A snapshot

Forty-plus years old now, the surface of this small, square photo is covered with thin, mostly vertical, cracks. It has lived the better part of its life sitting on top of my dresser so the once-bright colors of the 1970’s have faded to more of a sepia tone. The trees and grass in the background look mustardy and my strawberry blonde hair, pulled into a ponytail, now looks closer to the color of my sister’s soft brown hair.  

On the back of the photo my mother wrote “Karen (3 ½) gives Janis (15 months) a trike ride.” I’m not sure who took the photo- my mom or my dad- but it’s of my sister and me from the waist up. I’m steering the tricycle and she’s riding behind me holding on to my arms. With me sitting and her standing we’re almost the same height. It wouldn't be long before she matched my standing height and passed me. Oldest does not mean tallest, at least that’s how it is in our family.

Riding that trike was great fun. It had white handlebars and red hand-grips with red plastic tassels that waved in the breeze if you got enough speed going on a straightaway. It was as fast as we could go under our own steam and at that age (or any age, really) it was empowering to do something yourself. In this still photo, however, the tassels are hanging limp. 

We’re wearing swimsuits which meant it was the height of summer and we'd been cooling off in the sprinkler. My suit was a one-piece scoop-neck with blue and white horizontal stripes on top and solid blue on the bottom. Sitting on that red and white trike I look quite patriotic. My sister’s suit had a white top with pink frills on the bottom. Frilly was never her style but at fifteen months you don't get a say in what you wear.  

We both have big smiles on our faces. When I smile my eyes crinkle up into half-moons making them hard to see (my left eye is an even thinner crescent than my right). To be clear, I can still see out of them but it’s hard for others to know that. Somewhere along the line I began referring to them as my ‘bad eye’ and my ‘one good eye’ and it became my joke at picture time.

The diminutive 3” x 5” square brass frame this photo lives in has a heart-shaped inset which perfectly cups the tops of our young heads. The size and the shape of the frame are so unique that she must have either looked specifically to frame this photo or seen the frame and remembered this photo of the two of us. Either way, it was a special gift from her on my eighteenth birthday.  

On the back of the photo underneath Mom’s original writing she wrote “Karen, Happy 18^th Birthday! Forever you’ll have a special spot in my heart. Love Always, Your Sister and Friend, Janis”. I feel so fortunate to have her in my life. She knows me well and loves me even with my one good eye.   

As with most close relationships where you share a bedroom, we weren't always such good pals. I found her, at times, to be quite annoying and certainly she felt the same about me. When it came to physical altercations I was a pincher, using my long fingernails to advantage, and she, well, she was a hitter. I know I’m sensitive but most fights ended with me crying after she’d slugged me in the arm. Seriously, she hits really hard. She still does- ask any of her Derby teammates. 

For having grown up in the same house we are quite different. I was shy and quiet and liked to read. She was bold and adventurous and liked to investigate things for herself. I pretty much followed the rules; she often went after the adventure. We were not to go any further than the edge of our property line; she’d bike around the block. We were not to cross the street; she made friends with kids across the street and then headed to the park.  

Any time she’d go off-grid it put our mom into a panic.“Did you see her? Where did she go?! Where is she?!!” Mom would ask, her voice rising with each question. I would shrug and think ‘You said to stay here. I did.’ I couldn’t fathom how she could just go off on her own and, though we’ve never talked about it, perhaps she was just as surprised that I stayed put.  

With her zest for adventure I imagined she would travel extensively, seeking out adventures in the larger world. Rather, it’s been my brother and me who have spent time in other countries and she’s remained nearer home.  

I've found through travel I'm able to connect with myself in ways I can’t seem to access in daily life. Maybe in always following the rules I didn’t listen to who I was. And maybe she didn’t need to travel around the world to know that: she’d been listening to herself the whole while.  

Seeing life through the lens of my own experiences, I’ve been after her to get her passport. Traveling changed my life for the better and I wanted her to see all that this big, blue marble has to offer. It didn’t matter to me if she traveled on her own or if we headed out together I just wanted her to get her passport. But it didn’t happen, until now. Ladies and Gentlemen, it is official: she has her passport!    

