Music and Theatre, Uncategorized

In a Music Town

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Sunday was a good day. Do you know what makes it a good day? Music. Music makes it a good day. I had to work. But for the first three and a half hours I had the privilege of working from the piano. Yes. It IS a pretty sweet gig as the banjo player pointed out. We had a nice discussion, the banjo player and I, about the love of getting to work in music rather than the drudgery of having to go to work. Any job, even music, can grow tarnished until one remembers the absolute joy of earning a living doing what you love to do.

That Sunday was a record day for me at the piano – not just in compliments (it is hard not to get better when you play more than 10 hours a week), but a record day in the bread in the jar factor as well. I live and work in a music town and when music events are in town the vibe is superb.

Bluegrass Meltdown brings world class headliners to the stage. They lodge in town. They have to eat somewhere. I play at an historic French bakery. Extra travelers are in town. They come here for the music. They lodge in Durango hotels. They, too, put bread in my jar.

Sometime after 11:00 am a young man clad in plaid and blue jeans with a fashionably absent back pocket entered the restaurant. The host apologized profusely that the kitchen was down. “I just want to chill a bit,” responded the newcomer. He seated himself at a bistro table – the one with a direct view of the piano. He snapped a couple photos, maybe a video, sipped coffee, savored a croissant, and conducted business from his cell phone. At 12:06 I began to pack up – to close the piano. He hurried over to compliment on the sustained energy of my delivery and the depth of repertoire. I said he had too much youth on him to enjoy my repertoire. He responded that everyone knows the classics. He said his name was Chris. I introduced myself as Cherry. He said I should drop by the Wild Horse Saloon late that afternoon where he was playing. He turned to leave and I swung my gig bag to my shoulder.

“He’s famous,” said the woman sitting at the nearest table. She whipped out her handheld data. “Yes. Right there,” she said, showing me the screen. “Banjo player with Chain Station.”

And did I go to the Wild Horse Saloon? I slipped in much later for the last song, without a wristband and under the watchful eye and nod of the gatekeeper. Later. After the private lesson student recital at 2:00 pm.

Because you know what makes it a good day? Music. Music makes it a good day.

Character, Emotional Health, Family

Respect the Ex

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I grew up in a conservative American household with two parents joined for life and two children – one female and one male – just perfect. So far, so good. My mother sewed my dresses, patched my brother’s blue jeans, braided my hair every day and told me what a pretty little thing I was. On Sunday mornings (and Sunday nights and Wednesday nights) we changed to our good clothes and went to church. When I was washed and combed and dressed appropriately my mother told me I looked nice. Frequently, I overheard my father tell my mother he loved her. But there were other things I overheard. I overheard my mother calling herself ugly as she stood in front of the mirror. I overheard her berate herself for looking fat, having a double chin, having short eyelashes (she was the type of conservative who does not wear makeup). She continued to affirm me and tell me I was pretty. Everywhere I went people told me how much I looked like my mother. Who was I to believe? The mother who said I was pretty? Or the mother whom I looked like who said she herself was ugly?

My grown-up life has not been perfect. I have been the wife of two husbands and am now single, solitary. I have made some mistakes over the years. Heaven knows I can see the glaring errors of my exes. But those men are the father – the other parent – of my children. Half of the genetic makeup of each of my children comes from someone other than me. Did I want to raise three children to adulthood the entire time pointing out the fault of their other parent? In that way, would they not learn to hate half of themselves? How much more conducive to character building if I pointed out the strengths and positives of the ex and encouraged the child to cultivate those positives?

My children are grown now, and all successful – each in his or her own way. And still the world around me unravels. Relationships of the younger generation fall apart. Couples who have been together for a decade or so decide to split, leaving the children they share to be shuffled from one domestic environment to another on a weekly basis. Wounded and hurting exes vie for the upper hand. 

I have observed at a safe distance while unyielding and self-righteous individuals, in completely asinine fashion, intentionally undermine the influence of the other parent and sow seeds of rebellion and hate.

