Monday, July 20, 2015
This summer we were invited to visit Michael’s old Eastman buddy, Michael Coren, while he was in residence at the Vail Festival with the Dallas Symphony. We decided to combine Colorado with a return to Idaho and the Middle Fork of the Salmon River. It was another journey of discovery and healing, grieving and recovery. Continue reading
Today is my parents anniversary and they are both gone. Michael and I just returned from Rhode Island and Cape Cod where we took my mom’s ashes to rest in her favorite places. It was just a year ago on Father’s Day that we buried my dad’s ashes in the Temple Beth-El cemetery in Providence. Now, once again on Father’s Day, we gathered with friends and family to reunite my mom with my dad in that lovely spot. Except this time it was pouring!
A lot of time has gone by since the Richardson Chamber Players performance of Pierrot on March 1, but I wanted to relate the crazy time leading up to it and my thoughts in the aftermath.
Remember how I have remarked that external circumstances so often reflect your inner state of mind? I had arranged to spend nine days at Forest Refuge with Taraniya teaching. The first thing that happened was that the check engine light came on in the outback just as I was getting on the Garden State Parkway. Is this serious? Should I turn around and go back?
Our travels over Fall Break accomplished a number of things, all having to do with the heart. We started out in Barre at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies. Remember when I went to seshine with Michael? (see the blog entry from June 17, 2012) Well, he was finally making good on his part of the bargain – to come to something at IMS with me.
Taking Peggy’s advice, I didn’t sing much the last few days before flying to Kansas for Rosh Hashanah. My flight was late getting in to Wichita and I was exhausted by the time I finally got over to Tony’s apartment for our rehearsal. I had gotten into a conversation with the interesting woman sitting next to me on the plane while our flight was delayed in Chicago. Halfway through the flight I realized I shouldn’t be talking at all, let alone over noise.
Sataloff’s office has moved from Pine to Broad Street. It is actually much faster and more convenient for me to just zip off the highway and into the numerous parking lots right near the Drexel University Building. The waiting room has all the maroon leather couches from the Pine Street office, but Peggy and Bridget have more spacious studios with wonderful views of the downtown sky line. Today I saw Bridget and Peggy for an hour each, back to back. Maybe that was a mistake. 
The other big project that has been going on this winter is the Singing Through Menopause Survey. On Sataloff’s recommendation, I got the survey approved by the Princeton Institutional Review Board and enlisted the help of the Princeton Survey Research Center. Everyone I worked with in both offices was wonderful. After getting feedback from a number of my voice teacher colleagues, I launched the online survey in early March – hard to believe with everything else that was going on then!!!
I finally decided to make an appointment to see Peggy Baroody again, the singing voice specialist in Sataloff’s office. School is over, the estate work has settled down, I have some more time and energy to devote to this. I have been pretty faithful to the low acid diet since January, and I have been doing the few exercises I got from Peggy and the speech pathologist on that first visit.