Our Mother's Voice- a Eulogy

Our mother's voice was the descant of our days. She rocked us to "Baby's Boat's a Silver Moon" and the Prayer from "Hansel and Gretel". We heard her before we were born and all the time after. She sang in the car, in the yard hanging sheets, in the kitchen, embarrassed us singing in the grocery store, projected her voice far across the back yards to call us in for supper. Once in a while she even had time to sit down at the piano and practice a piece of music. We sang with her as babies, learned rounds, nursery rhymes, folk songs and hymns. As we brought our families back later, we sang together around the piano.

There was always music on the radio or on records. We heard her teaching her voice students. It was assumed we would all play an instrument and sing in the choir, Nate being the only one who dared to pursue singing seriously. I had the privilege of accompanying her on the piano by the time I was ten. I think my career of playing violin for opera and chamber music was molded by her training me in phrasing, allowing for breathing and listening. The violin was the closest sound to her silvery voice that I could find.

We learned to speak clearly, hearing her enunciation in that resonant voice. We also heard what she said, the moral center of her life: kindness to others, respect for each person and trying to understand them, when we disagreed or even disliked them. She listened to our questions and troubles and helped us find our purpose in life.

When she went through the mourning of giving up singing publicly because of an essential tremor condition, her students carried with them some of that voice and, especially, the confidence and understanding she had given them. She expressed herself at the piano she had bought with her teaching money. The piano went with her to Grand Court and to Tecumseh Place where she entertained the other residents. She never lost her musical touch, and as she aged, began to sing along again.

It is the soul voice that we will always hear. She knew us, knew our real selves as no one else will. Even at the last, she said what we needed to hear. I think we will be trying to live up to her faith in us for the rest of our days.

Walking in the Wind

I had to get out into the wind today. I felt trapped in my crooked little row house and headed for the river, the wild weather whirling around me, scouring the air,
storm clouds heavy overhead.

A few kindred souls were at Penn Treaty Park. A special kind of person loves the freeing burst of wind, nature finding its way up the city streets. An Indian couple- not the Lenape with whom William Penn tried to establish good relations- agreed this was "wonderful weather." The man said he grew up by a river, asked about industries that used to be along the Delaware. The wide expanse of water was choppy, a cormorant flew low over the waves. A black man with some missing front teeth came along and began conversing about how it must have been for the early explorers sailing up the river into unknown territory. "I'm a history buff", he said and talked about George Washington and Bartram's Garden and the bravery of early Americans. I spoke of my German ancestors who came to Pennsylvania in the 1700's as tenant farmers. I didn't mention that Penn's sons gave them land in Berks County where they had to fight the Indians to keep their land. I didn't ask, though I wanted to, if he knew anything about his ancestors, where his family had been. There must have been some courage and survival there.

I went striding on in the wind and thought about my father, how he had to "get out" after a week of teaching, the joy he had in the natural world and the strength of his body. I think of him a lot as I age, as I wonder when I may lose this freedom. Of all people to be trapped by Parkinson's, it was especially cruel for him. I am the age he was when he was diagnosed. I am also retired from a longtime job and looking to fulfill neglected parts of my life. It's hard not to be fearful. I take him with me on my walks and hikes and try to remember the joyful look on his face when we took off across a field and into the autumn woods and off the path into somewhere unknown.

Woman and Nature

This is a spontaneous poem I wrote at Noyes Camp before an art class called Women and Nature. The teacher suggested making lists of what connections there might be between nature and our bodies/spirits.

Water flowing under earth,
water through my cells, my blood,
in drops in the humid air,
the gush of birth, the sea, the tides,
ebb and flow, surge and stillness,
trickling down through layers
to a dark place,
the river changing and the same,
my life changing and the same.

woman

from dewy to drying,
the warrior marks on my skin,
the scars on a tree,
the living flesh of beech trees,
the sap,
the bones of me.

The folds of history
in the rock,
in my brain,

the exhalation
and
the wind.

Lilacs

I went to Swarthmore today to smell the lilacs, to go back in time on a scent journey:

There was a white lilac at the top of the ravine beside my childhood home. I'd carry the trash past in the half darkness, the blossoms faintly glowing, sweet. I was afraid of the steep shadowy hill, promised God I'd be a missionary if He protected me from what lurked below. I stayed safe but I didn't keep my promise.

