I’m sat here stuck in fear. It’s been like that now for a few weeks. I spent New Year’s Eve on my friends sofa not feeling well and came home early and was in bed way before midnight, and then spent the next 3 days in bed with a cold and sore throat. I’m back on my feet but my voice has taken a beating so it’s gently easing myself in again. Luckily I could rest and not have to worry about singing for people. The best time to have had a cough and cold. A good clear out. I’m singing next week in 3 different places and then I’m pretty much looking at an empty diary apart from a few bit and bats.

I know it’s the start of a new chapter and I really felt at Christmas that it was coming to an end with how I have been doing things. Just felt it in my gut. I’ve been in service and sang for so many people, doing concerts anywhere and everywhere, and I really feel it’s time for me now, and to get back to organising events, and to do my Julie Andrews show again.

Hence the fear. My head is swimming with ideas and thoughts and it feels overwhelming for me. I’ve worked so hard over the years and devoted my life to singing, and I feel like there is nothing for me right now. I feel I’m literally at ground zero. Got nothing to lose. Before all this happened in 2020 I was used to organising stuff and did it with a force that I just can’t do anymore. I pushed and forced things out of fear and was really stressed from it. I loved the singing part of it but I was having to spend 95% of my time organising the rest of it, and the singing was becoming a small part of what I was doing. Even though I was gutted when all my work got cancelled, a part of me knew I was on a new path and that I had to find a less stressful way to do things. I lost the life I had built up and in the first month before I started singing in lockdown for everyone, I had time to think and spent time going within, and I knew things had to change. Then I started singing for everyone on their streets, and that took over and also taught me so much.

So I am starting this year knowing that that chapter of my life is over, and it’s up to me to create a new one. Start putting myself out there again. I know I can’t do things how I used to, but it’s not easy to start again either. I’ve started again so many times (left my husband in 2006; then moved down South to work at Glyndebourne; then moved to London; then Amsterdam; then Antwerp; then started singing on the streets and doing my own thing; then moved back to London; then started my ‘a soprano, a suitcase and a rucksack’ journey for nearly 3 years, travelling from place to place with no fixed address; lived in New York; started again in Yorkshire…..it goes on and on; wrote ‘A Spoonful of Julie’ and was just getting it out there and boom, it all got stopped; began my ‘every street is a theatre in lockdown’ thing, and now nothing.

I decided at the end of last year that I want ‘all or nothing’ with my singing. I can’t just keep rocking up to places where people are not bothered if I sing or not, and we have a whip round at the end, and I don’t have proper audiences. Don’t get me wrong, I am eternally grateful for everything that’s happened in the past two years (I know it’s not quite two years but we are nearly there with it). For every person that has asked me to sing and every person that has listened, and everyone who has donated to me. They have kept me going in every way, but I want more now. I want to stand in a theatre or a venue with an audience that is paying to hear me sing, and coming to watch me, and I can’t carry on if I’m not going to get that. All or nothing. Time to start manifesting.

So where do I start? Where do I sing? How do I do this? When do I organise the events? What pianist do I use? Both of mine live miles away, so I’m logistically trying to work it all out in my head and not getting very far. I’ve been here before. Stuck in fear. Not sure how to do things, and it’s always unravelled in time but this is the not pleasant part of things. I know if I don’t start creating stuff it is game over. I can’t keep going as I was, so I have to find a way. It brings up so much stuff in me. I’ve always had to take care of myself and make sure I am ok. Growing up I had very little support so had to basically learn to support myself emotionally, and was working from the age of 13, buying most of my clothes from the age of 15. It’s made me a fighter and someone who will always find a way to make things work but at times it can feel too much too. I want someone to just come along sometimes and help me. Take the constant burden off my shoulders. I do have people to help me this time. I have my new fella who is dying to help, and friends are offering me emotional support. I have a director offering to help me with my dance moves for my show and a friend who says she can help me with marketing, but I need to do the initial work to get it in places.

It will come together. It won’t stay feeling as difficult as this. I’m going to spend tomorrow contacting places and seeing if I can make sense of any of it. I want to get both my ‘Opera for the People’ and ‘A Spoonful of Julie’ into venues. The ‘opera’ thing is just me and much less organisation than the ‘Julie’ thing so I have to pick my venues carefully, and I have no idea what availability there will be either, or what it will all cost. Another idea is I want to run a set of masterclasses with a pianist, helping singers work on their songs and build confidence. I used to do them all the time at music college and they were good fun. I was walking in nature last week and got the idea for that, and my last idea (for now) is to start a ‘Sing for Life’ initiative. Get people singing for fun and nothing else. Doesn’t matter if someone can sing or not, it’s about letting go and just singing to sing, to release and heal from it. Again, I don’t know how to organise this yet or how to do it.

I was really busy in December. I did lots of concerts for people, indoors and outdoors. It was good to sing indoors again. The ones outdoors I didn’t enjoy as much. The year before I had just got on with it in all weathers and it didn’t bother me but this year I didn’t want to be cold, or stood in the rain etc…..plus I was dealing with a lot of fear in the air this year. The last two weeks before Christmas was full on. I have never had fear over this covid thing. Never entered my head to be so bothered. I don’t watch the news and I just go off my gut, and I just got out and helped people, but it had been ramped up just before Christmas and I could see the fear in people’s faces and feel their energy. I am an empath if you know what that is. I feel the energies around me, so there were a few times I had to get back out into nature just to centre myself again.

I use nature all the time for this. Get on the tops and walk everything off, but I did some lovely concerts and did my part for people. I brought some Christmas cheer. The Mayor of Todmorden brought me a present too when I sang for Age Concern. I loved that concert. I walked in to a hall full of people and was given such a warm welcome. It helped me a lot because that day it was getting on top of me and people lifted me up by being there and joining in. I got a few gin and tonics too in the Mayor’s parlour afterwards. Great!!!!

2022 is about creating the life I want now. For me. I know that deep down. My gut tells me. This is why I need to step into this fear and go through it. I met a lovely guy a few months back (after being single since 2014), and I actually want to start building a life with someone. I knew when I first met him that this is someone I was going to be with. It was a very strong feeling within me, so we’ve been getting to know each other since.

I’m looking forward to what lies ahead (or I will be when I’m not shitting my pants), and working as a team with someone, and not doing everything on my own. It’s time. It really is a new chapter for me and the pages are blank so far. Just got to start filling them. Wish me luck everyone, and if there’s anywhere you think I could do either my ‘opera’ thing or my ‘julie’ thing then let me know. Thanks, and Happy New Year to you all!!

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