About Leigh

Leigh Akin is an American Mezzo Soprano. She is often remembered for her natural expressiveness, her inviting tone, and her powerful and graceful stage-presence.

When it first started it was smaller than a single eyelash,

Posted on February 12, 2019 by Leigh

the way I imagine it, smaller than the dot above a lower case eye, smaller than a pinprick. A weak-spot on the very top of my femur. Where it meets up with the hip. Perhaps it had always been there. Perhaps I was born–if not with the fracture–with the predestination that would lead me to the fracture. But if it had been there my whole life, it was silent, unknown until 3 days before my 30^th birthday.

One evening after a day of waitressing.

Running on the treadmill one evening in early February a year ago.

One evening after 3 years of walking around NYC with an overstuffed backpack.

One evening after 7 years of working in restaurants.

One evening after a half marathon five years earlier.

One evening after a daily 7 mile bike-commutes after college.

One evening after regular morning 5Ks my senior year.

One evening after a whole lifetime of disliking my body so much that in adulthood I started doing everything I could to keep it in line.

And suddenly there it was. A pain in my hip. Like a tightness. Like a dull unshakable discomfort. I slowed the treadmill, I tried to run through it, thinking in time it would loosen up. But it didn’t, the discomfort became sharper, more troublesome until I had to stop the treadmill and tried to casually step down from it. Pain shot up and down my whole body and I pretended I wasn’t limping when I carefully hobbled to the stretching area. An introduction to an injury that came into my life like an unwanted house guest:

“Hey, mind if I crash on your couch for a while?”

“Well, um. Now isn’t really the best time…so…maybe not?”

“Cool. Cool. Great, thanks. By the way, what’s for dinner?”

This was not the full expression of my injury, not yet. About a week later, when I was limping up a set of subway stairs, suddenly the little pinprick exploded. This is the moment when my leg broke (I know this although I have no medical proof to confirm it). I was instantly immobile I dropped to my knees in a profound pain that only increased in severity when I tried to move away from it. I could write a manifesto, chapter and verse of all the ways in which the American medical system sucks, and prolonged my recovery, and the recovery of so many people I sat along-side in a string of waiting rooms and doctors’ offices over the next two months. But already I feel this post is too self-indulgent. Ultimately, it wasn’t until early april–after two months of treating the break like tendonitis, trying to get my life back to normal, walking on crutches and disability insurance through my job–that my orthopedist called me frantic on a Wednesday afternoon and told me, “Hey, so, turns your leg is broken. You need to have emergency surgery. Like, now.”

I didn’t mean to write about my injury. But, like most people, I find it deliciously cathartic to talk about, but I actually didn’t intend to write about it, now, today.

In the space between that first evening on the treadmill, and the afternoon when my leg dropped out from under me. I celebrated my 30^th birthday. I celebrated it in my Brooklyn apartment eating bad homemade falafel (homemade by yours truly) and hobbling around in pain, unable to make it to the restaurant where I had initially planned to gather for my birthday. But I was surrounded by good people. Good people who didn’t let a New York City Subway commute to Flatbush, nor the debilitating winter-exhaustion, stop them from spending a Monday night ringing in the start of my third decade. At this point (on my 30th birthday, 365 days ago) my leg was just injured, not broken, and I imagined in a few days the whole thing would be over and I would have my life back. I could start waitressing again, and watching the Food Network while running on the treadmill again and going to open mics and spinning around in the same circles with the same desperate ferocity. I had no idea that in 365 days I would be living on the opposite coast; Whispering inside of that pinprick, that fracture-waiting-to-happen was this promise: “Before this year is up, you are going to trade in that New York State ID for a California Drivers license.” And perhaps also “Look around and appreciate these people, Leigh. Appreciate these people with your whole heart. Because you love them, and they love you, and this time next year they aren’t going to be a subway ride away.”

I wish I could say that on the dawn of my 31^st year, I was no longer spinning in exhausting circles. That I have tons of money, that I love and appreciate my body and never ask it to be or do anything that it cannot do, or should not be.