I have also observed wounded and hurting exes who have triumphed. Those, who in maturity and wisdom have set aside their petty grievances for the sake of the whole health of their children.

I have seen exes fight and hurl insults on social media. I have also seen exes build each other up, compliment and thank each other, in view of the children – and the whole world – on social media. Just like they did when they were in love.

Do me a favor. Do the whole world a favor. For the sake of the children and their emotional and mental health; don’t insult, teardown, or disrespect the parent of your child! Travel back, into the far reaches of your mind to the good times – or the one good time. Find one solid respectable trait for your ex and dwell on that when you talk to your mutual children. Save the other stuff for the privacy of your counselor’s office or the ear of your trusted friend. You may feel that making yourself the perfect hero in the eyes of your child will give them someone to look up to. Yet, to make the other parent – your ex – into a perfect monster is to infer the child is half bad, half detestable, half ugly. Can you not care enough about the child of two individuals; can you not respect and love your child enough to speak respectfully of the other parent? Children grow smart and wise. They will soon form their own opinion about the actions and behaviors of those who fathered and mothered them. Don’t disrespect the parent of your child.

Family, Music and Theatre

In a Music House part 4: Soundtrack for a road trip

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After all, what is a road trip without music? She was the driver so she got to chose the playlist. It was a multi-generational girls trip for spring break and I was not driving. The playlist was not babyboomer – not from the 70s. The playlist was millennial and included a hearty dose of driving drumbeat intros (so far, so good), but also some raspy sounding screamo. 

I sat in the backseat feverishly editing the manuscript for Precious Journey. My (almost) 15-year-old granddaughter occupied the front passenger seat and my daughter of 33 years was driving. The trip was her idea. The music was her music. Suddenly, the timbre of the male voice grabbed my attention. There was something familiar about the vocal placement, even the enunciation of the lyrics. This was a clean professional recording I had not heard before. I thumped the back of the driver’s seat. “Is this Philip?” I called. “Nope,” she answered, “Project 86.”

We rode on. We heard some millennial classics. We listened to soundtracks.  A solid, hard, rock drumbeat laid an extended intro to a song. “This is my favorite band,” quipped my daughter from the driver’s seat. “You really like the drummer?” I queried. “Nope. Crush on the guitar player. This is the last thing they ever recorded.” It was, without question, a professional studio recording – not a rough take. And now I knew; she was the drummer. Three different band incarnations, same three musicians. They met in high school marching band. The first rock band formed in my basement at a homecoming party. They morphed into hardcore rock, then post hardcore. They lived for a time in the same house in Ft. Collins. They have now gone separate ways.

Fire Extinguisher – the first album my oldest son ever produced, toured, recorded, merchandised, released as a cassette and CD and personally presented me a T-shirt for. SMA – good old Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego from out of the past (think 1997) came wafting into my mind as I listened to the male voice, now more mature, judiciously trained, skilled and versatile. The driver turned to her niece. “That’s your dad,” she said. 

Friends, I am not musically illiterate and I am not going deaf. Yet, I could not tell the difference between the national best sellers and billboard names and my own children. When you have lived in a music house for over 60 years yourself, when you have been exposed to recording studios and stages of every genre, when you have spent a good deal of time on study and practice of vocal production, when you work daily in music, you notice things. My children have arrived. Whether the world ever recognizes them – or not – I do. These are children who grew up in a music house.

Uncategorized

Masks Off!

