Well, in this morning’s vivid dream, members of the flock came to my rescue.
I’m participating in a piano recital and sitting at the back of the performance venue, awaiting my turn to perform. I mentally run through the classical piece I’m supposed to play when suddenly – I blank out. Can’t remember a thing about a song I should know in and out, other than the opening notes.
A friend, who is with me and familiar with the composition, thinks she has the sheet music in her hotel room, which is in an adjacent wing. While she’s gone looking for it, I – in a panic- start sketching out notes, progressions…anything to help jog my memory. She comes back with a scrap of paper with too few fragments to help me recall the song in totality. Sympathetic fellow performers look on with pity, as they see the exasperation in my eyes.
My turn is up. The show must go on. I decide to make lemonades out of lemons.
I address the crowd. “I know you’re expecting me to perform the song that’s featured in your program. However, I just can’t do it. My father recently died, my fiance was diagnosed with cancer on the same day he lost his job, I was recently in a head-on collision. I think it was too much, and it seems to have made me forget the song I’m supposed to play today. But, I have another song in mind. And, for you Kehonka girls in the audience, I hope enjoy it.”
I make my way to a piano that has (oddly) a chair and a bench where only the bench should be. I struggle to get comfortably seated so I can start playing, but eventually I’m down and play the opening notes to “Will You Be Here When I Need You Most of All?”
I look out in the audience, and see beaming faces from those who went to Kehonka and loved the song. Right from the opening notes, they start singing along with me.
But, then disaster strikes again, as I realize half the keys on the piano don’t work.
Inexplicably, Althea Ballentine rolls back on a wooden office chair from a small office that’s hidden off stage right, and she says, “You’re supposed to be playing the OTHER piano.”
In my haste to get going, I failed to realize there were two pianos on stage, and I picked the broken one.
Thankfully, even though I have stopped playing, Kehonka girls in the audience keep singing. Miraculously, Paula Converse is in the audience, and she helps me get re-seated at the grand piano…and I pick up the song right at the lyric where the singers are.
…and I just woke up like a bolt from the dream and ran in here to write about it.
It was so vivid and realistic. The sensation of me not being prepared to play a song mirrored a true life situation from about 25 years ago, and the adrenaline is still rushing through my veins. The litany of disasters (re: my father, etc): all of that really happened to me last year.
To hear the appreciative chorale of fellow Kehonka girls was amazing. Paula coming to the rescue (in her uniform, down to the navy blue sweater) was welcome – and no surprise. And Althea looked stern, but content. It was wonderful.
Who else has – or has had – camp dreams??!
