Category: Things that make life better (Page 4 of 11)

Full Fridge Freakout

July 16, 2023 / dancallaway

And two words that dissolve decision fatigue and overwhelm

I have a thing about the refrigerator.

If the grocery cart (carriage, I mean. I’m in New England now) gets really full, rather than thinking something like, “Wow, how grateful I am to be able to get these groceries,”

my mind maps the current real estate in the Kenmore food cooler (empty as it may be), and cortisol levels spike as I imagine stacking the ground turkey and chicken thighs BEHIND the sideways almond milk carton on that obscure shelf just above the crisper drawer.

What If I forget the chicken thighs? I need to SEE what we’re working with.

Melissa, on the other hand, loves her a full fridge. Full fridge = provision and gratitude.

To me, it’s “we better use all of this! And look! Those strawberries are already getting mushy sides. I didn’t SEE that in the store. I shoulda KNOWN not to get the ones from the display!”

The origins of this anxiety are complex. May come from one too many disappointments opening chilled cool whip containers at my grandmother’s house only to discover green beans. What a cruel trick.

I also fantasize about sauntering to the local outdoor market with a macrame satchel, seeing what’s fresh and in season that day, and letting the food, you know, just speak to me. (The last sentence was to be read with a low, breathy tone and sibilant [s]s.)

Comes down, actually, to something very everyday human for me, though: decision overwhelm.

And it’s the reason we have stress hormones injecting themselves into our neurology these days. Living in the US, we’ve got a glut of choices.

And it isn’t good for us.

Even as I write that, I’m thinking, “oh, but I WANT to have the possibility available.”

It’s kind of like when Jude’s in the zone making a magna-tile tower, and he notices Noah carrying He-Man’s little plastic sword. Suddenly, that’s the One Ring to Rule them All.

It’s hard to show up and do the over-and-over thing you might be bored with when so many new shinies sparkle in your periphery.

How do we return to the repeated actions that bring satisfaction and health?

For me, one way is to ask, “So that?”

I’m writing this to you so that —

? I’ll figure out what my fridge thing is about.

?‍? You’ll read about my fridge thing and feel better about your deodorant storage hangup.

✍️ I can record what I was thinking about in July 2023.

? I can write and share something today. That’s satisfying.

? and so that maybe one day a singer googles, “How does full fridge anxiety overlap with musical theatre singing?,” and this article will populate the TOP of the search suggestions.

In anything I do, I want to connect.

It’s why I teach, why I sing, why I cook for people (Ina Garten’s got a great chicken thigh with fingerling potatoes and salad recipe), and why I write.

And if I know what I wrote made your day better, then perfect.

Now I gotta make a grocery list.

Soccer Folk at the Hyatt Starbucks. And Death.

July 14, 2023 / dancallaway

Melissa and I stayed at a Hyatt Hotel at the same time as a whole lot of youth travel soccer teams.

There was a Starbucks in the lobby, and since I go into migraine withdrawal if I consume less than 2 and a half cups of coffee, my addicted self was down there first thing to snag my overpriced venti stimulant.

And so were the parental units of these footballers. ⚽️

And I learned: one adult did not represent one coffee order.

Nope.

Yoga pants with the tight ponytail playing tug-of-war with her brow furrow was gonna need

a frap

an iced something with 2 pumps of fairy syrup

a vanilla caramel hazelnut macchiato flat no foam soy oat almond skim situation.

And a large cup of ice.

What? No more gruyere egg bites? Really?

“That’s what ‘sorry, we’re out’ means,” went my brain. “Can we move along so cargo shorts with the backwards Bass Fishing cap can order the 7 complicated beverages that just chimed in on his moblie device?”

If you sense judgment in my tone, you’re right. I’m working on it.

I just couldn’t imagine a world of weekend-after-weekend travel to midsize cities to talk game outcomes in hotel elevators while shelling out dollars for fees, equipment, plane tickets, and hotel rooms. And Frappuccinos.

Sounds like one of the middle rings of the Inferno.

No shade to soccer, seriously. There’s probably a lot of it in my future.

But the commitment to this kind of travel, this kind of money, and your kids freebasing sugar-feine so they can wear their bodies out at back-to-back matches? I mean, when does anybody have time to play Saturday Nintendo Duck Hunt these days?

