Death Bear Will See You Now

By Rebecca Hass | March 9, 2010

How would you answer this email-“Someone’s knocking at your door in a seven feet tall bear suit..death bear will visit your Brooklyn apartment to remove painful reminders of your past and give you the chance to start fresh in 2010.”

In an earlier post (that got lost when this site got unspammed) I wrote about rituals to assist in closing up some of the boxes you are carrying around in this life.  The ones that are heavy, difficult and seem to spill out their contents at inopportune times.  In that blog I wrote about my own personal experience in creating a virtual funeral for the Dream of the Twenty Year Old.  When I was a young artist I thought success would look  a certain way  and when I became a woman of forty that dream wasn’t an inspiration any more.  Rather it was the disappointed teacher or parent in ones life  who clucks ‘tsk, tsk’ while shaking their head at your latest shortcoming.  It wasn’t helping me.  It was hurting me.  So it was with great interest that I read Death Bear Will See You Now in the Sunday March 7th edition of the New York Times.  Something to think about if you have an obstacle to get over.  This man in bear head comes to your house and takes away the ugly reminders of the obstacle in a black duffle bag.  It made me think again about what it takes to move beyond something.   Maybe you need some help other then friend to eat the ice cream with while you cry.  As  Loren Berlin writes in her piece “Maybe we all have moments when we need such a stranger (Death Bear), someone whose anonymity allows us to let down our guard and show our raw and battered hearts, to reveal the mess we know ourselves to be.  Maybe Death Bear provides a public service by wiping the slate clean when we are too exhausted to pick up the rag and do it ourselves.  And then yet again, by disappearing, so that we can resume our normal lives.”

Would you find this service helpful?  Have you ever buried, burnt or otherwise dealt with an emotional box in your life?

Happiness Ideas Coming In

By Rebecca Hass | March 5, 2010

My ‘Happiness is’ project is stirring different responses  for each of us on the road, but I’m seeing some themes.  The first common theme is ‘time out’.  The out of town gig give us the pre- approved time to do all those little projects  (reading and arts passions outside of our work) that get short shrift in our daily life at home.  Extremely busy and popular repetiteur and coach Kinza Tyrrell feels that way.  Baritone Doug MacNaughton wrote me an impassioned note about cooking, music and a schedule that bends to his whim as being a primary joy.  Another theme emerging is connecting to  people  in different cities and different walks of life .  Gwen Maroon, lover of the arts and creative gardening genius sees that as one  of the great flavors of road life .  In that same sense of adventure, several of us like to explore new places and take advantage of our business travel to immerse ourselves in sights and sounds of the land we are in.

Did you recognize yourself in one of these themes?  Or do you derive happiness from something I haven’t even mentioned?  I can’t believe no one mentioned that rehearsals never start until 10 a.m. at the earliest.  As a mom of two school aged children I love not setting the alarm.  Ah, Happiness they name is slumber uninterrupted.

What gives you Happiness on the road?

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