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On the weekends, she plays piano at a French bakery, but Monday through Thursday she works at a school – not just any school – but a school of music. And because it is a school, staff and students have been wearing masks throughout all the long, dreary months of the pandemic. The school offers private lessons on any instrument you would expect. The school also has bands for all ages. There is a music together group for preschoolers taught by an educator of near grandfatherly age who also does his share of picking, strumming and slapping while leading adult bands of many genres. There is an instructor with a doctorate in music who spends his days with elementary groups and his evenings as the leader of adult bands; beginning, intermediate and advanced; always rehearsing to answer the call to play at the next available gig. In these bands are wanna-be-performers, used-to-be performers, and graying students who work day jobs as doctors, lawyers, executives, or retirees and spend their hobby money on big band instruments, keyboards, and guitars. Students of all ages come through the front door – close to 400 of them – and she greets them and gets to know them and asks about their day and their music. She knows them in their N95 masks and their bandanas and handmade and decorated masks, but mostly she knows them by the schedule they keep – the large spreadsheet that takes up the entire desktop of her 18-inch computer monitor – and doubles when scrolling to the right or left. There is the 93-year-old cracker jack drummer, now blind, still playing with a jazz band.  There are the middle school and high school students who have been with this music school long enough to have established a reputation as smooth vocalists, up and coming keyboardists, shredding guitar players. There are the adults who assemble after hours to be in a band and leave snatches of conversation in their wake  – opinions on music – not usually classical music – more often music and musicians of the 50s and 60s and 70s and 80s – and even the turn of the century – the one 22 years ago.  She also knows them by their voice and personality and attitude – especially attitudes about music and other musicians.

Along about the first of March, the mask mandate ended in Colorado. Schools and communities began relaxing the requirement as COVID case numbers began dropping dramatically. Masks came off at the music school. At precisely 2:00 PM she reached for and released the loop from her left ear and removed the loop from her right. It was immensely liberating. It felt almost awkward for a few hours. Now she is greeting 400 or so strangers every week, people with noses and mouths and teeth and smiles. Some of these strangers are quite handsome, and some are homely. But she is glad, so glad she got to know what they were really like – kind, dashing, petulant, stubborn, accommodating – before she was distracted by appearances. And she is happy, so happy to remove her mask and let those other strangers see that she is truly smiling at them from behind the desk.

VOX Harmonics – high school vocal band

Character, Emotional Health, Goals and Dreams, Health and Long Life, Spiritual Well Being

I Want More

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She is 67 and she is abundantly aware that the best years of her life, the most enjoyable, the most productive, are now. She has all she ever wanted. She is livin’ the life. She makes music. She is immersed in music. She plays music for money. She has traveled and lived in many beautiful places – beyond what she originally imagined. She has walked and hiked in sunshine, blessed with the wind to her back and a breeze on her face, and crafted essays that describe her feelings, and lived to see a book or two in print. She has floated more than one river and seen the ocean. She has passed through fields of flowers in bloom at the peak of the Continental Divide. She has experienced the solitude of alone and independent in the wild.

She has birthed children and watched them grow and loved them and been loved in return.

She is 67. She knows what she wants. All she ever wanted is right now. Yet she does not sit on the couch waiting for the bell to toll. No. She wants more. More travel. More music. More beautiful places. More love. More JOY. For the remaining years of her life. Because the two final things on her bucket list are:

Sail into port grandly

Die in a beautiful place

She wants the last thing to leave her body to be music – along with her soul. Or is music her soul? Or is her soul music? She is not quite sure. But she knows they are inextricably twined. And she wants more. Why? Not because she is greedy. But because the cup of life at its fullest evaporates. One must constantly replenish.

To be clear, she feels a little more like The Cranberries and much better treated than Oliver.

Emotional Health, Goals and Dreams, Health and Long Life, Home and Hearth, Spiritual Well Being

Jigsaw puzzle piece

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What a wonderful morning. The air, though wintery, was alive with portent. Her sleep the night before had been complete, restful, scattered with positive dreams rather than riddled with anxiety. The morning cup of tea was just the right temperature juxtaposed with the frosty air from the open front door. The morning was like a bordered jigsaw puzzle waiting for a choice piece, the piece that had been held to the light, examined from all sides, compared with each preceding piece and each potential piece until, yes! Even from 18 inches away one could tell it was a perfect match. The piece, that one choice piece, was falling into place. Home. She was singing a new song. She had purchased a feeling, a feeling of home and happiness and success for yet another two months. She was alive. She was grateful. She savored this moment, enjoyed it fully, all the while knowing that once you finish a puzzle and breathe that sigh of satisfaction, soon enough there will be another challenge waiting in the wings.

