sharA wordeN loveS mE

Well, okay.  That title is a bald-faced lie.  But I love Shara so much that it might as well be true.  Virtually from the first moment I heard her voice (after buying an album I knew nothing about because it had a shark on the cover--didn't I write about that a long time ago?) I felt an electric jolt go through my soul.  (And as soon as I found out who she was I got hold of every recording she'd made that I could get my little hands on.)  And seeing her in concert.  Well . . . I do not exaggerate one whit when I say that for me, it is a spiritual experience.  It is the opposite of moral castration.

And I've been meaning to do a post entitled My Dinners With Shara to recount my experiences at Shara Worden concerts.  (I've yet to actually have dinner with her, but hope beats eternal within the human breast.)  Who knows if I will ever get around to it, though, as my memory grows weaker and details slip from the skein before they can be knitted into booties.  So I'll start with my 4th Shara Experience, which happened last night (March 1, 2014) in Indianapolis.  (And briefly mention that I've seen her in Cincinnati once--at Memorial Hall on May 11, 2011,  Chicago once (and I fuckin' HATE Shitcago)--at City Winery on October 6, 2012, and Indianapolis twice--both times at the Hilbert Circle Theater, on January19, 2012 & March 1, 2014.)  

So yesterday Patricia & I arrived in Indianapolis early enough to attend a Before the Concert talk (with Shara & some guy with a radio announcer kind of voice) at 4:30.  When we walked in I went to the very front center . . . and there was little Shara, all dressed in black, loitering by the microphone stand and talking to A Guy.  I tried not to be a total geek, but I couldn't help looking at her eyes, and when she looked up I smiled.  She talked to A Guy some more and then came towards the front of the stage and said to me, "Do I remember you?" (or something like that--my brain was pretty blazed already).  And I got up and said (something like) "You might remember this," and I pulled up my shirt sleeve and showed her the tattoo on the inside of my right forearm.  I had had her draw a picture of her performance mask and sign her name (in Sharpie) when I'd last seen her in Indianapolis.  I hasten to add that the reason I did this what-might-be-regarded-as-an-obnoxious-thing because I didn't think there was even a slight chance that she would remember me--it'd been fourteen months, and we'd only talked for a few minutes--but that I thought she probably hadn't signed that many forearms (because [1] of the way she acted when she was signing my forearm & [2] I think that most of her fans are a lot classier than I am.  And she did remember, and then we chatted for a minute, and then she said, "I have to finish this soundcheck, but then I want a picture of that."  And I went and sat down and thought that that was probably that, since she certainly had a lot of things on her mind more pressing than some nigh-elderly fan boy who was shaking like a bobble head in high winds.

But lo, she did come back.  And she sat on the edge of the stage and we talked for what Patricia tells me must've been an additional ten minutes or so.  Can't remember much of what I said, but we talked about kids (she has a 3 1/2 year old son) and her music and she told me that she had played in Louisville before and maybe some other stuffs.  BTW, she also touched my left wrist and said she liked one of my bracelets.  You know what THAT means, right?  Yep.  It means she liked one of my bracelets.  And I asked her if I could take a picture of us, and first I had the phone turned the wrong way (Oh DORK!) and then I took one where I was half out of the frame, and then I took another which wasn't too bad framing-wise, but my hands were quite the shaking things, so neither picture turned out well.  See:

 .

And Shara said that she wanted to get a picture of my arm, but then all of a sudden, as if errupting out of the ground, The Guy (with the radio-voice) was saying something into the microphone about People Taking Pictures, and I skittered to my seat, surprised to see that there were now lots of folks in the theater, and the interview with Shara began.

It was cool to hear Shara answer questions--even the stupid ones--but I found myself focusing more on her voice and her hand movements, even though I was very interested in what she had to say.  She gestured towards me during one answer which included a reference to her song "Be Brave," as we had talked a bit about that song (and I had a line from it tattooed around the picture that she drew on me.  See:  

                                                                                                         ).

Then it was over and it was time to get ready for the show.

The first half of the concert was very lovely, and I really liked the conductor, Krzysztof Urbański.  In his comments preceding each of the performances, he was very sincere, very sweet, very energetic . . .  and very young!  

I really loved him.  (Not in a gay way.*)  But as much as I was enjoying the music, I was impatient for Shara.  

And then came the intermission.  I didn't even want to go out for a cigarette because I was afraid I might miss a second of seeing / hearing Shara, so I surreptitiously sucked on my e-cigarette and stayed in place.  And then . . . SHOWTIME.

Shara came out in a white dress with red shoes and a red bracelet.  It was very odd to see her standing stock still as the orchestra played the first part of Henryk Górecki's Symphony Nº3 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs)m 'cause she's usually a flurry of motion.   The music began very softly, with just a single bass playing.  Then it slowly built, and then . . . Shara's voice entered the room.  It was so pure & so intimate that I felt as if I were alone in the room with her.  As the first movement neared its end, I felt tears fill my eyes, and one slipped out and ran down my cheek.  Ah, that is what music is for.  I was mesmerized by the second and third movements, and at the end of it I felt like the entire world had been covered with snow and no one spoke above a whisper.  

After the concert I looked for Shara but couldn't find her.  Oh well.  Maybe next year.

I love you, Shara.



*Not that there's anything wrong with that.