I just got home. I’m on an incredible high. No sugar involved.
I was asked to play for the Caledonian Club Christmas party by my friend Janet. I agreed, mainly because I had nothing better to do tonight. While I am very active in RSCDS, I do not do much with the Cali Club; it’s just an organization I’ve not been interested in joining. Consequently, I knew that I would probably know nobody at this party. I also knew that Janet would probably be a little late, so I, in turn, planned to be a little late. Not late enough, though. I rang the doorbell and was greeted by a woman I did not know and was ushered into a room full of people I also did not know (who also did not know why I was there). This is my ultimate nightmare. I can enjoy myself at parties, but I do not do well in situations where I don’t know ANYONE. My classic response is to find a corner and stay there. I was led to the appetizer table, where I grabbed some grapes and found an empty corner.
Fortunately Janet arrived shortly after and I was able to make myself useful helping her bring in her stuff. She plays both fiddle and harp, and had brought both. We were to set up in a den. I set my bag with my instrument in (what I thought was) and out of the way place under a chair and went to find a restroom. The house was crowded. I had two choices: straight through the kitchen, or through the living room. The kitchen was out as a ham was in the process of being taken out of the oven, so I took the living room route. And was railroaded by an elderly woman being helped out of a chair. Realizing this would take a while, and not wanting to seem that I was impatiently waiting for the way to clear, I turned to the two nearest people (both guys) and somehow managed to strike up a conversation. Turns out they were both in a pipe band (and I will freely admit that I find pipers very attractive…there’s something about a guy having enough guts to wear a kilt and play an incredibly difficult instrument that just does it for me), and once I had that bit of information, I was perfectly happy to chat away. By the time I made it back to Janet, she was busily trying to recruit new people into her Cult of the Harp. I took out my flute, tried to find as safe and out of the way place that I could in a totally overcrowded room, and sat down to wait.
Janet also asked a guitar player to join us, and her arrival ended the recruiting session. We got ourselves set up and started to play. Here’s where the bad part of the evening started. The guitarist wanted to sing, which meant she wanted to sing the songs in the keys in her songbook, which were, unfortunately, never the same as those in the book I brought. Janet has a great ear and can play anything at the drop of a hat. I do not have this skill. I have been working on it for the past year, but I still pretty much suck at it. So, the two of them played great and I noodled around, desperately trying to find the notes and trying to forget that I was playing this badly in a room full of people I did not know (including several who I had learned were musicians themselves, and, of course, the pipers).
The arrival of Santa ended the caroling session, and everyone broke for dinner and a white elephant gift exchange. I stayed behind and read through some of the other carols in my book. When Janet returned, she joined me, first on harp, and then on fiddle. And this starts the great part of the evening.
When you play in an ensemble, there are times when things just click. We were on. Janet does great harmonies and we just played anything out of the book that struck our fancy. I was able to make my sound extra warm and fluid; we clicked into each other’s playing style and melded it together. We kept grinning at each other after each carol; we were having so much fun. All too soon people were leaving, complimenting us as we left, though by that point I was enjoying myself so thoroughly that the praise was gravy. Reluctantly, I put my flute away, wanting to continue to feed my addiction.
Someday, I would like to know what people truly see when they watch me play. I feel that there is an internal transformation that takes place when I’m “on”; a butterfly emerges from its chrysalis and opens its gloriously colored wings. I shimmer with confidence. I have been told that I am “radiant” when I dance; am I just as transparent as a musician? Does the butterfly girl surface? Or am I just feeding an overly romantic fantasy?
