Preparing for concerts and programs is: months-long blurs of research, rehearsal, collecting images and creating the slideshow, and basically .... pressure, pressure, pressure.
You wake up with the passages you are practicing humming in your head; this goes on all day, as you walk, you sing a snatch of this or that; as you sweep or dust or make coffee, you suddenly stop and do a few vocal exercises (gotta practice that lift); you can't read anything that isn't related to your research with anything approaching concentration.
Then you give the concert or program. Just before you go on stage, you think, "I am so exhausted, why do I do this, can I sing that passage I struggled with correctly, what's the house like...WHY do I do this it's so intense..." Then you go out, and you see your audience, and it all lights up and falls into place and you're not tired and everyone's smiling, and you look happily over at Jim and you open your mouth to speak, to sing, you pick up your guitar....
There's no better life.
And today I'm utterly exhausted, like a balloon that has been let go and soars while the escaping air propels it upward, and then it drifts back to earth.
And there's still no better life. And you want to do it all again.
Which means you are kind of crazy!