I’ve been thinking a lot more about death. Just the fact that it’s going to happen. I’m also absorbing the truth that I can’t make more time.

And I still waste it.

To transcend distraction for me requires Ulysses-tied-to-the-mast level intervention.

I’m working on it.

The question is — What leaves you satisfied? And what creates an interaction you’re proud you left behind?

(And yes, that can absolutely happen in travel soccer.)

And what leaves you empty, depleted, and wondering where your time went? Let’s have less of that, please.

Worth the Soul Toll?

July 12, 2023 / dancallaway

My taste in music’s like my taste in cuisine.

My favorite food’s a cheeseburger. WITH french fries. Bring me ranch dressing for dipping? Heaven.

I love risotto, boeuf bourguignon, any iteration of potato, omelettes, biscuits, and BUTTER.

I want it to be rich, satisfying, comforting, delicious, and I want it to be worth the time and effort to prepare it.

I want cooking it to be a joy.

This is why I subscribe to the Joy of French Cooking school of music making; I’ll have my ballad in a nice béchamel, please.

I could never pierce the meaning of 20th Century atonal musical (or anything that sought to deconstruct.)

While I empathize with the need to howl at the chasm in the early 20th Century, I still need cadences.

And if I’m going to work my ass off to learn a piece of music, it better fill my soul and make an audience go “yuuuummmm” and say, “My compliments to the chef.”

We have a phrase in our house — soul toll.

We bandy it liberally, apply to myriad situations, and even musicalize it.

It describes end-of-day emotional dysregulation (child and adult), traffic, shopping at Market Basket on a Saturday, and stoplight texters. (Of course, I’ve never done that.)

So, when it comes to life choices, the question becomes, “Is this worth the soul toll?”

Just because you have that block available on your calendar doesn’t mean you have adequate soul units to fuel that activity.

So I invite you to use this Q when you face choices.

Another way to ask this was something I heard Marie Forleo say: “Is the juice worth the squeeze?”

Caveat: not every lime in your life is going to yield ample zing to your G and T. Some you just have to squeeze, be glad you bought the Bombay Sapphire, and then take a nap.

But where you do have agency, check in with your soul tank, and get all Mary Oliver with yourself: What are you gonna do with that one wild and precious life?

Whatever you choose, I recommend butter.

Quick! Get Off the Highway!

July 11, 2023 / dancallaway

We took a long road trip last June, and there was a major backup in Pennsylvania.

We’d driven through three big slowdowns (Connecticut!) and a rain torrent of biblical proportions, so we were beat.

Our very last wait-with-the-big-trucks event turned out to be the rubberneck side of the real event.

A crash on the other side created a dead stop for miles. The state police just shut the highway down at one point and detoured traffic. This caused another miles-long backup.

When I’m on the smooth-sailing side of the highway whooshing past a phalanx of furrowed headlights, I feel a mix of “oof so glad that’s not me” while I scan my recent traffic experience to see if my karmic balance means I deserve this turn to drive gridlock-free.

9 years living in LA tells me the answer is a perpetual yes.

But you get all kinds of mixy feelings when you go by a traffic event like this. You pray everyone in the crash was ok. You feel bad for the folks whose trips just got hours longer. And then you really feel anxious for the cars farther down the road doot-da-dooing at 75 mph straight toward an impending wall of stop.

The uncomfortable collection of feelings you get — feeling bad for folks while having no agency to do anything to help anybody — that’s a good check that your empathy’s on line.

And when you’re faced with gridlock (because no matter how many traffic karma hours you’ve logged on the 405 Freeway, you’ll still face gridlock), you can make another plan.

You can figure out how to wait well. I mean, there are podcasts now.

(Sometimes when the 5 Freeway was at a standstill, Melissa used to just go see a movie.)

Or you can take an alternate route.

A few weekends ago, Melissa and I went to Gloucester and Rockport, and Interstate 95 around Boston was a wicked clustah.

So, we took the scenic route through the towns outside the 95 perimeter.

It took an hour longer than waiting in traffic, and there were whoops-turn-arounds. But passing hydrangea bushes and town squares was a better plan than staring at concrete highway dividers.

