The line of a lifetime, or 4 hours

As some of you know, I auditioned for NBC's The Voice Season 3 yesterday. It was pretty much like any other tv singing competition--long lines of crazy people. I'd never considered myself crazy before that point.

I guess that brings me to why I was there in the first place. I spend my time (about 80% I'd say) doing things that teach me more about myself. Who I am, what I can do, where my heart is...and I suppose you can say this was one of those things.

Don't get me wrong, I love to sing. But it's not a passion of pursuit. A girl I met in the audition line was recounting her similar experiences for American Idol and The X Factor. There were young hopefuls by the handfuls, and not-so-young hopefuls by the dozen. And they all wanted to be there. Every single one of them. If I hadn't flown to L.A. for it, I would have just gone shopping and forgot the whole thing. 4 hours in a line? Please.

What I found more interesting were the people in my group of 10 in the same 15-minute audition session with me. The weakest one there really wasn't bad at all. He just would have done better choosing a song in his range and wasn't so nervous. But they all had the ability to sing, and the desire to be there.

The one girl who was asked to sing again was 17, and she was good. I don't know if I would call her ability great, but she was solid with a distinctive quality to her performance, and it is a tv show. And what she gave said, clearly, that she deserved a spot on the show.

It was rewarded by a spot on a maybe-call-back list.

There were 2 other things that stood out in that 4 hour experience.

One was the words of the production judge. "You were all good, but the rest of you just aren't in the 1% the show is looking for. This is an extremely competitive show. But thanks for coming in!"

It's not the feedback that struck me, it's the competition part. But that's a long thought that deserves a different post.

The other was the walk out of the room, when the two girls who spent their line-time prepping for a rejection they were 98% sure was coming were shocked that I was just as silent after the room as I was before it. I guess they thought my silence was nerves. That I was quiet except to warm-up because I was too scared to talk and be warm and friendly.

I did smile and answer their questions, and listen to their fears and jokes and where they were from. I wasn't unfriendly.

In fact, I'm not sure what they expected. Crying? Relief? Resentment? Bitterness?

"Nothing?? You're so quiet!" Said one girl with a white sweater and very red lipstick. That one is very, very infatuated with her boyfriend. I think he is new, because she talks about him with everyone, every chance she gets. He is her life, as many new boyfriends are in the first few months.  Perhaps she was waiting for my own boyfriend story. Or maybe for me to take my phone out of my bag and call someone.

There's always next year, they said before I disappeared out the door. For them, yes, I suppose there is. But I learned long ago that if I wanted something, I have to work for it. Dropping in and hoping isn't enough. For some, in a short distance, it is. But I'm not in it for the short distance, not anymore. I'm in it for eternity.

I think that is worth saying.

The Social Network

The other day I was meandering through the lists of people I should know on Facebook, and after about 20 minutes I was wondering why I wasn't done.

On one hand it was a fascinating experience--there were people on that list I hadn't thought about for roughly 10 years! I've had 10 years worth of acquaintances! Get out! Is that the guy who said--and did they really get married? Who--why? What is he doing? What happened to her??

Then I realized what I was doing and the enormity of all the people I do not consider, but at one time did in some way, mounted to the full height of what it really was. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people that I used to willingly give the time of day to that I now did not waited for me to consider them once more. And quite frankly that seemed like a very steep dive in my attempt to over come my now custom mode of social recluse.

I don't talk to anyone anymore, and I like it like that. Life consists of me, and my family, and a few friends...and that's all there needs to be. My grandmother lived 90 years and I'm sure she didn't care about what the girl who sat behind her on the school bus when she was...(I was going to say 7, but I don't think they had school busses then...). Even Facebook didn't begin with this enormity. It had about 30 people from the collective freshman dorms at BYU when it started. And while it's extremely small potatoes to post up a couple pictures and a post every now and again, I find it extremely exhausting to think of all the people Facebook is asking me to think about catching up with.

But I suppose overall I would deem Facebook's evolution and commandeering of our collective American society as a good thing with a few dark faces. But no wonder life get's so complicated. The wonder is plainly in the magnitude. There are just too many people for one person to try and connect to. Is it our mind's new way of organizing? Classifying people into groups, by work place, by school, by interest, by time period...is that really how we connect to people? Have we changed as people so much that our hellos need to be broadcast to all who subscribe? Are we really so inept to not be able to keep up with those we consider friends? Are we using Facebook as a replacement for real activities with real people and not pages of representation?

I don't know. That's when I logged out.

The Eternal Round

A certain freedom is cultivated by belonging to oneself.  Don't be mistaken; that does not mean that life is best lived solo, without any other being or influence present.  Not at all.  But why belong to anyone else without belonging to your self first?

Yet we often do what breaks us for the sake of another.  We idolize it--giving our self away to everyone and everything for every reason possible.  Someone told me to. My parents did it.  I was paid for it. It was part of a deal. He triple-dog-dared me on a times-infinty-pinky swear.  Everything claims us, as we claim it, but when do we claim ourselves?

Most settle; staking down to a place, a job, a love.  They stay put.  Once it seemed cliché to stay put.  So overdone, so common, so traditional, so over-appreciated.  But at the same time, it's comforting, easy.  Relaxing.  You don't have to count; you can just follow the beat of the blaring boom-box felt through the floorboards.  Some beautiful dance comes out of that.

I find myself dancing in spinning circles this morning.  Much like a top on an unstable surface, I follow the heaviest pull.  Without a purpose?  I have a purpose: my purpose is to wander.

It isn't that I'm homeless--it's that everywhere is home.  Spatial placement is a reflection of where your heart is, and well, my heart just doesn't stay in one place.  Or perhaps it's more accurate to say that it does, but it expands. A universal heart, which is everywhere yet no where all at once.

That's it; that's it.  I am she who wanders, never to settle, always to have settled already.  Yes.  This is what happens when one belongs to their self.

Every once in a while the dance needs to create the beat.  The pulse is given life through the string of yarn connecting beads of morning dew.  Moment to moment, meaning is sought from one place to the next, every instance offering something incredibly timeless, fleeting and eternal all at once.  Time becomes nothing but a plane of space for the exploration of the soul, and meaning is in the movement just as much as in the beginning and the end.