~Look my eyes are dry
The gift was ours to borrow
It’s as if we always knew
But I can’t regret
What I did for love
What I did for love…~
It takes a while to find your stride on a new ship or in my case on a ship that isn’t new but is also different than when you left it. Things have changed on the flagship, the entertainment team has a different system and of the 7 people who I expected to be working with, only 3 of them are actually on deck (well three and a half, one of them is on as a friend on board) – two I’ve worked with before on a different contract, and one I know not at all. Unless you count the week she was on board my last ship with her boyfriend.
So yes, it always takes some adjusting. To find your place, to adjust to the way things are run around you.
For one thing, I’m back to being the secondary librarian here. Which is fantastic in a lot of ways, it means I work more events, which means I meet more people and end up with a more intimate rapport with most of the guests (a lot of whom already know me as it is), but it also means that the library isn’t “mine”, it’s technically “ours”, and mostly the domain of the primary librarian – Lace. Lace has been with the company longer than me by several years and though she’s never worked this ship before, she has far more Grand Voyages under her belt than anyone I’ve worked with in the past. Balancing that out is the fact that I know this ship, I know these people and I know how it runs. You put those two together and you come out with a pretty well oiled machine. To the point where we’re both hoping for the extension into January so that we can keep working as a team through the World Cruise. Why break up a good thing?
But as I was saying, it takes a while to find your stride. And it takes a while to break out of the mould that people have set for you. First impressions, no matter how they’re set, are difficult to break. And much as I loathe it, I know I have to work twice as hard to break the whole “librarian” image on every ship I board. Unless it’s a team that knows me, or better yet, unless it’s Family (in which case they warn the others), I’m always saddled with this reputation of being the little quiet one, who does what she’s told and never ever gets in anyone’s way. I can be a bit – okay a lot – bossy when it comes to my work space, but as far as most people (especially on these voyages) are concerned, that’s about it.
But one of the things that’s changed on the flagship this voyage is that there’s a new Cruise Director, and with the change in Cruise Directors came a change in the Department rules…
On this Grand Voyage, Crew is allowed to sing..
This is a big deal. Seriously. Previous to this, when it was still Bas who was running the show on the long cruises, crew was not allowed near a microphone, not for karaoke, not for talent night in the piano bar, not for anything. Ever. No matter how we begged or explained or justified.
When I was on the World Cruise I didn’t sing for the whole four months.
Since most of you know me well, I can hear the sympathetic winces from here.
I will say that when I went to the piano bar last night, I was going to support a fellow team member, who had promised herself she was going to get up there in an attempt to face her fear of performing in front of people. So I went, and I clapped along with everyone else, and then I found the song book shoved into my hands. These were team members who had worked with me a few seasons back, when I used to lead karaoke night.
You’re getting up there right?
I don’t know…
The straight up honest fact is that there’s a huge difference between performing with a track and performing with a live band, and there’s a big difference again between performing with a full band and performing with only a piano player. If you lose your place in front of the party band they can take up the slack for you and cover it like it never happened (which happened at least once during the time I was hanging out with them, and I’m told the expressions on their faces as they scrambled to catch up with me were priceless) – if you lose your place in a lounge number where it’s only a pianist backing you? It’s a little more obvious. Call it false modesty if you want, but I really wasn’t sure I could pull it off, it’s been a while since it was just me, a pianist, a stool, and a microphone.
My first number was my standard, no matter what ship I’m on, or what situation I’m in, if someone asks me to sing I almost always give them the same answer “Cabaret, key of C, standard tempo, with the verse”. It was my audition piece for years, and its’ easy to adapt to almost any circumstance. When I finished, the piano player looked at me and said
Remind me again…what you’re doing working in the LIBRARY?
Because I’m halfway through the audition process for the cast..
Well you can come back and sing for us *any* time
And I blush, and curtsey, and smile, and dart back to my shift (which is right next door the Piano Bar on this ship) before I get in trouble for being where I shouldn’t be. Five minutes later, my team mate is hauling me out of my chair.
They really need you back there, they do. Seriously! He’s asking *me* to sing and that isn’t a good sign. You can close up late. Come on!
And so I find myself perched on a three legged stool, legs crossed, one hand steadying the mic in front of me, doing What I Did For Love
To my utter shock, I swear I saw some people almost crying.
People who have only seen the movie version of A Chorus Line always think that What I Did For Love is about the failed relationship between Cassie and Zach, but in reality that’s not what it’s about at all. At least that’s’ not what it was about in the original show. In the original show, it’s set right after Paul goes down with his knee injury, and it’s not Cassie who sings it:
As Paul is carried to the hospital, out of dancing for now, perhaps forever, Zach turns to the remaining auditionees and asks them what they would do if they were faced with the same situation, if this was the day they had to stop performing forever? Unabashed, Merallis steps forward and answers for all with What I Did For Love
When I do the song, whether I do it for a panel trying to give me a job or for a group of passengers shocked to find that the woman they thought was a librarian isn’t one at all…that’s the aspect of it I draw from.
Because that’s what it’s all about isn’t it? That’s why we put ourselves through all this, day after day, audition after audition, rejection after rejection. It’s why despite the fact that I’m sitting behind a desk most of the day, doing a job that I love but that I’m not remotely trained to do, that’s not remotely related to the field I was trained in – when people ask me what I do for a living? I still say I’m a performer. It’s all about love…for our audiences, for ourselves, for our adopted families in every show we do…it’s all about love. And yes, we do what we have to do…
And I suppose I’ve blown the reputation as the quiet little librarian on yet another ship…
Finally…