So, just because you can’t do anything to help the folks on the other side doesn’t mean you need to turn off your mirror neurons or calculate some cosmic system of traffic experience fairness.

And when you’re the one who’s got to wait, you can find the best way for you to wait well or make a pit stop at the Louisa May Alcott House.

And look how beautiful Rockport, Massachusetts, is.

Stop Hitting Yourself — Music Abuse, we’ve all done it. Here are some ways to recover.

July 10, 2023 / dancallaway

I used to hit myself in voice lessons.

Freshman year of college. I couldn’t sing a passage that was beyond my vocal ability, and I sounded like a mule dragging an overfilled tobacco sled to the tune of something that might’ve sounded like “Donna non vidi mai” from Manon Lescaut.

I’d sing a wrong note. I’d crack. It’d sound terrible in my head.

And like a reflex, I’d smack my right thigh like a Dickensian cop truncheoning truant orphans.

Richard Cook would sit balletically straight on the piano bench and look at me with wide, concerned eyes.The cogs in his brain must have turned the little bingo decision ball in the “above my pay grade” answer box.

Voice lessons were times when I wanted

✅ the right answers (consistent impressive hight notes, duh)

? the exact prescription for creating the right answers

? better ability than my competition

? approval from my teacher and peers

? stunning vocal ability so that I could then accept myself

? to tear down and eradicate every vocal fault I had and only sound like a perfect star of a singer

?️ to keep my voice contained in a safe manageable place where I could control all the correct, impressive, exact, superior, applause-inciting, approved, and fault-free sounds I would consistently make.

It was a mess in here.(I’m pointing everywhere.) And that shit hurt.

This is why I tell the pedagogy students at the BoCo: singing just happens to be the modality we get to work in to help folks heal.

The way I tried to use singing when I was 18 was music abuse.

Here’s why.

?‍♂️ Exercise is good for you. When you use exercise to comparing yourself to your treadmill neighbor, it disconnects you from its healthful purpose.If you’re in yoga class thinking, “Damn, I can Trikonasana so much better than that inflexible shaky pants over there,” you may have missed the point.

? Nutritious food is good for you. If you’re eating your kale and pumpkin seed salad with a splash of lemon juice while a seething judgment of the folks going into Dunkin Donuts across the street boils in your liver, you may be injecting more free radicals into your system than the antioxidants in that kale can mitigate.

? Spiritual practice is good for you. But if you’re like, “I’m pretty sure I meditated and prayed longer than all these jokers in this planning meeting this morning,” you may be missing out on some of the soul benefits a gratitude list can offer.

We do the same thing with singing.

We ab- (the Latin root means away) -use it.

We take it away from its natural and healthy purpose and turn it into a means to tell ourselves the story of better-than.

Because of loving teachers, caring friends, artist peers, plus the privilege to be a teacher, I saw examples of how singing can transform you and those who listen.

I learned

? Singing’s an always-moving thing, and the moment you try to pin it down and box it, you’re dealing with past tense.

? So many things can be true about the free ways you can sing. And once you think you have a tool figured out, you’ll find it doesn’t apply to everything you want to use it for.

? A singer can sound flawless, and you can notice that you just don’t care. If singing’s not connected to an open heart and a commitment to be generous, it’s lifeless. And we can tell.

?? Approval and applause feels good, and their effects evaporate like morning fog. You have to find a deeper purpose for making music, one that brings satisfaction to your individual soul and one that makes you proud of the trail of interactions you’ve left behind.

You have to embrace yourself before you can embrace your voice.

Even if you’re making technically stunning sounds, if you don’t have space and compassion for yourself, no amount of virtuosity is going to earn the grace you need for you.

There’s gold in what you call your vocal faults. And when you get curious about them instead of angry at them, they have a lot to teach you.

and

Your voice is all of you.

It creates itself from the very essence of you being alive — your breath. And it has the power to reconnect the broken pieces like golden vocal Kintsugi. (Thanks Kevin Wilson for this illustration.)

If we could see the energy and vibrations surrounding and coming from us, our minds would be blown on a James Webb Telescope discovery level.