Goals and Dreams, Music and Theatre, Musical resolutions, Spiritual Well Being, The Rules, Uncategorized

The rules of independence

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There’s been a noticeable uptick in creative output at her house. A flurry of lyric writing. Sheets of ragged edged parchment stacked against the music shelf. It is contagious. The rise in rehearsal and songwriting is not limited to one person and one wooden piano bench. Voices sing spontaneously again. A mandolin is pulled from a gig bag and strummed. The electric piano and headphones are in use before dawn, the acoustic and authentic strings at midday, the electric bass at high noon. Collaboration happens. All this. All this because a rule was broken and she had to ask for help.

She has a life-long rule of independence. It stems partially from an inherent abhorrence of asking for help. She chokes on the words. She would rather do it herself than outright ask for helpers. When one recruits helpers there is risk. Risk of rejection. The potential helpers may say no. The potential helpers may be balky and grumble the entire time they are assisting. The helpers may resist instruction and insist on doing it their way. After all, if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself! For the most part, independence is a good thing. One needs to self-actuate, to take responsibility for one’s own future, not to expect others to make all decisions and take care of you. Independence can be the opposite of unhealthy co-dependence. So yes, let’s hear it for independence. But what of community? What of interdependence? Fiercely, fiercely, because she is not perfect and she has scars, she insists on independence.

She is 5’4”and she is 67 years old and she has rules. She must be able to move all her possessions by herself. That way she is not beholden to anyone. The bed frames fold up. The table folds down. The chairs fold up. The bookshelves look classy, but they are compact, collapsible. No matter how many trips or steps she has to take, she can move them herself. She has been successful at keeping this rule for 14 years – with one exception. Her beloved piano. It has wheels. It is of moderate size. She can move it all around the living room and all around the house by herself, but she cannot move it across the threshold and into a transport vehicle without help. So last weekend, she had to capitulate. In order to bring that one final treasure into her house, she had to ask for help – nay, beg for help. Some helpers are more willing than others. Some parts of the project are easier than others. Loading the piano was a challenge. Driving the truck was normal. Unloading the piano at destination was carried out with ease. You see? That’s the trouble with asking for help. One never knows how the thing is going to turn out. Everyone who asks has to weigh the risks. Everyone who agrees to participate has to weigh the risks. Even when moving a piano, the risks are not always physical. The first emotional risk is rejection, the second is that of not being in control, and the big one for her is loss of her prized feeling of independence. But do the risks outweigh the positive outcome? You be the judge. The piano makes the house a home. Guests and residents linger in the warmth of the living room. Solitary rehearsals are long and satisfying. Once again the confining, inhibiting, restricting rule-laden lid has been pried from the roof of creativity.   

Books and other Soul Food, Character, Fiction is Truth, Health and Long Life

Bel Canto

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I don’t often read thrillers or horror stories, but when I do – and I can count them on a few fingers of one hand – they include music.

What is in a title? Sometimes a title gives a hint of the overall plot of a story. My favorite Dean Koontz novel is The City and it is, indeed about the city in more ways than one, but it is also about brotherly love and music and a talented piano boy turned piano man. What did I expect when I picked up a book titled Bel Canto? That the entire book would be about beautiful singing? No. If anything, I expected a one-liner somewhere deep in the book or at the denouement where someone sings an unforgettable song. 

The book is just good enough, just well-known enough, that I am both ashamed and amazed not to have read it sooner. But had I read Bel Canto in 2001 when it first came out in paperback, would it have had the same impact as reading it in 2022. 2022 when the world has gone mad, yet I have been heard to admit I am happy, perhaps the happiest I have been in a long time. 

