friday (from dufry to dufry)
At the Mexico City airport you walk through the international departures security control and into a giant duty-free mall. At Sao Paolo Gurulhos you exit customs into a giant duty-free mall. Both are run by Dufry and feature the same products, I always think of stopping by the Tom Ford perfumes or investigating the scotch selection. Anyway, deja vu all over again, walk into a Dufry, fly nine hours, walk out of a Dufry.
This week has been dedicated to a concert I’ll perform in tomorrow with Mabe Fratti. I have been worried about it for months because I convinced myself as a child that I was incapable of memorizing anything. I was in a play, I was maybe six, the play had something to do with goats and the Red Hot Chili peppers, I remember looking out from the stage to my disappointed day camp counselor with a look of distress, him mouthing the words at me. Me blushing, laughing, deciding that since I didn’t take this seriously no one did. But they did.
After my last breakup I asked a bunch of friends to get together at Covadonga, cheers my broken heart I said. I did not expect, that night, that my heart would take so long to mend. As I write that I can see Berenice looking at me sideways and telling me I am too impatient. In any case Lucy got there first, I got there second, everyone else showed up an hour late. Covadonga was busy and we all stood in the foyer for another half hour, laughing and talking. People took turns hugging me and asking how I was. I was ok.
At one point Lucy and I were talking about this show in Sao Paolo. I was worried about the music, I said. I can never memorize anything, I complained. Lucy rolled her eyes and laughed. Practice, she said.
The other day I went on a date with an actor. I swear I saw him walking down the street a few weeks ago, I opened the door to my building and he walked by and I said wow. Then my Instagram ad appeared in his stories and we started messaging each other. I keep thinking I should have approached him in person, dog and all. But I didn’t. I showed up 40 minutes to our date, somehow I’d thought that my appointment at the immigration office would be done in less than a day.
Anyway, he was telling me that he doesn’t remember things very well either, but what helps him is to think of the intention behind a line. If he can remember the intention, the context, he can usually remember the line or at least improvise something similar. This seems like a good way to remember music, too.
Maybe that’s what I’ve been doing. Up until this week I was practicing with live performances on YouTube. There’s three songs I play - I can hear Lucy laughing again, just three songs? come on Jacob - and I focused on learning where my lines went. My specific trouble with memorization is playing things in the wrong order or backwards. In the longwinded excuse I’ve said to people, it’s helpful in improvisation to naturally play things backwards and out of order but not with written music.
When we started rehearsals on Monday there were three new songs to me. I’ve been practicing this new thing where I just ignore the voice of panic in my head. I think of my dad’s face when we would arrive to a busy restaurant and there was a wait, how he would panic and get angry at the same time. Then I put my worry in that image and toss it out of my head. It works.
As we went through the first new song, precisely the kind of song that would be a trap for me because it has all these different sections that occur in a specific order, I didn’t panic. I just listened and reacted, double-checked when I wasn’t sure. There was a moment of doubt around 4pm when we were all hungry, but then I had it. I went through the material at home the next day, after the date, hopefully there will be another, this blog is called what it is for a reason after all, and Wednesday we had another rehearsal. Now I know the material.
I decided not to make a big deal out of it in rehearsal, but it feels like a big deal, or more accurately like a big relief. This panic and frustration that has come up in my brain every time I’ve tried to memorize anything from the goat play on is not necessary. It’s not a thing that needs to be in my life. Today’s travel was, maybe not coincidentally, the calmest travel day I’ve had in while. I watched Wuthering Heights and liked it more than I expected to. May clouds of rain always follow Jacob Elordi wherever he may go so that he is always dripping with something.