November, 2018 – Looking Back and being thankful

After college, age 22, while traveling on sv Getel across the Pacific with Eric in 1989, I had time to pause from the ‘busy’ness of life laiden full of skills learned across multiple disciplines in order to earn a living, and reflect on how incredibly blessed my path had been up to that point. During that crossing from Hawaii to San Francisco, there was a difficult and rather scary 24-hour period when I pushed myself into a tight corner crevice, crossed myself (unusual for a Lutheran), and prayed. At that moment during the raging sea storm, in the most uncomfortable and frightening circumstance of my life, I thanked God for all the extraordinary experiences that my parents had provided me and the incredible opportunities to learn and to grow unhindered by war, by pestilence, tragedy, sickness, hunger, disability, poverty and even unattractiveness. I acknowledged that I had already lived a terrific life. Overwhelmingly thankful, I was prepared to die. Fortunately, the storm passed and we lived to sail under the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge.

Today, thinking back at that moment and my life up until then, my life had been truly blessed: born in California in the late 1960’s, healthy, strong of body with a decent brain, and an only child of devoted upper-middle class parents. Truly, I was the princess that most of my high school friends perceived me to be, living atop the hill in a big modern house that my father built. Although I never thought, nor think of myself as a princess. I rarely got new clothes; mine were mostly hand-me-downs. My parents owned a record player with basic speakers, a simple medium-sized television and VHS machine to record shows – purchasing movies was out of the question expensive, and renting movies wasn’t a possibility back in the late 1970’s. Spending time on the telephone long distance was forbidden. My parents didn’t often take me out to eat. We drank milk or water with dinner and ate simply. I learned a great distaste for shopping because while my mother loved to go ‘shopping,’ we rarely bought anything. Our big spending was food on special. Before I was ten, I collected aluminum cans, sorting through trash bins to recycle. When I was 10, I sold mistletoe wrapped and tied with a bow to neighbors for a $0.50. Later in high school, I babysat the neighbors’ children. I never received an allowance.

However, what my parents did offer me, above and beyond any material prizes, were experiences. With my mother, we joined a roller-skating club. I was four. Until I was twelve, I spent most of my after-school hours and weekends at the roller-skating rink, taking lessons and practicing. At age six, I started taking piano lessons. A little later I took-up violin in the elementary school orchestra…I was now taking piano and violin lessons.

My mother was a snow ski addict. During the winter months, we would drive up to the Tahoe mountains on Friday afternoons having packed all our food and sandwich materials for a weekend of skiing. At that time, Squaw Valley attracted families to their ski resort by offering children to ski free until age 14. I skied so much as a youth, that by the time I was 16, I was skiing the most difficult runs on the mountain. My mother’s brilliant idea, I attached a horn to my ski pole. While on the chairlift looking down, I would honk the horn to congratulate fellow skiers on their great form skiing and/or crashing. Haha. I used to ski so hard, that my own crashes were enviable…but fortune would have it that I never experienced a debilitating accident. At that time, we skied without helmets.

Then one day, my father showed up with a modest water ski boat. From then on out during the summer months, we would pack-up the El Camino with a camper top (my cousin and I lounged in the back on a cushion reading books – I became an avid reader – no DVD movie players back then) and headed out on late Friday afternoons to the bay area delta for the weekend.

Around age 12, my mother’s interest in roller-skating dwindled. She asked me if I wanted to continue. I was good enough that if I continued, I would have started skating freestyle pairs – a dangerous sport for girls as they are twirled, lifted, and thrown in the air at their peril. At the same time, my interest and skill at playing the violin had markedly grown. We decided that our roller-skating days were over. Instead, we water and snow skied many weekends, I poured myself into local after school sports (softball and soccer), practiced and played the violin, sang in choirs, and improved my mind through academics and reading. Junior high was marked for me by singing in the choir, the purchase of a good violin and playing in the orchestra at the junior college, but most significantly, having to wear headgear to school; before I smiled I was considered a small, cute girl. Haha.

My mouth was such a tangled mess, that the orthodontist required I wear braces and the worst possible: headgear 24 hours a day – even to school. He was going to wire the apparatus in so that I couldn’t remove it. Fortunately, my mother and number one advocate, protested the wiring and assured the doctor I would wear it. In the bathroom, my mother discovered me in tears trying to hide the headgear under my hair. She held me in her arms and said: “You won’t be able to hide it, instead, flaunt it!” From her crafts, she pulled out ribbons and dried flowers and together we decorated it in style wrapping it with bright colors and festooning it with “charm.” Interestingly, I was rarely pointed out or ridiculed. During those months, we  arranged at school for me to eat lunch privately in a classroom away from prying eyes. The orthodontist predicted I would need to wear the headgear full time for five months. I determined that would not do. The moment my teeth stopped aching, I would tighten the gear myself. Three months later, my teeth had reached their new permanent place and the headgear was no longer required. I wore braces for just a year and retainers every night thereafter.