I have always loved music. A piano has always been a necessity, but I learned to love bel canto and Italian pieces when my youngest toured and performed with Colorado Children’s Chorale. I was raised to be a musician, but a gospel musician only. Even though Granddad had a Victrola and a collection of Swedish chanteuses, I had little appreciation for opera until I became more intimately acquainted with it as a core knowledge music specialist.

In Ann Patchett’s finely tuned Bel Canto, opportunities to identify with the accompanist are plentiful, there are also long moments to identify with the hostages, to pity underprivileged child terrorists, to savor the deep, profound effect music has on our lives. And there are questions to ponder. 

My ruminations are both satisfying and alarming. My thoughts have to do with:

Anthropological questions

Psychological questions

Ethical questions

Governmental and diplomatic questions

A new kind of normal

Adapting to one’s environment

Happiness in the face of captivity

Blooming where you are planted

Might there be anything dangerous with blooming where you are planted?

Should you let your guard down if you bloom where you are planted?

Can one be truly happy if one is always looking over their shoulder?

Might Happiness have a lot to do with working willingly with your hands?

Does one really want to exist in perpetual, blissful happiness?

Is music nothing more than the opiate of the masses?

I love a book chock full of food for thought. Particularly when it hits me with music and love and forced social distancing all at the same time! It reminds me why I write. It reminds me of Love in various shades and circumstances.

“We found love right where we are.”

Uncategorized

Wherein She Learns to Fill The Love Tanks

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She had, for some years, been actively taking responsibility for herself – meeting her own needs both financially and emotionally – attending to selfcare when necessary now that she had reconciled herself to the notion that one can’t be successful just sitting around waiting for someone else to notice need and fill the void. In other words, if her soul needed a hot meal; she cooked one. If she felt like dancing; she took herself dancing. If she needed a break or a vacation; she provided for herself.

So, as I was saying, she had, for some years been actively taking responsibility for herself financially and emotionally, when a book fell into her hands.  And I hasten to assure you that “fell into her hands,” is proper grammar and tense – whether you find it active or passive – because all she did was open the little glass door on the neighborhood sharing library – a little ADU house that shelters up to 20 books at a time – and take out a yellowed previous best seller (1999) titled, How to Get What You Want and Want What You Have. Rather long for a title, given the spine of a paperback doesn’t offer a quantity of space. She was pretty much done with self-help books. Also, she was – as Jane Austen might put it – vastly content – in her activities and semi-retirement. But still, she did want something more.  Further, the book was written by the author of Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. Knowing that to be true, and also having a certain amount of respect for a writer who could reference outer space and Greek myth in a literary sounding sentence, she shlepped the book home and began to read.

Let me be clear, she loved the semi-hermit life she now lived, but there was a bit of lack. She wanted more and she wanted to go about obtaining it with the best method.

In this book, the writer spoke of love tanks that need to be filled throughout the stages of a person’s life in order for one to be properly soul-nourished and to grow and thrive in health.

There were parent tanks and friendship tanks and higher-power tanks and even eros tanks. She was fairly familiar with the concept. It all made sense. But how does one go back and fill a deficient tank, a neglect that happened in high school or grade school or even in the womb? How does one cease blaming and actively take responsibility for becoming whole?

She found, for instance, that choosing a good counselor, taking a college course, or even reading a good book can fortify deficiencies in the parent love tank. A faith love tank is an ongoing journey. Some of the love tanks work like backup storage and spill over into others. And sometimes, sometimes one can go back and actually rebuild bridges to friendships in the past and reap the benefits of friendship in the present.

So it happened that in 2020 and 2021, in the midst of a pandemic and social isolation, in spending a minimal amount of time on social media, she was able to reconnect with old high school acquaintances. Hear me now, they had never been “close” or “besties” back in their school days – but there had been many, many hours and years spent in shared classes and activities in the years from 1960 to 1972. Twelve years of shared era and memories; a shared past.  They reached out to her. She responded. Good women, all of them. Persons who from age 10 to 18 did not reject her. In fact, always she would have found a place of welcome at their lunch table – had she not been so concerned with the popular kids and the ones who did reject her – or worse – did not know she existed at all.

