The current snowstorm is coinciding with a sudden urge to remain horizontal as well as unconscious. I have now slept for fifteen hours, barring brief periods of time when I arose only to send concise texts (and in one case a lengthy text) to people whom I hoped would be concerned.

I thought I was feverish again but it appears to have passed. Moreover, the feverish fervor with which I have forced my fantasy upon an innocent group of young people also appears to have passed. I saw myself through new eyes at yesterday’s rehearsal, and what I saw was not a good man.

Admittedly, it was a difficult number, and I could have been more prepared. At one point I left the musical direction up to Cody. I observed him at that point to be a much more competent musical director than I. I had taken a break, ostensibly to use the bathroom, but more poignantly to see if someone other than myself could possibly take over that function. That is, the function of Musical Director (not the bodily function involved in going to the bathroom — I still have competence in that area.)

When I had been trying to teach the big choral number, “Children of the Universe,” even though I had written and arranged the piece myself, I could not possibly keep track of all its nuances. At one point, I was reading notes as though they had been written in bass clef, whereas in fact I had written them in treble clef. This shows how little ability I have to remember even my own music that I myself have composed.

The voice inside me that kept telling me I was “not good enough” was so strong and ever-present, it actually generated a self-fulfilling prophecy. I could not possibly focus even on the aspects of the project on which I remained competent, for all the noise in my head advising me how incompetent I truly was.

When Zazen agreed to position the iPhone for me so as to video the piano piece for Friday, as she has been doing every Thursday, I found I could not get through an entire song. Tears fell thereafter – but now I’m getting personal.

I like my home piano, the Howard upright, and I have playing it more frequently for emotional release. If I can figure out how to position the phone, I may still produce something today. I’m not going outside. The weather suggests hunkering down.

My internal climate is like unto the weather. It suggest some form of retreat and deeper reflection. As of today, I have no remaining energy to be involved in my musical project. I feel that, in trying to get the concept of my story across to these very talented and dedicated young people, I have unwittingly engaged them in my undying personal fantasy — a world of my imagination, quite incompatible with the reality that we all must share.

It is unconscionable that I have done so. But God may have been merciful. If any group of people could possibly determine how this show could conceivably be engineered without me, it is they. I will henceforth seek to remove myself gradually from any involvement with this musical.

That said, the show must go on.

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