior. Stinging me awake everyday - bathing me in the Pain I'd been sleeping to avoid. And the only thing that made any of it bearable was music. His gift to me was the motivation I needed to play music. And his gift is a gift of a lifetime that I will forever be thankful for.

I was always a singer, that much was clear to me. But I wanted to learn an instrument to accompany myself as I was too shy to search out other musicians. Oprah had given some advice for women who were lost to themselves. She said to look back at things we did as children.

Well I played piano. So 9 years ago, in the midst of a terrible break up depression, my mom took me to a pawn shop and bought me a keyboard.

6 years passed by like that. I worked a corporate job as a photo researcher and lived for my nights and weekends of creativity.

I didn't date too much, didn't have too much of a social life for one main reason... I was scared to death I would loose myself again in those around me. I was determined I'd rather be alone and hear my own voice, than fall back unconscious.

All this time, music and my arts were a way to heal myself, to express myself. To find out what I really wanted, who I really was, what was truly important to me.

My self esteem had been so low, and my self doubt so high, that it took that long to begin to know myself again. Like a scientist, I only accepted the themes that kept returning over and over again. I wasn't able to tell what was real and what was fantasy, what I like and what I disliked, except by a measure of constancy and persistence. My mind changed a 1,000 times a day on all issues, but certain thoughts kept returning whilst others faded with the seasons and years.

Paris was one of those thoughts that stalked me. A passion always ignited in me at the thought of learning French as a girl, and the love I felt learning french in college.

I was late twenties by now and my friends were all settling down. My social life was weddings and baby showers and truthfully, I wanted this too. I wanted to be where they were, but no matter how much I wished, I just wasn't ready for this. I felt I couldn't breath when thinking of the life that starts after the wedding, usually involving a suburban morgage.

Feeling more and more out of place, I finally found the courage to go out in the world again. Babysteps. It always takes babysteps!

Bubble Burst - BIO Part II

Lifeinparis — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 12:24:10 GMT

From the outside, I had everything. On the inside I was scared and confused. I was with out any mode of self identification, nor self expression. What I was, was an expert at defining who I was based on what was most pleasing, least offensive, most accepted by those around me. And since different crowds came and went, I was dizzy and lacking any sense of stability. There was nothing to anchor me to myself.

When I think of it, I feel lucky I survived this time. But I guess it wasn't luck. Two things were my life lines: my philosophical search for answers in my mom's metaphysical self help books, and french.

Both interests were born to me in my 14th year, and welled up from the deep void that was swallowing me. I'm convinced now they rose from my soul at just the right moment to give me something to hold on to, in what turned out to be a long dark teenage coma.

When I awoke in my 20's the bubble world I had lived in burst. Our family was crumbling as mom decided to leave us all in search of herself. The appearance of the surface perfect family left with her.And just like that, we could no longer pretend we where happy. We were outed. All the ugliness we tried to hide from each other was forced to the surface.

I was forced to admit my life was not headed in the direction I had envisioned for myself. I was no where near the woman I hoped to be at 20 and my life was a series of choices that I knew weren't really me. Quite honestly I felt shallow, empty and unlovable. I blew where the wind took me and had not the muscles for conviction. I saw that if I continued this way, I never would have the strength to live a life of integrity.

I turned whole heartedly to my life lines now... reading more new age books than ever, and deciding that my one chance to change was to go to France to study. It was the only clear goal I could imagine for myself. 5 months in Strasbourg. I hoped desperately that it could change everything for me.

In the Beginning - My Bio Part I

Lifeinparis — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 05:25:17 GMT

When I was five years old, mom redecorated the house and decided a baby grand piano was exactly what the front room needed. In truth it was the only thing that could possibly fill the space and give it a solid function. And hence, the music room was born.

If my family already sounds a bit extravagant, well perhaps we were. But this was 1980, the start of the Regan years and would kick off a decade of flagrant American spending. This would also kick off the beginning of weekly piano lessons.

I remember being excited when we were told about this, but I also remember hardly understanding what it was we were excited about, my sister and I. And it wasn't long before our excitement was replaced with dread of daily practicing. It wasn't all dread, I remember I liked to try to make up songs and I also remember being frustrated.What I don't remember, that was revealed by a recent visit to Paris by my Hongarian Aunt, was that I had already been an experienced performer by the time I started my lessons. Singing You are My Sunshine to small crowds of family and friends whenever I was prompted by mom occurred quite frequently. Apparently I hardly shyed from the spotlight then. Something that changed drastically by the time I quit lessons at age 13. By then I had developed acute shyness and a sincere doubt that I had anything to offer the world musically. What happened to that little sunshine I was. What turned me from fearless to dreadful?

Life happened, that's what. Same thang that happens to most of us - except maybe the few who remain innocent and whole, never loosing their audacity to believe in themselves. They are the true geniuses of this world.

Who knows where the idea came from, but I got it in my head that only special people like Mozart could compose songs. Most of us did not have their talent and hence did not have the right to create songs. We were doome to play what the greats had played. This seemed the rules of the world to a young girl trying desperately to understand what the hell was going on. I do know that I believed by age 13 that I was nothing special. Though secretly I still fantacized I would be discovered someday, I set my immediate sights on fitting in.

A few years back, I read a book called Reviving Ophelia by Mary Pipher, which describes in psychological terms the mindset of adolescent girls. Dropping our identity in favor of one more pleasing and universally accepted becomes our goal at all costs. I sold myself to the demon of popularity and spent a soulless 7 years as a popular, but lost American teen girl.

Bio - Everyone Needs One?

Lifeinparis — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 19:04:57 GMT

Well to start this page, a short bio seems appropriate. I have to write one anyways, as it seems a necessary step when self-promoting, something I've never been good at, but must become good at if I am to pursue a musicians' career. So here goes...

Born and Raised in the suburbs of Houston, my life has always screamed ordinary. Whilst inside I was screaming for the extraordinary.

The two warring parts of me have finally reconciled after 18 years of creative soul searching and self-expression.

Artist, Photographer, Writer and Musician are all housed peacefully in an wonderfully ordinary Texas woman who has recently applied for citizen status of a healing world.

About to start my 3rd year of Jazz Piano at the American School of Modern Music in Paris, France, I am currently finishing final edits of my first book, yet untitled. I am also working as Fashion Reporter, as well as freelance writer, photographer, musician and educator.

what do you think? I'm open to feedback...