But that isn’t the case. I have good things in my life here in San Diego, more artistic opportunities than I have had in the other cities I’ve lived. I have family here and am starting to nestle into some social pockets. But truth be told, I imagined my life looking so different at 31 than it currently looks, and I am constantly chasing some external version of that expectation. But suddenly, in this moment, I am graced with the understanding that my adult life has been a series of leaving the people I love, because I have been seeking a deeper love for myself, and a deeper gratitude for the here and now. That “being okay” is the thing that happens when you give yourself the exact amount of love you are looking for from the external world.

Is that too much? Too real? Well, it’s my birthday so…

I am going to leave with one final story:

Growing up, I used to sing in my church choir. Of course. And yesterday a friend of mine, still in Milwaukee posted a picture on my Facebook wall. Two pieces of sheet music onto which was scratched my name. She sings with the choir at the same church. The penmanship was terrible, I think the lowercase g was backwards, and the “a” in Akin was not capitalized. I was immediately touched to see this relic of my childhood self. And right before my 31^st birthday no less! I imagined myself as a little girl, fist around a pencil, scratching my name, her–name–onto a piece of sheet music. and on the second page a little note that she had scratched onto the top: “The first music I ever read.” I felt so deeply endeared to her. I find her sweet and adorable and clever in a way that I know she never found herself. And I am certain that if she knew me she would say that I and everything about the path that brought Her to Me, are pretty cool.

Spinning

Posted on January 21, 2019 by Leigh

This morning, the little slab of concrete outside my front door was the most beautiful it has ever been. Something about the angle at which the sun hits the city of San Diego in mid January is even more attractive than usual. I pulled my little table outside, I brewed coffee and I sat, ate breakfast and let my face swell in the sunlight. Guiltless. resting. Sunday.

I have been spinning like a top for the month of January.

I started working as a barista in a very European cafe where the lights are always romantically-dim and the chairs are way too crowded and there are about 100 jars of loose tea artfully arranged around the perimeter where customers can put their noses right into the teas: rosehip-cardamom, gunpowder green, blackberry Assam, and then fish out a tea-bag. My boss, the owner is almost completely deaf, and English is not his first language. One afternoon, a few weeks ago, when I was a customer, I approached the owner and asked:
“Do you ever hold concerts here?” Referring to the mahogany baby-grand piano that sits in the corner. He turned his head, cupped his hand to his ear and responded, “Are you looking for a job?”
“Oh, no, I am asking about the piano. Do you ever hold concerts here? Or, like, allow musicians to use the piano?”
“Are you a musician?”
“Well, I am a singer.”
“Ah, yes. There is no money in this.”
“What?”
“Do you need a job?”
“No, I am asking about the piano.”
“Have you ever worked in cafe?”
“–well, yes.”
“Come back tomorrow with your resume. You can work here.”

So I did. And now I do. Work in this cafe.

The owner is like a character from a Wes Anderson movie. He wears a flannel jacket and a fedora all day,. He spends long hours sitting at the bar with friends and giving away baklava and coffee drinks to pretty girls, or older men who look like they are in the mob. And he sleeps behind a folding screen, beneath a set of stairs in the back of the cafe. It’s totally hidden, no one would know it, and because he can’t really hear anything he is able to disappear and nap even in the busiest hours of service.

He refers to his cafe as “we” and “us” and can turn any conversation into a conversation about how much everyone loves “us”.

“Everyone knows this cafe, because we hire only the prettiest girls. For 30 years we have had only the prettiest girls work here.”
I am simultaneously repulsed and compelled by this thought. I am a human, I am an American human, I have a fragile sense of self-image, and any implication that I am a “pretty girl” is flattering. But yes every misogynist comment makes we question: “is this worth it? Is paying my rent worth this?” Indeed, my co workers are all beautiful. I am the only one who doesn’t have a name that ends with an open “-a” sound, I am the only worker who doesn’t have a rich, mesmerizing european accent.