On the way to high school there was a circle of lilacs in the middle of a cul-de-sac, where I stood and inhaled deeply all the cool cruelty of April. The tall bushes leaned in above me as I fell in love and was rejected and reveled in my sad aloneness.

From then on lilacs were part of a pilgrimage to my old unformed self. In Brooklyn taking refuge in the Botanical Garden from the fear and confusion of those days, a whole hillside where I fancied the lighter shades smelled brighter, the darker purples rich and intense. While Emily was at college, I found the Swarthmore lilacs and added the bittersweet memories of the girls' college days, the end of childhood. I've wandered in the Bronx collection or simply stopped anytime a lilac bush is close enough in someone's yard. The primitive pathway of scent goes back to my oldest newest self, the bud just unfolding, my spring self.

The End of the NYCOpera Family

A few months ago a N.Y. music critic wrote regarding NYCity Opera "Move on-NYCO is over" or the like. I wrote a commentary to him that I never sent, and, now that three of the four productions in spring 2012 have taken place in their various venues and I have not been part of any of it,(for the first time in 27 years), it still expresses a mourning I think we all feel:

When the Board of NYCO decided to leave Lincoln Center, we musicians knew it was the end. Had George Steel chosen to keep even a small presence there, for maybe as short a time as four weeks, there would be a home for us, a way to grow and recover.

There may be something that calls itself NYCOpera as it moves around exhibiting Steel's vision. It may be entertaining and it will employ some good freelancers. But what we have lost is not just a job but a family.

When musicians work together as an entity for a long time, the orchestra is more than the sum of its parts: it is an instrument itself, based on the experience of communal expression. How much more even than a symphony orchestra is an opera company-really, it's a village: singers, coaches, pianists,librarians, stage directors, supertitlists, conductors, set and costumes and properties ,conductors, office staff, all housed in one place for many hours day and night. As opera musicians we rehearsed four or five times a week and played sometimes five operas. Between two long operas on a Saturday or a dress rehearsal and an evening performance, we musicians lived together in our lounge, taking turns at napping on the couches or playing poker, going to dinner together. We have come to know each other's lives (maybe especially as more women have joined the orchestra.) We've been through births of children, college applications , sicknesses and deaths of colleagues and parents, marriages and divorces. Our homes were scattered at various distances from Lincoln Center, but much of our social network was there.

I'm sure every component group of this opera company had similar work lives. Most worked well beyond a normal work day, and everyone was essential to the final production.

This is what was lost: a living organism. I think we all would have been happy to do some outreach performances in different venues but to do them from a stable place and with a whole, real company. The arts cannot be outsourced. This family is scattered forever.

Winter Hike

When the fields are bare and hard with frost and the woods are free of nettles and light is clear through open treetops, it is the best time for hiking. A couple of weeks ago at Valley Forge Park I walked through the first snow of the season, feeling small in a white and black landscape. The wind and cold and the wide spaces whittled down my worries and questions about my changing life.

My sister asked later if there were ghosts, and at first I answered that our father always hikes with me. Then I realized she meant the freezing and dying soldiers of the American Revolution. So many wasted lives in wars, such an inefficient way to solve problems. Yet if they had not fought we wouldn't be here today. These ghosts were mostly trying to survive; I suspect that ideals aren't much comfort in the face of pain and death. It's hard to imagine the fear and chaos that was in this well kept park where people come to run and exercise their dogs.

I like to leave the paths and strike out over the fields. Our father hated trails and hated returning by the same way he had come. We followed him at our peril, ready for branches and thorns to snap back at us, taking pride in keeping pace with him. His most perilous hikes-"swamp hopping" with his teacher buddies-we never got to share. He did his duty his whole life, supporting the family; he needed the times of danger and adventure.

My friend Mary and I did a young girls' version of those hikes, in the woods on her family's farm. In summer the nettles were six feet high, but in winter and fall the woods were ours, creek and fallen trees and swampy cornfields. We couldn't really get lost-you'd come upon a road or neighboring field eventually- but it felt large to us, and we were on our own, dealing with obstacles, getting scratched and happily filthy. It has stood us well to know what we can overcome.

When Dad was finally free of responsibilities, he didn't get much time before the Parkinson's diagnosis.Still and sadly, he always had the urge to move. I appreciate every chance I have to stride out somewhere in the kind of rough terrain that doesn't allow me to think tangled thoughts. I have to pay attention to each footstep, feel the roots and the earth.