Greetings and salutations.

Or, in Jennifer-ese, Greenthings and Salimanders.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know.

[Okay, you�re being warned. This entry started with one specific focus and, as usual, it has now changed direction at least five times. I have changed focus five times that I personally have seen and I haven�t even re-read this entry yet. Therefore, this will be a multiple-part entry, AND, I don�t actually hit the point until after page six in my word processing program. (the end of the second entry in this specific series) So, take into account that there�s a lot of blathering and tangental bouncing around. Read at your own risk!]

So, it�s been yet another long while since last I�ve updated this diary. But you love me anyway, I know this. And I thank you for it.

I�m listening to music yet again, just letting the sounds of Clapton�s sweet guitar slither through my ears and make my body move. I know that I�ve spoken of this before, but it�s really important to me. Music. My life.

I love the sounds of pure music. It doesn�t have to be high quality recordings. Sometimes the skill doesn�t matter either. The thing that makes music pure, for me, is that... *shrugs* Indescribeable quality.

So, if it�s indescribeable, what am I going to do? Describe it. *chuckles* Yes, I know you knew that was coming. See how well you know me?

Quite a long time ago I spoke about how important the rain was to me. What it does to me; how it feels to me. There�s something so cleansing about rain. Even those nasty downpours which feel like some one just took a huge chunk of the ocean and dropped it atop my head; even those are cleansing.

Like music, there is some which is so pure to me. It calls out to me. It calls to my bones, to my blood, pulsing through me as if it were my blood.

There was a time, a long time ago, when I believed that if someone were alive, they had to feel passionate about something. I believed that everyone who took in breath had some passion within their bones. I don�t believe that anymore. I�ve met too many people who are actually happy/content in their lives, plodding along from one point to the next, not really caring what passes them by. To me, it seems as if they were just biding their time.

I�m beginning to think that perhaps some people truly don�t have passion; in any form or quantity. This is a difficult thing for me to accept because I have so much passion. There is a fire inside me. This fire burns so intensely.

I suppose, to be more honest, it used to burn so intensely. White hot. And yet, I let this passion fade away. Or rather, I locked away the side of me that felt passion. I still felt it, like a caged beast railing against the unfairness of having to be locked deep inside a vault from which it could never hope to escape.

Why did I lock it away? Because it was so intense, so big, so powerful that I was afraid of it. I still am.

there are great musicians who are interviewed quite often and most of them talk about how the music just takes over, how it just completely steals their breath, steals their life, their body, their mind. I know what that feels like. I know what it�s like to close my eyes and sit behind a grand piano in an empty hall. I know what it feels like to sit with my eyes closed and let the music pour from my fingertips, resonating throughout the hall, echoing from the rafters. I know what it is to sit down, close my eyes and when I finally open them, realize that two hours have gone by and I wasn�t even there for it.

I know what it is to sit back, in the dark and listen to music through headphones or with the speakers right next to my ears, to lay back and have the music pumping through my body, making my body function. I always feel more alive and powerful when there is music breathing inside me.

I know what it is to have my life pulled and twisted and wrapped around the music only to discover that I am helpless in a sea of notes, rests, rythms and rhymes. I know what it is to sit at a table, lost, so completely lost that there is no me anymore, that it�s all music pounding, pulsing, rippling, dancing, dreaming within and through me.

Am I mad? *shrugs* Was Mozart mad?

I remember watching Amadeus and seeing Tom Hulce with that psychotic look in his eye. I knew. I understood. I knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, how it felt to be so completely gone in the music that I couldn�t think of anything else, that I couldn�t imagine anything else existing. I know what it is to lay upon my bed, sick, feeling like I was going to die, but still have the need to write one more note.

It�s very scary.

I watch movies like Amadeus, The Piano, The Competition and others. I know from passion. I have felt that fire which rips through the mind.

So, why do I say all this?

For those of you who saw the movie Joy Luck Club, you might understand. In that movie, there is a scene where one of the little girls plays chess. She played chess so well and so easily. She was good, really good. And it simply flowed. She understood exactly how to move in order to win, every time. She won competitions and was the best in exhibitions and won awards and medals. She received so much adulation

And then, there was a day when she lost. It completely and totally devistated her. It wasn�t that big a deal, but when you�re young, you tend to think that you�ll only be good... that good at one thing in your entire life and when you finally lose... *shrugs helplessly* your whole life is over. Putting all of your eggs in one basket and you trip and crush all the eggs. You think you�ve destroyed any chance at being really and truly good.

Why am I saying this? Why am I giving this example? *thinks*

Because, there comes a time in life when you realize that even if you do put all your eggs in one basket, even if you do crush them all, even if you destroy the basket... life is not over. There are more eggs. There will always be more eggs.

Sometimes you might have to settle for the brown eggs when you want white ones. Sometimes you�ll have to settle for little eggs. But, if you continue with the eggs. If you try again, if you get up and try again, you might just find that the next time you�re carrying your eggs, the next time you put all your eggs in one basket... sometimes, just sometimes, you actually make it to your destination.

So, what does all that blathering have to do with real life, passion and music?

I was a singer. I was an incredible singer. On par with Keri Te Kaniwa, Andrea Bocelli, Sarah Brighton, Pavrotti. Church. I was up there. I had everything, all the potential necessary to be one of the greats. I had a talent so immense, so tremendously collasal that the voice teachers argued about who got to instruct me. I had talent so powerful and intense that I was told I could choose any role/position for my chosen field.

And what did I do with it?

I ran away. I didn�t have the foggiest idea what I really had. I didn�t understand how talented I was. I didn�t realize how tremendous a gift I had been given.

I was told, after the fact, that Cornish College of the Arts was one of the most picky music schools in the country. That it was touted as the �Julliard of the West�. I was told, after the fact, that out of the multiple thousands of applications received, less than 30 are accepted per year (for the music department).

The student body, staff and instructors at Cornish numbered less than 550. (I don�t know what the count is now, this was 14 years ago) There were five main sections to Cornish; music, dance, theater, art and design. The estimation was aproximately 50 adults among the staff and instructors. Of the instructors, all of them had to be active in their field as well as teaching. Meaning, sometimes there would be days or weeks when a specific instructor was unavailable due to their performance schedule.

There were aproximately, give or take 20, 90 students per department. In the music department, there were two branches; classical and jazz/blues. Each branch had various different sub sections, etc.

The year I started attending, there were less than 20 freshman students accepted in the entirety of the music department. Cornish received applications from more than 800 people, for the music department alone.