Its binding is unbroken. The pages are blank. I’m so excited to hear about what she discovers in the world and in herself when she heads out. Where will she go? What countries’ stamp of entry will fill that little blue book? That’s hard to say. If my mom asks me I’ll probably still shrug. She’s off on another adventure…

Joy in the Musical World

I have always had an ear for music.  There is nary a song played on the vintage, oldies and light rock stations to which I can't sing along.  More often than not, even without the radio on, there is a song rumbling around in my head (it's a blessing or a curse, depending on the song).  Like it or not, music is as much a part of my life as breathing.  

The Midwest is known for its support of choral music and I feel fortunate to have grown up in that climate.  From the sixth grade on I sang in school choirs and in the contemporary and adult choirs at church. Growing up during the raucous time of Vatican II, I sang all the great contemporary Catholic hymn hits such as "Be Not Afraid" and "Eagle's Wings" with as much feeling as my young heart could muster. Eventually I found my way to the stage and musical theater and emoted from there. 

After college it was challenging to find a place to sing.  As an adult there was no built-in place for music.  Citing irreconcilable differences I'd stopped attending church and other adult choir options were either too focused on a single style of music, too professional or too unprofessional.  I was looking for something that was just right. 

After a number of years not singing I surprised myself by joining the Basilica choir in Minneapolis.  It was still status quo between me and church but a friend sang baritone there so I'd heard them sing a few times.  Never mind that they were a church choir- they were a really good choir!  One Wednesday night in January I attended a rehearsal and for the next seven years I was a second soprano in good standing.    

Our choir ranged in size between seventy and one hundred people and, when it swelled to that size, the choir stalls were packed tight.  It was a rare treat to be singing with that many people- I don't even think my college choir was that large.  The volume of sound we could create was massive but it was almost as exciting to hear how utterly quiet we could be.

Through singing I've always found a way to connect with beauty and that happened frequently at the Basilica.  We had the great good fortune of singing in a building built for drama and sound.  Inside that large, stone space, once we stopped singing the reverberations continued for an additional seven seconds.  Our notes would hang in the air like the thin trail of smoke from an extinguished candle curling upward until it disappeared.

With liturgical music, every Sunday is a different theme and it’s the choir’s job to back that up.  Because of that, we plowed through music and my musical skills were challenged and improved.  Old music, new music, pieces commissioned just for us--- it was thrilling and daunting.  

There were times when a piece would be rehearsed maybe twice before a performance- uh, mass.  Important or difficult pieces got more rehearsal time but sometimes that was just an additional two run-throughs.  Our director was Protestant percussionist and I relied heavily on her cues to know where, when and how to come in and what to do.  Early on I realized that to be in this choir was to be a good sheep: follow, follow, follow, follow. 

During my youth my parents paid for more years of piano lessons than I'd care to note here.  Despite all that training I am not very good at counting; I sing by feel.  Counting is an exacting and vitally important skill especially when singing or playing with others.  If you can’t count out your line, giving the correct value to the notes and rests, you won't be singing the same music as your choir neighbor.  And neighbors, as we well know, have set certain standards that must be met by those who live in their neighborhood.  If you can't meet those standards you may be asked to move… out. 

Sight reading is also a skill I never grasped; I learn through practice.  The first few times through a new piece of music it can be difficult for me to interpret whatever it was that the composer had intended.  I am very good at repeating what I've heard and, through practice, can produce a fine piece of music.  But cold-reading two lines at a time, be that two hands at the piano or two lines of singing (the notes and the words), is beyond my reach.   

Being a part of church choir the two big gigs a year are Easter and Christmas services; Easter is actually the bigger event as there’s an entire week of singing involved.  But Christmas is three services that are back-to-back-to-back: one long, late Eve service, then one early and one later morning Day services.  With either event it’s a lot of singing. 

Christmas is like a marathon with a big hill thrown in at the end for good measure as each mass concludes with the perennial favorite, The Halleluiah Chorus (THC).  As challenging as that music was, standing in the choir, singing music that had been sung by thousands of people for hundreds of years in a beautiful space, those were moments of unbridled joy for me.   

