March 22, 2022: Whole Lotta Cotta -

Choir is happening again. I am a) ecstatic, b) replacing the missing buttons on my robe*, and c) thinking all sorts of pseudo-profound thoughts, such as, “The performing arts are really different from painting alone in my studio!”  (Thank you, Celia! Does anyone else have something they would like to share?)

Also, the performing arts are time-based! If you make a mistake in a performance, that’s it! (Thank you! Anyone??) 

And that’s not all! In the performing arts, one is generally part of an ensemble of some sort, and you need to Work with Other People!

And yes, I have been performing since I was four. It’s just that it’s been a long break, is all. The professionals in the choir, who sang in small groups throughout the pandemic, have been working like stevedores, while the rest of us have been (or at least, I have been) rusting. We processed into the church Sunday down the side aisles instead of up the center, so in a different order! Astonishing!

Then later, we closed with the “Hymn in Procession,” which I cannot recall having seen or heard before (it might be in there, under the rust) yet … we did not Process back out! We waited until the hymn ended! Which was wonderful, since I’d rather sight-read standing still than walking. Confused Yay!

After a two-year hiatus, it’s reminiscent of when I first joined choir. That very first Sunday, the director did not have us sing even one verse of the closing hymn during warmups, because, “You all know this.” 

I did not know this, actually!

I’m a fair sight-reader (when not walking), but it was my very first Sunday, and I was terrified: clearly I ought to have grown up Episcopalian, or at least grown up going to church. If anyone realized I didn’t know the hymn already, I might be Found Out and booted, on day one.

For a while, every Sunday was an adrenaline rush: I missed a note! I’ll be kicked out! (Fortunately, young Lydia sat me down and said “You could freak out back when you were in a college singing group that performed once a term. But you can’t freak out every Sunday.” Thank you, Lydia!)

Anyway, the Working with Others thing was cracking me up a bit this week, because if I get confused, I tend to follow the experienced alto nearest me, and 90% of the time, that’s the right move. But 10% of the time, I should trust myself, because even experienced singers do slip. Of course, it helps to know WHEN it’s that 10% of the time….

And thinking about the whole delicious performing arts tension - discerning when you should continue “doing it right” and when you should follow others - I was suddenly back in junior high.

There are maybe five people who regularly read these musing who WERE THERE in junior high. I hope some of them remember this moment, which still fills me with hilarity.

We were in an awful play. I can say that because the drama coach’s wife wrote it, and both of them are long gone. It was a melodrama about a drama coach, and a troubled student, and so forth. Heavy, Deep, and Real, as one friend used to say. It was so much worse than you are imagining.

In the performance, we were wading through the turgid dialogue, when one of us inadvertently leapt ahead several pages.  We leapt with him, good cast members that we were, for a page or so, all silently signaling each other as we realized the pickle we were in. (I say silently, because no one stopped and wailed, “OH NO!,” but I suspect the looks of alarm we were flashing each other may have been evident.) Then, hallelujah, some fourteen-year-old genius improvised a line or two that put us right back where we needed to be, before the leap! 

Invisible, telepathic high-fives all around, probably a few big smiles that did not fit the dramatic mood of the scene.

And on we went! Back on track!

Until gradually it dawned on each of us that we were soon approaching the section we had already done, and … unless we could find a way to leap over it … we were going to say it all again.

Lots of eye contact. No bright ideas. The train had reached full speed.

We just plowed through. Word for word, gesture for gesture. The whole section, again. No one laughed. No one broke character. Agony, but we did it TOGETHER.

Did anyone in attendance notice? Did my brother mention it later? I have blocked this entirely. Maybe the audience was numb. All I have is my memory of traversing the loop itself: the Initial Terror, after we leapt; the Miraculous Recovery and Delight; the Tragic Fading of Delight, and Dawning of the Greater Terror, as we came around the bend; the Insane Repeat. It’s one of the comic highlights of my life. I’ve been in a good mood all afternoon, savoring the memory.

(*Why did I mention the missing buttons? We wear this white surplice/cotta over the robe, so no one can see that my current robe – sadly, not my trusty companion from Before, which must be Working from (Somebody’s) Home, but the ancient one I recently scrounged – has a gap in the buttons between ribcage and hip. Well! Now’s the time, because Beth says on Good Friday, we don’t wear the surplice - another custom that had slipped my memory, but if that’s so, then my gaping middle will be revealed. So: button time, and boy, am I ever glad she let me know!

Here’s a whole article on the difference between a surplice and a cotta, from the Liturgical Arts Journal. And here’s just an excerpt, so you can enjoy the tone:  

Some would suggest that a surplice is the longer, plainer garment, reaching to the knee (or further below) while the cotta is that which reaches to the waist or just below it.  This distinction is tenuous, at least historically.)