While I was in junior high, my mother went back to school to San Jose State University. My grandmother would pick me up from school to take me to violin lessons. Other days, I would attend soccer practice and/or walk home, practice my violin and piano, do my homework. A couple nights a week, I was expected to cook simple dinners – rice and vegetable stir fry and/or spaghetti with salad. In eighth grade, I auditioned for Oakland Youth Symphony Orchestra and was accepted into the second violins. For three consecutive summers, I earned music scholarships to attend La Honda Music Camp in the Santa Cruz mountains to improve my skills and make contacts.

Moving forward in time, as a freshman at San Leandro High School, I auditioned and was accepted to sing in the Notables Choir, and continued to study piano and violin privately.

The day I turned 16, I passed my driver’s license test. My parents were so relieved from having to taxi me around to rehearsals, they allowed me to drive their robust El Camino truck to school and to my numerous music commitments. By that time, I was playing string bass in Young People’s Symphony Orchestra, I was 6^th chair of the first violins in Oakland Youth Symphony (OYSO), taking lessons in San Francisco, and heading to school for 7:00 am rehearsals for Pirates of Pizazz, our high school “glee” club of singing and dancing. School mornings, I would pick-up two friends who also sang in the group. As might be expected, with all that driving, before I turned 18, I caused two smallish car accidents where fortunately nothing but the cars were damaged. There is a reason why drivers under 25 pay more for insurance. My parents were kind to me about those accidents as I was driving myself from orchestra rehearsals both times. They had the cars repaired, paid the higher insurance fees, and I continued to drive. Through OYSO I got a chance to travel to Europe…travel without my parents. It was my 16^th summer. The travel bug hit me hard.

Time passed musically. I had started taking French as a Sophomore in high school, and became so advanced that in my Senior year, I finished my high school classes at noon and continued French courses at Hayward Junior College. Between my orchestra classes as a junior high student and the French classes, before I graduated high school, I had already accumulated 58 college credits. I then graduated HS with good grades, but earned unimpressive SAT scores. After appealing my application, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) accepted me as a Freshman.

I could go on about the blessings of my life through University and beyond. I continued to have and to create opportunities. And then I met Eric. Through him, I found the courage to pursue a career in opera which led to more wonderful teachers and eventually to a Master’s and Ph’d in Music supported by teaching voice and a ‘priceless’ 12-year career singing in the chorus of Los Angeles Opera. These incredible opportunities were afforded to me by hard work and great people who helped and nurtured me along the way. I have never been exceptional at anything…even opera singing…but through much perseverance, I have become very good at a lot of things, even typing.

Eric also did well in his chosen career and we experienced an extraordinary boon; Eric and I were blessed with two very sturdy, healthy, and intelligent sons with whom to share our lives.

And you wonder why I wrote this account that sounds a bit like boasting, why I recorded it ‘out loud?’ I wrote all this as an edification for a thought that has been mulling around in my brain for some time, since I was 22 and sailing aboard sv Getel. Now at almost 52 having traveled the world for 4 years, I have seen so many extraordinary sights, experienced incredible cultural events and have witnessed in person war torn countries, very poor people, and interacted with all types from different regions of the world. I ask myself and God why have I been so blessed? Surely, I have had to struggle in my life, but my struggles, in general, have been self-inflicted as I have toiled to grow, improve my understanding in music, language, writing, math, spirituality, singing, sailing, etc. Was it the environment in which I grew-up and the choices that I made along the way that protected me from horrible hardships? Was it luck to have good health and simply good fortune, and that I have not had to battle against oppression of all kinds?

This morning aboard our sturdy sv Kandu, before writing all this, a song was wafting around in my mind from Rogers and Hammerstein’s “Sound of Music: Something Good.” The lyrics repeated over and over: ‘Somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good.’ I’m not sure if a good life or having many blessings is a reward for good works in this life or another. It’s entirely possible that because of my “good life” or ‘Princess on the hill’ benefits, I still have much to accomplish of good in the future – to ‘pay it forward’ so to speak. I don’t know what that payment is or may be, or even if it’s necessary in the scheme of things. However, it doesn’t stop me from wondering deeply. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see. Nevertheless, I feel the utmost gratitude for all that has made this outstanding life possible and to those that have been instrumental in this life I have been living.

Happy Thanksgiving!