While you may not open-palm slap yourself like 18-year-old me did, I invite you to be curious about the ways you might inflict punishment instead of offer understanding.

Singing is a healing path, and when you’re committed to being whole-hearted and walking it, folks who hear you will wake up to the hope that healing is possible for them, too.

Here’s your invite — get in there and heal. (It’s scary, unfamiliar, it hurts, and some of it really sucks, so don’t be alarmed.)

But it’s a life and death situation. There’s only one you, and we need to hear the story only you can sing.

Love much,

Dan

Stop Shit-Talking Gen Z

July 9, 2023 / dancallaway

I have a front row seat of a Gen Z microcosm. And I’m full of hope.

My students love. They support and encourage. They include.

They also show up. They open their hearts and do scary stuff every day.

They also work their asses off.

Black Widow (names changed to protect the awesome) worked two doubles on the weekends to knock out that Boston rent while running events like the choreography showcase — equivalent to a full time job, on top of classwork.

She also did every crazy thing I asked her to do in the studio and kept practicing when she didn’t know if the thing she wanted to change would change. (It changed.)

Captain Marvel said no to a low-paying summer gig so she could work 2 restaurant jobs and sock away cash to have a base in outa-control, exorbitant NYC.

She weathered a vocal injury, surgery, and showed up when her voice wasn’t cooperating. One of the hardest things a singer can go through.

Wonder Woman was financially on her own. She paid her own bills, took extra classes, and railed against the school machine when stupid rules kept her out of other extra classes.

When I offered bonus lesson time in the studio, she signed up first.

She’s also kind, compassionate, and resilient. And I trust her with our boys.

Gen Z’s got grit-filled empathy wizards, and we’re lucky they’re coming up.

They’ve seen the hierarchical emperor’s new clothes, and they want to work together with equity and respect.

Every generation’s got assholes. I’ve been a representative in my own cohort.

And there are terrific, creative, flexible, loving humans in their teens and 20s who want to contribute, heal, and help. I get the privilege teach them.

They’re here with us now, and we’d do well to encourage them and ask what they’re noticing instead of posting on Facebook about how they need to put down their phones.

The Impossible Bedtime Test

July 8, 2023 / dancallaway

I have a herculean test set before me.

My task?

Completing the bedtime oral hygiene ritual with our four year old without losing my mind.

Every evening just after 7pm it shakes down.

Jammies are on. ✅

Older brother is off and away with his brush-with-Elmo electric tooth scrubber, and then I approach the younger one with the Captain America analog device ? he’s ~~demanded~~ requested.

My heart rate speeds, and my blood pressure spikes like I’m in the dentist chair when the hygienist asks, “Is your BP normally that high”

“All right, Jude. Here you go. Let’s see how FAAAAST you can brush those toofers!”

As if I’d just said, “Time to sort these monochrome beige beads into this craft organizer while we eat this over-boiled asparagus,” Jude stiffens his body rigid as rebar, turns his head, and clenches his jaw shut.

And here’s where I fail. every. damn. night.

“All right,” I say. “I guess you want all those germs to crawl all over your teeth tonight and give you cavities. Suit yourself. I’m not fighting you on this.”

I’m a liar. And a terrible manipulator. Of course I’m fighting him on this.

“Noooo!” He wails in abject dental abandonment.

I return.

“All right. Let’s see how fast you can…”

Ramrod straight goes the body again.

Physical force sometimes gets the job done, but this child is shockingly strong, and we only emerge from that situation physically and emotionally depleted.

Last night Jude looked at me in my face and flung his Captain America tooth brush over the starboard side of his bed.

I didn’t reactively lose my shit (!).

Some prefrontal cortex regulation must be taking hold at age 45.

“Oh, I notice that you threw your toothbrush. Hmmmmm. I wonder how you’ll brush your teeth. Looks like all those germs will be crawling all over your toofers tonight.”

“Noooooo! I don’t want cavities!”

And so ensues a dance of codependent reactivity and 3rd grade manipulation skills (on my part).

And we haven’t even gotten to floss and mouthwash.

We finally work it out. (“Callaways always work it out,” we say.)

But the problem? Like Hercules, it’s my lack of mental and emotional resources and, frankly, my temper.