As the dust cleared from the first round of the pandemic and social distancing, she made her way back to the old hometown and reconnected with a few of the young women – now grown old – precisely as old as she. In addition, she journeyed over the mountains to reunite for a few hours with old colleagues – folks with whom she shared many fond educational memories. Then, she loaded her kayak and went paddling and hiking in a pristine mountain town with a newer friend, someone known to her for merely a decade. She got those friendship tanks full and in that newfound energy of friendship, she began to reach out confidently and intentionally to form new friends in her new community.

Thus, when someone asked her frankly about the pandemic years (2020 and 2021), she confessed those years had not been so bad after all. There was much to say in their favor.

“Roses,” she said “always have thorns.”

Family, Health and Long Life, Hiking and outdoor beauty, Photos

Christmas news 2021

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Cherry Odelberg, Durango, Colorado, December 2021

It has been a really great year full of blessings and good surprises, never mind that we are now in the deepest darkest days of winter, I am experiencing the second cold in about as many weeks, and I definitely overbooked myself when I dipped my exploratory toe back into the workforce. Yes. I worked 50 hours in seven days last week– all in the name of survival, being a responsible employee, and independent retiree. But let’s start with the good stuff.

In January, February and March I kept to the house other than my daily 3 to 8 mile jaunts into the great outdoors. I practiced music, I wrote books, I published books. Life was grand. Andrea and I and my Dad took a two week road trip to the Northwest at the end of March. We had fun staying in contactless check-in Air B&Bs and visiting cousins and their families along the route. Andrea and I had fun. Dad rather missed the opportunities to socialize and joke with motel or restaurant staff – but he was totally satisfied by getting to visit with Joyce and Rod, David and Virginia Anderson and family; David and Gayle Harris and family, Cathi and Chuck. We even got to hike and enjoy a seafaring meal with Philip, and we met Shannon and Lisa on the outskirts of Salt Lake City to share an outdoor meal.

Once home again, Andrea returned to her seasonal job as a wilderness ranger with the National Forest Service and I continued writing and set about looking for music opportunities with which to supplement my income. 

On May 21, I took a trip to Grand Junction to attend the high-school graduation of oldest grandson, Drew. Although I made it before the ceremony was over, the trip included traversing Coal Bank Pass, Molas Pass and Red Mountain Pass in eight to 12 inches of snow. Andrea followed a couple hours behind in her truck and was the last driver over before they closed Red Mountain. While I awaited the go ahead at the top of Red Mountain, I changed from my graduation sandals into my hiking boots and threw a down coat over my sleeveless dress.

In late spring, Dad and I spent an adventurous night in a cabin on Grand Mesa and followed that with an outdoor luncheon at Coni and Steve’s.

Dad traveled to Durango with me to spent four days which we repeated again in the summer. At Thanksgiving Kevin and family passed through. We enjoyed 24 hours of music and hiking before they went on to Phoenix to have Thanksgiving with Sarah’s sister. Dad stayed with me for another four days.

In June I began playing piano for Saturday and Sunday morning brunch at a local French bakery. I like it immensely. I play love songs from the early ¾ of the 20th Century. I spent a few days in Lake City with my kayak paddling every evening and hiking every day with friend Linda and her kayak. I also hiked Highland Mary’s Trail outside Silverton with friend Johanna and was privileged to have other good friends drop in and hike with me throughout the warm months. I took my kayak out solo so many times I have lost count. In October, my roommate (aka Andrea) moved out which greatly increased my living expenses. No worries. I found seasonal work on the Polar Express and then an administrative music job at Stillwater Music opened up – just the job I had been hoping for. In 2020 I sang virtually with the Durangatones from Stillwater. Now I enjoy playing keyboard with Groove Casters (also a Stillwater Adult Band).

I continue to write stories. I am writing songs again. I even played electric bass at a church meeting last summer. See what I mean? Life is good!

Blessings on your new year!

Putting One Foot in Front of the Other, Hiking for Life!