Now that Maui is but a distant memory, the days are getting irritatingly short and the temperature is dropping like a rock, so the leaves can't be far behind. The six-month winter must be just around the corner, I can hardly wait.



As of last night it's official, I've rejoined the Masterworks Chorale, ending my self-imposed exile that was supposed to last for three months but ended up taking three years. Just in time for my 15th anniversary of joining the group in '88, plus they've got a pretty good season lined up with L'Enfance du Christe in November, Carmina Burana in March and the St. John Passion in May.



It was really almost a spur of the moment thing, I had always figured that I'd go back to a rehearsal when I felt like it, and after returning from two weeks of vacation in two different places, suddenly I had the urge to go again. Not that I'd been completely absent from the group, I've been helping unload the fruit truck off and on during this whole stretch, maintaining the website when somebody thinks to send me an update, and I played for several rehearsals and a few auditions and summer sings, but this was my first time returning just to sing.



As to why I'd ever stopped going in the first place, there was no particular reason other than short attention span. After three years as treasurer during some financially difficult times the chorale had become a major drag on my work time as well as my free time and I thought maybe a few weeks off to just stay at home on Tuesday nights and watch Buffy might be worthwhile. The kids were old enough to miss me when I was gone, and since I only see them briefly during the week anyway it seemed that extra evening could be better spent at home, plus giving me more flexibility if I wanted to burn an evening for reading group or the opera/symphony/whatever. That first concert was the B Minor mass, which is great and all, but not something I was dying to do again so soon.



As it turned out, the weeks became months, Beth started filling in her Tuesday nights with her own meetings, Buffy turned out to have degenerated into a soap opera, and just like anything else, once inertia has taken hold it's difficult to shake. So I figured I'd go back the following fall, but then that didn't happen, then the fall after that, and again I didn't quite make it. Played for six rehearsals in a row at the beginning of last year while Elissa was recovering from surgery, but even that didn't spur me to returning.



This year was different because the season was more appealing (all stuff I've sung before but none later than 1991, a respectable amount of time), Allen is looking like he'll live forever after all. If I was going to go back I wanted to do it before so many people of my era had left that it felt like a different group, so I had to return before everyone forgot me. As it turns out, at that first rehearsal two weeks ago I was getting hugs, kisses on both cheeks, being called by name by people some of whose names I no longer remember, it was quite a welcome, Allen said he'd be glad to have me back, even though I just kind of showed up and said, "so I'm back, is that okay?"



Now I've forked over the dues, so I guess that's that. It's only a matter of time before I get back in the swing of dreading Tuesdays and thinking up ways to play hooky. I'd really prefer to skip the Christmas concert, since it comes during a rather busy time of the year, but I think I can swing the rest. The Berlioz music comes back easily, the French text not so much, but one out of two isn't bad. The next step is to dust off the tux and see what kind of shape it's in, and whether I have a white shirt that's still white. Not singing for this long, in combination with some heavyweight summer sing accompanying, I think may have helped motivate my return to playing the piano more, so it will be interesting to see if singing and playing both can peacefully coexist in the ongoing competition for my spare time.