I shouldn’t have to meet this 4 year old where he is. He should just do what I say. What’s hard about brushing teeth?

Reality is — it is hard for him at 7pm.

And maybe I can take my 41-year cognitive advantage and use that to put us on the same enamel cleaning team.

Taking just one rubber spatula of emotional reserve from the dregs to come alongside him instead of fighting against him will pay off big time in connection, calm, and actual task efficiency.

It’s the same when the part of you that’s 4, 7, 13, or 45 is trying to get a need met by demanding a very specific tooth brush method.

If you meet you with curiosity instead of “do what I say,” chances are there’ll be room for collaboration. Even if the agreement is “let’s grab a snack and a nap.”

You’ll still lose your shit sometimes and say stupid things like, “All right, I’ll just start reading to your brother, then.”

But you’ll become more aware of what you’re doing.

And you’ll loosen up. And then you’ll have the presence of mind to say, “I’m agitated in my body right now. I’m gonna stand over here and take a few deep breaths until I calm down.”

Then you can try again.

When you bring the toothbrush with the intention to work together rather than to dictate terms, things go better. Your 4-year-old may still resist, but you’ll be curious and tired and pissed instead of just tired and pissed.

And a little more open. And that’s usually better.

And it’ll help you on your next test. Because you will have one.

Leave Behind a Trail You’re Proud of

July 7, 2023 / dancallaway

I want to publish a novel, write a musical that gets produced in a beautiful way, and a play, too. I want to publish books on singing and healing, teach workshops in New York and London, host retreats in the country, help theatre singers with tool-packed videos, sing recitals, write and produce a one-person show, and share what’s helped me with as many folks as want to hear it.

I think?

I wanna be a loving hubster, a sturdy and present dad, a good son, a ready friend, and a contributor. Oh, and do a solid job at work.

Thing is — the list in paragraph one sounds satisfying and worthwhile (and something my ego would like on the CV), but I don’t know what I expect the list to do. And I don’t know what I hope to experience by checking off novels, plays, and books.

But I admit something turned over in my brain on birthday 45.

If I live to 90, that’s half way. And time feels more like a speeding train than a gentle stream.

I believe I’m an eternal soul, but I want this finite timeline to be rich and to invest love into the world. I want people I meet to experience beauty, healing, and hope.

I’m one little billionth of a billionth, and I want my atom to count.

To count means to add up to something and give something substantial, rich, and nourishing.

Can two things be true here? A trust in life’s unfolding (fifteen years ago I had no idea where I’d be today) together with an urgency to know what my task is and fiery energy to share it well.

Share.

That’s the word that always comes up in my guts when I pray about this.

What am I supposed to focus on?

Share.

So, that’s what I’m doing. Sharing this with you. And I include you in my prayer — that your life will unfold with delightful surprises and that you’ll have the wisdom to collaborate with them.

(Today’s my younger son Jude’s 4th birthday. I didn’t know if Melissa and I would get to have any children much less the surprise of our little tender tornado.)

End of the day, whether it’s a play, a book, a lesson, a class, a blog, a joke, a meal, or a word of encouragement — does the way I interact with you leave behind a trail that I’m proud of?

That question helps me relax and trust the place on the timeline I’ve been blessed to be surprised by.

The Truth About Your Authentic Sound

June 22, 2023 / dancallaway

We mean well, but voice teachers are often sending students off on a quixotic quest to find “their authentic voice.”

Theater singers of all kinds have spent a lot of time on this search for what their “sound” is.

When you’re a theater singer, your job is to embody multiple different ego identities. You don’t want to be a singular brand because that limits the myriad expressions you’re capable of.

Biologically, empirically, and scientifically, you already showed up on the planet with a singular voice that has never been and will never be repeated. Your particular combination of lungs, larynx, and vocal tract is your own.

This Used to Freak Me Out, and It’s Key to You Singing With Your Authentic Voice

June 20, 2023 / dancallaway

Plane trips. They used to freak me out.

It wasn’t the fear of flying.

The first time I was on a plane, it was summer before 6th grade, and our family flew to CALIFORNIA to visit my Aunt Susan and Uncle Dubby.