…

Cover band seeks female lead singer.

This was one of the Craigslist ads that I responded to. I sent a video of myself singing “Fuck you” by Ceelo Greene at the Broadway Comedy Club to the email providedin the posting. And said something about being a classically trained singer. And sure enough, I heard back: “We want you to sing a live audition at our show this Friday.” She sent me a medley of 3 songs to learn” I’m Just a Girl, Livin La Vida Loca and Last Dance.

So at 9:00, that Friday night, I drove out to a bar in East county. I got up on stage and I sang. And I totally…sucked. I had a earpiece in my ear, a drum set wailing behind me, while I was singing Dona Summer with precise, operatic, vibrato. It was like trying to fit a fish into a prom dress. The manager met me outside after my set. She looked at me with a sort of quizzical dissapointment.
“Um…you can’t use that much vibrato on the mics.”
“Yeah. I think I get that now.”
“So… I need to talk to the rest of the band. But if we do hire you. You and I need to meet, A LOT before your first gig.”
“That makes sense.”

So I drove back home. Listening to a meditation CD the whole way. And telling myself: Good riddance. This isn’t the kind of singing that you do anyways! You are a much more refined singer than that!
Completely expecting to never hear another word about the whole thing, the next morning I got a call, and an offer to join the band, contingent on many rehearsals before my first gig on February 1st to get the style and learn the choreography.

“I have to think about it.” I told her. “Can you give me a few hours.”

I thought, and I called my mom, and my then my best friend and we all determined: Hey, this is music, this is singing, this is making people happy, this is making money!

“Alright. I am totally in!” I texted her. “Please send me the practice tracks and I’ll start learning the music!”

So the time not spent being a barista for the last week and a half, have been spent standing at my kitchen counter, dancing and learning the words to “UpTown Funk” and “Billie Jean.” And about 30 other pop songs that I thought I knew, but turned out I never knew a single word to. And may I tell you, it is surprisingly fun. GIve yourself a treat sometime: when you are all alone, look up some karaoke tracks on YouTube and just jam out!

…

Yesterday evening I biked to work. Right up through Balboa park, as the sun was setting. I had a bit of extra time so I sat on a park bench. and just thought “thank you” over and over and over again. For the setting sun; for the use of both of my legs; for the ability to pay my rent; for the privilege of being paid to sing; for the feeling of windless, perfect warmth.

When I walked into the cafe, every table was filled. Saturday night. The front door open and letting a honeyed wind into the cafe. The owner sat at the bar eating spaghetti and drinking wine with a friend.

When I am at work, I work. I am not sure whether to attribute this to my Midwestern, Germanic upbringing, or my time spent hustling in New York. I spent the whole six hour shift cleaning, bussing tables, making drinks, taking orders, restocking bottles of beer in the display, washing dishes, mopping the floor. Spinning like a top. 11:00pm, the owner told me I could go home, and then pointed to one of the decorative jars of tea, rose petal black tea.
“Why didn’t you dust this jar?”
“I did, I dusted all of the jars.”
“This one still has dust on it.”
“Do you want me to dust it again?”
“I want to know why you don’t do your job when you are here?”
“Are you serious? I feel like I have been working very hard all night.”
“You don’t understand how this cafe works. You want to make coffee drinks and take orders, but what you should be doing is keeping this place clean.”
“Do you think I haven’t been working hard all night?”
“What have you been doing?

I was suddenly blank for responses, I shouldn’t have to explain all of the work I had been doing all night. Certainly he had seen me doing all of it as he sat at the bar all night.

He continued: “I am not saying you are lazy, I am saying you don’t know how we work.”

I started to feel my throat close and my eyes begin to water. I hate how easily I cry.

“This is a good job! Here the money is stable, and you can pay all of your bills. You are trying to be an actress or singer or whatever. You will never make money like this. I know! You think you are the first girl to come in here, who is trying to be an actress. I know how these things work! In this city you will never make a living like this.”

