Voice

When I was young my Mother was forever fussing at me because, in her terms, my “eyes were bigger than my stomach.” I couldn’t help it!. When we went to the local buffet restaurant, the food was right at my eye level, and my sense of smell always worked overtime as I tried to decide what to eat. Invariably, I ended up with far more on my tray than I could possibly eat in one sitting. That was in the days before “Doggie Bags”…so much of my meal was thrown out! Mother, of course, was furious, and I spent much of the rest of those days hiding, pretending to be invisible.

As I grew older, this propensity for excess grew too. I could always think of far more things that I wanted to do and places I wanted to go than I ever had time or means to accomplish. College was a relief, because Mother could no longer watch dog me, and I submerged myself in fascinating endeavors, challenging myself with new ideas and experiences with impunity. Of course, the stress always left me sick when I went home for Christmas or semester break. And Mom always knew that meant I had been pushing the limits again.

The upside to this malady is that I am almost never bored. And I’ve gotten to do some really cool things. For example, there’s nothing quite like entering a church sanctuary full of parishioners and sitting down at the pipe organ console to accompany a congregation singing “When We All Get to Heaven.” Or playing some of the best music mankind has ever written. But I distinctly remember thinking I must certainly have been out of my gourd when I decided to play this most difficult of all instruments! Playing the King of instruments is a bit like strapping one’s self into the cockpit of an airplane without a copilot or even a parachute…with several hundred sets of ears waiting with bated breath. Like a high wire artist without a net! Definitely not a job for the faint of heart!! (Somehow, the word “kamikaze” comes to mind…)

But, I digress…

Then, there was facing my first class of fifth graders as I became the Music Specialist at an elementary school at age 50! “Surely, I have bitten off more than I can chew!” I mused every day on the thirty minute commute from home to school. More than a few tears were shed as I crossed the state line, feeling as if I was leaving all sanity and comfort behind.

When I had a chance to enter a five year timed trial for Deep Brain Stimulation as treatment for Parkinson’s disease, I jumped at the chance. All was fine, until surgery day. I can still remember everything the surgeons said during that eight hour marathon. The drill boring holes in my scalp sounded like a 747 jet landing on my head. I swear, if I had not literally been bolted to that table, I would have dashed from that room, running from that Hospital, and never looked back!!. “WHAT was I thinking?!?! Letting someone…voluntarily allowing anyone to drill into my brain?!”

Fortunately, most of the gambles I have taken in life have paid off. Being an organist was deeply satisfying and cathartic. Elementary Music teaching was a wonderful fit for me. I even became a National Board Certified teacher and Teacher of the Year. The DBS installed in my brain has mitigated some of the worst Parkinson’s symptoms and enabled me to live a fairly normal lifestyle far longer than would have been possible without it.

So what’s my point here? Well…retirement has slowed me, but only a bit. I’ve learned to make teddy bears from old furs and Tshirts. I am learning to quilt. I learned the art of photography and have won numerous awards in local contests. I’m taking Banjo lessons,and am learning about “old time music” from the renowned Riley Baugus.

Retirement came into my life much sooner than I expected. One would think the slowing down of life in general would curb my appetite for new experiences. On the contrary! I still have big dreams of places I want to visit and things I want to see and do. I grieve that my days of going, seeing, and doing are coming to a close. Things take me longer these days. In fact, there are some days I am lucky to be moving at all. Still, deep inside me is that “What if…” question that has driven me for more than 70 years. Take my 2025 Christmas project, for example. We needed a new tree skirt for our Christmas Tree. So a year ago, I bought several tree skirt patterns and then took advantage of post-Christmas sales as I bought up multiple styles of Christmase fabric. This year, about 3 weeks before the big day, I asked Ed to choose a pattern. All was well until I wondered,” What if I make a reversible skirt? And also try my hand at free motion quilting for the first time?” At some point, as the big day drew ever nearer, I acknowledged the fact that I couldn’t possibly finish on time. So, the night after Christmas, I took the old raggedy skirt out and replaced it with a piece held together by pins, quilting clips, and non-symmetrical quilted trees.

My perfectionist side took a hike as I realized the reverse side definitely did not match with the first side! Good thing you only see one side at a time! And free motion quilting is much harder than it looks on You Tube. I haven’t had that much trouble staying in the lines since I was in kindergarten! Then, there was the binding which warped its way around odd angles and tight circles…

Somewhere along the way, I decided that this tree skirt would be my “Learning Piece.” I began to sew with abandon , throwing perfection to the winds! Nobody really looks at these things, right?! So someday, when I am long gone, I hope whoever ends up with this thing understands the even 70 year old “sweet ole ladies” can still learn new stuff, can dream impossible dreams. And on occasion, we can even create something beautiful!!