They had a pool and EVERYTHING. ?

When I saw the 30,000-foot view for the first time, I thought, “Wow, I’m teeny.”

For the next 25 years, plane trips would incite this minuscule anxiety. Suddenly, it was super sad that none of the folks driving their ant cars down below in New Jersey knew or cared who I was.

(I’m told this is a very specific trait of my personality type. If you know the Enneagram, I’m a deep Type 4, the Individualist. Picture me in a black turtleneck, a beret and mauve scarf smoking a hand-rolled cigarette and listening to Edith Piaf on a Gramophone, and you’re getting in the neighborhood.)

My anxiety about being unknown followed me everywhere: London Underground escalators, road trips past unknown cities, and crowed theaters.

In world religion class, I learned that most Eastern traditions didn’t even believe in a self! ?

Good thing the James Webb Telescope came along in my 40s; my lil ego might not have been able to take all that galactic incomprehensibility.

It boiled down to this: I longed to be known, understood, and loved.

It’s still a primary need.

Whenever Melissa and I get crossways and we’re not hearing each other, I often say “I just want you to UNDERSTAND me!”

This significance panic wouldn’t mellow until my late 30s. My conversion to coziness in my infinitesimal tininess came through a major life pulverization.

Getting spiritually and emotionally pummeled cracked a lot of barriers, and as Leonard Cohen sang, “That’s how the light gets in.”

I couldn’t let it in before that. I couldn’t receive love in everyday, ordinary ways.

That’s one of the reasons the stage drew me like a moth to the spotlight; the force you feel from applause felt like the necessary amount to get the approval from the outside to the inside where I wanted it so badly.

The only thing about using applause as your love supply is that it metabolizes like cotton candy, and before you know it, you’re performing everywhere you go.

The life pulverization I’m talking about was a divorce, but it wasn’t the heartbreak and hurt I hollered through that created the love-greeting fissures.

It was the wince-filled survey of those I’d hurt during the years of the relationship. I’d said okay to being isolated, and I pushed away ride-or-dies who went on loving me while I was stuck.

The thing that cracked the barriers and let love in was two words: “I’m sorry.”

I said, “I’m sorry for how I hurt you.” I couldn’t pay it back. I couldn’t undo the damage.

And most of my people said, “I forgive you. I missed you, and l love you.”

I saw I was capable of damage and destruction. And I saw those who loved me were capable of showing me mercy.

This was the event that let the message in: “You are loved, and your teeny, significant diamond of a soul is here to love and be loved.”

Now planes are peachy. I look at the cloud tops and the towns below, and I think, “Wow this is so big, and we’re just a wee little tiny place in the back of a smallish galaxy that’s one of uncountable galaxies.” I’m astounded by brain-stopping awe and cradled in a belief that I’m individually seen, cared for, and loved.

If we as singing storytellers could absorb a piece of this — if we could stand on a stage trusting in our little part in the wondrous whole knowing we’re miraculously and mathematically unrepeatable — what kind of heart do you think we’d open to those listening?

This is the integration I want for every singer who shares a song.

You’ve heard me harp about the exhausting advice that says you have to stand out and all the ways we compete and try to do cooler tricks.

What if you knew your stand-out was a given? What if you knew down deep in your knower that your inimitable soul is a captivating generator of storytelling healing, and all you have to do is your homework and then open the door to that?

THAT’S an authentic sound. And it’s transferrable to any style you sing and any character’s story you’re privileged to embody.

My hope for you — that you’ll let love in through all the ordinary and everyday channels it shows up through and that you’ll be able to open your heart and share it when you sing.

Because you know it’s true. There’s only one you, and folks need to hear the story only you can sing.

Love MUCH,

Dan

PS I made you another playlist! Here’s Vibrato Summer Camp. A series of videos that walk you through all the ways vibrato can be delicious, frustrating, mystifying, and terrific, and will give you understanding so that you know how to troubleshoot your own vibrato issues when they arise.

And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to the YouTube channel. Besides this email, I’m going to make YouTube the platform I focus on for sharing the good singing word.

But yeah! Subscribe! There’ll be good teachy stuff as well as some quality entertainment coming your way. Join me!