It
has now been three months since I started The Passaggio blog and four since I
retired. Since I’m planning to keep up
this blog for one year only, I thought it was time for a little “check-in” to
assess how things are going and to re-group if necessary. (Just think, faithful readers, you are already
one-third of the way through, too!) Check-in here is not unlike writing the summary and conclusions in the old gridded lab notebook, recording what have I done, what has worked, what hasn't, what does it all mean, how should I proceed.
Let’s
start with project numero uno: singing. I’ve leapt with typical verve and
commitment into a completely new life. My
two music classes at College of Marin are awakening me to a whole new world,
but these are hard subjects and are not coming easily to me. I am learning a whole new language, one
which would have been much easier to grasp at age ten, with music theory being
the written word and ear training being the spoken. It is a steep learning curve, which I love, but tedious, which I don't. In principle, I should be good at this, but I’m simply not. I’m going to keep going for now and try to
work a little harder at it; maybe there is just a little hump or activation
barrier I need to vault over to really get it!
Added
to that is how frazzled I feel by my singing practice, which I dutifully attend
to almost every day. With a new teacher,
there were many new or long-forgotten ingredients to meld into my voice, with
only occasional satisfying results. I simply
wasn’t enjoying practice as much as I used to; it seemed to take inordinately
long to coax out a beautiful sound, and I had to ask why. If you read “Daruma Doll” (November 10),
you’ll get part of the answer, and here I did need to regroup, prune away one
teacher, and recommit to the joy and the intellectual and physical challenge
inherent in singing. Performing in Pirates and Tosca - indeed, just practicing with other singers - is so enjoyable and powerful for me that I know this is what I need to do.
One
perk of retirement in concert with an empty nest is the ability to be
spontaneous. I feel like a social
butterfly who has emerged from a seemingly impenetrable chrysalis. Movie?
Sure! Concert? Yes! Art
exhibit? I’m there. Drink afterwards? Why not!
A walk? Let me get my shoes! So let’s put that, together with the many
friends who share in these delights, in the plus column.
But
am I really moving into a path that is deeply meaningful? My meditation practice has been replaced by obsession with my art projects. I now leap out of
bed to play with paint and paper at my kitchen table rather than settling
myself down onto my zafu cushion. One of
my hopes for this year has been to initiate work with a spiritual teacher – I
already know whom I intend to approach for help – but I keep avoiding contacting her
because I know it will be another large time commitment. Clearly, delving further into Buddhism is not my priority at this time. It will come.
The blog itself, though, is a small platform for meaning, "writing as meditation practice", as they say. Those of
you who keep a blog – Chieko and Molly I’m thinking
of you – know how time-consuming it can be to turn a little thought into a
paragraph. But, in terms of a path, it
somehow makes you accountable and adds an extra dimension to your
experience. I’ll keep going.
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