Tomorrow
it will be one year since my retirement, and coincidentally my birthday. By now I was supposed to have developed a
plan for a new “career”. I haven’t.
I
realize, too, that I have failed to comment on this blog’s moniker, “The
Passaggio”, and perhaps now, given the blog’s impending anniversary, is a good
time to correct that oversight and reflect on its meaning.
In
singing, the passaggio refers to a transition point between two different
registers of the voice, a transition between the chest voice and the head voice,
for example, in women. One of the goals
of classical singing is to smoothly transition between these two registers, to
make the voice seamless as the singer navigates her way up or down the vocal
scales and passages.
I
chose this metaphor for my year of adjustment after retiring from UCSF, with
full intention of having a second career in view by year’s end. Passaggio may have been the wrong metaphor
since I’m actually struggling to find this other voice at the same time as I am
struggling to transit to it. It has been
a rewarding struggle, but one still with no end in sight.
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