Again. I didn’t respond. But in my head I was screaming, defiantly: YOU ARE WRONG! YOU ARE SO WRONG!!

“Do you like this job?” He asked
“I do.”

Believe it or not, this was an honest answer. I do like the job. I like my coworkers, I like the pace of the shifts, I like being around people, hearing jazz music play, smelling espresso. And, even in this moment, I liked my boss. HIs oversized fedora, his tattered flannel. HIs thick accent, his world-view grown in a soil so different from my own. Looking up at me with his eyes as tired as mine.

I grabbed my backpack. And the stack of cash he had set down on the table as payment for my shift.

“I’ll see you tomorrow” I said.
“It’s a good job. I treat you all very well!”
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

…And then I got really into robbing banks.

Posted on December 7, 2018 by Leigh

“People tell me I am a good writer,” he said “I used to write a lot on the outside but then I got really into robbing banks.”
“Well sure” I said, “There is a lot more money in that.”

I was in Donovan state penitentiary (the current home of Sirhan Sirhan and the Menendez brothers) with an organization called Playwrights Projects, which has a program that facilitates play-writing for the inmates. I was talking to an incarcerated man who wrote a short play. It was about a man who pitches a world changing invention to Mark Cuban on Shark Tank. And through this he finally wins the love of a woman who happens to be a New York Times best seller author. Over and over in the play the protagonist says to his love interest “Man, it is such a turn on that you are a New York Times best selling author.” To which she would giggle demurely and say “thank you”. And isn’t that the whole reason why anyone would write a best seller? or do anything really, really well? Because it’s a mad, crazy turn-on for someone else?
…

I saw the musical “Waitress” a few nights ago. I am such a sucker for musicals. Oh man, every key-change at an emotionally pivotal point, breaks me down. I get lost in a big dance number. And I fall for every slow sad reprise. Time slips by when I am watching a good musical in a way that it rarely does when I watch a play… I know I am sorry, Plays. I feel bad about this, because it shows that I really am just a simpleton. I have a masters in music–and even though I think that’s ultimately because I kept showing up to class and I sing pretty– I know enough about music to understand how flimsy the musical structure is in most musicals. I see the tricks that are being played on me, I feel myself being set up by chord progressions, like I am being walked up a set of stairs, just to be pushed off the edge. I know what you are doing to me, Musicals, but I love you anyways!!

The lead in this production, Christine Dwyler, was an absolute pro, she is one of those performers who is able to weep and sing at the same time. Think about that. Not just weep on command, but weep on command while also, you know, singing. I personally only have have one apparatus that does both the singing and the crying, and I haven’t been able to figure out how to make it multi-task. So naturally, I was like: “Christine Dwyler, the way you cry while you are singing is such a turn on…Also, while I am at it, Sarah Bareiles, the way you write that Grammy and Tony nominated music is such a turn on!”

