It’s the beginning of delicious birthday #56 for me. Breakfast with my husband, meeting with opera students this afternoon, foreign films and dinner at home tonight. Tomorrow the CCM semester begins. The kindly social media bots greeted this morning with pictures from a year ago, and that gets a lady thinking.
8/25/18. Still living in Ann Arbor. Commuting down to Cincinnati. MtMn on the road. Michigan scars still fresh. I didn’t know where these trips up and down I-75 were going to lead me.
8/25/19 – I start my day in a place that feels like home. When I look at the whole jam-packed year ahead, I am deeply grateful for a practice that keeps grows richer and more diverse.
And that’s because of you all. Thank you to all colleagues and students for the richness of our current collaborations. It’s an incredibly vibrant time to be an artist. This year I get to work with people I admire, people I just met, people I helped train. I’ll do old music and music just written. I’ll do my first collaboration with deaf artists and a couple of old opera standbys dressed up in brand new theatrical clothes. I am so eager to hear about the things you will be doing for the first or tenth or fiftieth time.
The best birthday pastime is reading greetings from all over the world, and watching everyone getting ready for their upcoming projects and passions. You, my friends, are so inspiring. You are launching books and roles and kids. You’re moving to new places, you’re mowing your lawn. You’re on a plane, you’re putting your feet up. You’re practicing, translating, taking a break, having a crisis, changing careers, studying something just because you want to. You’re getting it done, grinding it out, doing the work. You’re curling up on the couch, you’re having twenty people over for snacks.
No matter how things are for you right now, keep going. You never know what’s down the road, but sometimes when you get there the view is more beautiful than you could have imagined.
