Climbing the Frickin' Mountain

Climbing the mountain

So it looks like you’re going to have to climb the frickin’ mountain. Deal with it.
-Hugh MacLeod

I was reading an excerpt from Hugh MacLeod’s new book, Ignore Everybody and 39 Other Keys to Creativity, when I came across the above quote. It was contained in a point titled, “Everybody has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb.” I started thinking about my Mount Everest. At first, I wondered exactly what comprised my Mount Everest, and then realized that one word defined it:

Cabaret.

It’s been over three years since I attended the Perry Mansfield Art of Cabaret Workshop, a week-long intensive featuring some very prominent cabaret artists as teachers. I made some wonderful friends, got inspired in a beautiful setting and left determined to do my own show and to learn how to play the piano.

I’ve done neither yet.

What gives? Fellow DC Cabaret Network members see me and say, “Toni Rae, when are you going to do your own show?” And I don’t have an answer for them.

I’m probably scared that I’ll fail.

Argh! I feel brave at so many other things—encountering bugs, smelling the milk to see if it’s soured, driving 85 miles an hour on the Capital Beltway—but a performance opportunity is my Everest? Normally I’d give up red wine for a good performance opportunity.

And I do try: I start to think about my set list and then I start to feel insecure, so I end up…well, NOT thinking about my set list.

As we end 2009, I’m going to make once again a resolution to create my very own cabaret in 2010. It’d be great if my seven readers could support me. It will probably take a village to get me on stage.