Back when I was living in New York, still relatively new, I was working in a cafe, and I had just found out that my most recent ex-boyfriend had started dating someone else, it was the same week that my co worker got dumped by his boyfriend. So we decided, “Let’s take our tip money and salve our tender hearts with standby tickets for a musical.” We ended up getting $38 standby for the first preview of the “Color Purple”, with Cynthia Erivo. We were sitting in the orchestra section. Because it was the first preview we didn’t know what we were going to see. If it was going to be good or bad. There was no press out to tell us what to expect. There were no labels on it yet. Let me tell you, as one of two broken-hearted musical-nerds, It was amazing. It was really amazing. In fact my co worker and I look back at this night with reverence for the magic that we wandered into.
Cynthia Erivo is a goddess in a way that I cannot begin to describe. The audience gave her a standing ovation in the middle of the first half. I didn’t even realize I was doing it, She was singing a song and suddenly I was just standing, and ovating, and crying. And it wasn’t even intermission yet!* For anyone who hasn’t heard Cynthia Erivo sing (and I do recommend you treat yourself to a little YouTube concert, like, now) she has a fine voice, it is clear and well produced, not exceptionally beautiful, but lovely. But the power of her performance lies in her absolute sincerity. That night, she didn’t do anything for the sake of the audience, or for the sake of herself, she simply was Ceely, strong, beautiful Ceely. And every note was honest.
Cynthia Erivo, the way you sing and you give up yourself for the character, is such a turn on! No seriously, if a recording of you singing ‘I’m Here‘ comes on while my mom and I are in the car, we both have to stop talking and just listen to you and cry. Such a turn on.
I had a friend once describe a performer as “pulling perfection from the air.” I loved that. As if perfection doesn’t belong to any one of us, it is not something we can hope to hold on to. It is only there in the moments when we have done the work and we are willing to give ourselves up.
*side note: I HATE undeserved standing ovations, I have, many times, been the curmudgeon who sits clapping at the end of shows while the rest of the audience dutifully sets down their Playbills and stands. Having experienced being profoundly compelled out of my seat by the power of a performance, I don’t think it does anyone any good to waste the sentiment.*

…
I am sorry, I got carried away, I forgot that I was telling you about the Playwrights at Donovan State Penitentiary. This was part of an organization called “Playwrights Projects”, where writer/facilitators work weekly with incarcerated men to write short plays. Then have cold readings of performances with local actors.
On the wall of the prison was a big beautiful painting, a painting of the desert and a mountain, and a road that started right at the bottom perimeter and ambled into the distance. Outside the walls of the prison was a desert, and mountains that marked the very bottom edge of the United States and the very top edge of Mexico.
It was actually surprisingly easy getting into the prison. This may have been a fluke but we didn’t even go through a metal detector. And we brought in a tray of Christmas cookies. And then we just hung out in the visitor center with 15 inmates, with no guards, just a few of the prison employees. I can’t help it, my brain does this thing where I just kept on thinking of all the ways that I could have smuggled in a file.
When the guys saw the tray of cookies out on the table every one of them seemed incredulous. “We can just take these?” “Yeah, go ahead””Like, now?””Sure.””Like as many as we want?””Well, like, leave some for everyone else. but yeah.”
The head of the program described having a conversation with one of the inmates, She said, “Sometimes the best way to get what you want is by being nice.” To which he responded “Yeah, that doesn’t work in prison.”

But these men seemed nice, they seemed kind and self aware, and in a lot of cases I couldn’t help but imagine that their plays were in some way autobiographical. One play was written from the perspective of two prison guard dogs, doing their job, observing the inmates and questioning whether they were free or prisoners themselves.

Afterwards I stood chatting with the actors, the playwright who had written about Shark Tank, and that super-fine, New York Times best selling author walked by.
“Congratulations.” I said, “Did you enjoy the program?”

“Yeah,” he said, looking upwards at the ceiling, “but I think my play would have been better if they had let me direct it.”

“Hm. Well, the actors were just reading them for the first time, I thought they did pretty well.”

“Oh really? I didn’t know that. Well, then it was okay. People tell me I am a good writer I used to write a lot on the outside but then I got really into robbing banks.”

“Well, sure, there’s a lot more money in that

The part of you that doesn’t believe you can do it, is wrong

Posted on November 25, 2018 by Leigh

The part of you

that doesn’t believe

you can do it

is wrong

I wrote this on a magenta colored post-it and I stuck it on my bathroom mirror a week ago. It was a period of lucidity, a couple of days when I felt lush, momentous. When I stood at my kitchen counter channeling a flood of prose and music. These times come and go. I wake up and I start singing. My whole body feels light. Everything sparks creation. And so I wrote myself a note. A breadcrumb. Like a reminder to pick up milk from the grocery store. Just a simple reminder. “The part of you that doesn’t believe I can do it is wrong.” Don’t believe yourself when you feel worthless, Leigh. Don’t let days pass in sorrow.