As with any marathon the first leg of the journey, the Christmas Eve performance, was stellar: we were fresh and sassy and thrilled to be there.  At the end of the piece the standing-room-only crowd broke into applause and we were like “Uh huh!  That’s right!  You better believe we're good!”  We flew out of there on a musical high, home to sleep for a few hours before we were up and at it again.   

The next morning I'd drag myself out of bed, eat a piece of pumpkin pie (it’s made from a vegetable and ever so portable…) and drive across the sleeping town to church.  The normal people were all pretty groggy but there were always a few chipper morning people who irritated the heck out of me.  This was probably aggravated by my lack of sleep and having to be up so early.   

One benefit that offset our break-of-dawn call time was the visual difference between the Eve and Early Morning masses.  The light, oh, the light!  At night the sanctuary was dark, lit predominantly by candles, so even with the huge crowd of people it felt private and close.  In the morning the sun poured through the massive two-and-a-half story stained glass windows casting light and color throughout the space.  Reds, blues, greens and yellows were scattered on the ground like so much candy in a parade. 

Our choir was now smaller in numbers than on the Eve as those who had family commitments weren't there.  By the end of that mass we were all warmed up and rallied nicely for THC, The Second Coming.  At the end of the piece the congregation clapped heartily and we were like “Oh yea!  We did it... a-gain!"  

Those of us who would stay on for the morning’s second mass were buoyed on by the heavenly scent of the breakfast that awaited us: egg dish, bacon and sweet rolls.  It was a courtesy (or bribe) which we gladly took as there was no time to go anywhere else and we were indeed hungry.  So now, with tummies full of good eats, we, the ones with families that understood our desire to sing all three masses and/or with no children, made our way to the choir stalls for the final leg of the marathon.  

Armed with a thermos of hot broth to soothe my sore throat, I was more resigned than anything else: my energy for the final leg of this marathon was waning.  And it wasn't just me.  As a group we had almost nothing left to give.   Three masses in twelve hours is a lot of singing.  Knowing this would be the natural state of things, our director had more congregant hymns than choral pieces in this final mass. 

But, just as with the two previous services, when it came to the end of the mass we got ready to sing THC, The Triumvirate, and we tired, singing soldiers rallied to the occasion!  "Once more unto the breach, dear friends!  Once more unto the breach!"  The director cued the organ (with all the stops pulled), the brass section (hired in just for the holiday services) and then us and the jubilation of the experience kicked back into high gear.   

I couldn't hear myself let alone anyone else around me over the pipe organ.  With the brass’s bright notes sparkling above it all we hit our last notes and watched our director who had a look of fierce determination on her face.  Her hands spread wide, her head nodding for ‘More! C'mon, more!’ we took the crescendo where we didn't know we could still go and then, the cut off!  

Our notes hung in the air: one thousand one… one thousand six, one thousand seven.  We had done it a third time!  Those congregants who had stayed to hear this final anthem were already on their feet wrapped up in their winter coats and ready to head back out into the bright day.  They broke into hearty applause.  This time we were like "I can't believe it---  we're done!  We're done!!"

It felt good to have our work, our hours of preparation and perspiration, appreciated year after year but that’s not why I did it.  I did it to be a part of something greater than myself- an attribute of music often overlooked- and to bring beauty into the world.  That’s why I’m here.   

The rest of Christmas Day was spent napping and eating wonderful food other people had cooked.  Our choir wouldn't meet up again for two weeks, a break we all needed.  Once we did, we were on the march toward Easter week and that always came sooner than we expected. 

Hiya!

I didn't want to just jump out from behind this budding spring shrubbery and startle you with a post--- wouldn't that be weird after this looooooonnnng silence--- but I did want to say hello! Hi! 

I'm taking an essay writing class and will have some things to post soon. (Whaaaat?!) Yep. I'm working on a piece right now! I'm enjoying the class, the structure and the writing that's coming from it. Stay tuned for some new work...  

Happy spring!