Two days later I sat crying in a salon chair as I was getting my hair cut. And when I arrived home I saw the note on my bathroom mirror as if a stranger had written it. Like a breadcrumb gone stale. Pick up milk from the grocery store?! I don’t even drink milk! “The part of me that doesn’t believe I can do it wrong?” It meant nothing to me. I felt at that moment that I am two different people with one set of shared memories. I stood and looked at the note and then I watched myself cry for a while.

Last Sunday I saw a close friend perform the lead role in a production of Sarah Ruhl’s “Melancholy Play”. Wherein a woman suffering from depression (although it is never referred to as such) turns into an almond. Her friends drink tears, think sad thoughts until they themselves turn into almonds in order to rescue her. “It is not enough to ask someone how they are feeling, you must go where they are and get them.” my friend spoke on stage “it is up to all of us to save Frances, it is part of the social contact.”

A friend invited me to Thanksgiving on Thursday. I cried again as I applied make-up, as I dressed myself and I wasn’t sure I would figure out how to get from my apartment to hers. But I made it. And I sat around a table dedicated to gratitude. To abundance, to the act of nourishing oneself and others. To taking extreme time and care with something that is ephemeral, perishable. I drank wine. I smiled. I am not kidding when I tell you I ate the most perfectly cooked turkey I have ever tasted, and a piece of pumpkin pie with hand whipped-cream which I tasted with my whole mind and whole body. I smiled.

I smiled as I heard stories of Spain, of organ music, of tea in Siberia, of riding ones bike through Italy and magically having a stalk of broccoli raabe fall off of a produce truck in front of you. I smiled. The waist of my jeans felt too tight suddenly, but I felt cozy. Cared for. I biked home in the darkness and felt a sweet peace, there were hardly any cars on the road, I knew that I was safe. I mean, I was keenly aware that everyone on the road was probably a little bit drunk, but in a sort of large way, I felt safe.

Another friend took me hiking yesterday afternoon. “I’ve got a good spot.” he said. “I’ll pick you up.” We drove to La Jolla. Where all the homes cost millions of dollars, and are somehow all sort of built built into the landscape and everything bow westward towards the ocean. It is extravagant, and subdued simultaneously, it is how the 1% prefers nature. The trail head was unsuspecting, it looked like a fence in someone’s multi million dollar backyard. Then we turned the corner around the fence and everything opened up around us, a steep drop off, layers of canyons and foothills. And the ocean beyond them. “I’m sorry, where is the trail?” I wondered as my hiking buddy began descending down the rocky hillside. “oh . just straight down then? Sure. sure.”

The terrain alternated between a smooth sandy rock face that was just enough at a horizontal angled and with just enough footholds that you could shimmy down. A silty, wet clay, and compacted dirt. Part of the trail was a canyon crevasse where, I kid you not, we had to brace ourselves between rock the two parallel rock faces and shimmy sideways. I heard that mantra returning to me: “the part of you that doesn’t believe you can do it, is wrong.” and it fueled me. It fueled me, and seeing my hiking buddies enthusiasm and certainty fueled me. I guess anything is a trail if someone says it is.The crevasse opened, we stood on a plateau of rock, and we gazed at the ocean. There are things that nature does that cannot be put into words.

A shadow moved over us, I looked up as a parasailor passed silently. A whole flock of parasailors, a rainbow of differently colored sails, gliding towards the ocean, gaining lift from the wind off the surf, and circling back above the cliff side. This maneuver was enough to keep them afloat all day. Another floated right along the cliffside so close to us that we could see the face of the person steering it. Hanging, reclined below the sail, beaming like it was Christmas morning, and he had just opened up a gameboy.

The final jaunt down to the beach was along the rock front, covered in clay, there was a knotted rope tied to a tree trunk and we belayed down the final couple-dozen meters. I stood on the beach and watched the parasailors weave slow, silent figure eights in and out of the pacific wind.

The part of you

that doesn’t believe

you can do it

is wrong.