I glanced behind me while sitting on the Funky Patio and saw something white. Investigating further, I realized it was a daffodil! A little miracle that popped out of the gravel by the porch. I’m so glad I didn’t yank it, thinking it was a weed.
These little wonders are everything.
Wind. It woke me up last night. It’s going on all day today. I moved all my pots to areas on the porch that, hopefully, will shelter them a bit. In the meantime, I’ll try not to scream too much.
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Back to the story of my career:
A dusty framed photo of yours truly in my office at Boston University. The longtime faculty of the School of the Arts had the offices with windows. Mine was windowless. Nevertheless, I loved it. A wonderful voice teacher from the School of Music had the office directly across the hall from me, and I had the pleasure of hearing him sing as well as his students. Richard Cassilly was his name. He was an operatic tenor who had had a long career singing opera all over the world, including La Scala, the Vienna State Opera, the Metropolitan Opera, and the Royal Opera in London. He was a kind man and a gentleman. The wonderful thing about BU’s School for the Arts at that time was the fact that theater, music, and art all shared the same building. How can that be anything but exciting and stimulating? The Dean of the School for the Arts was famed American opera singer, Phyllis Curtin, who I was honored to call my colleague and friend. She was beautiful, elegant, funny, and wise.
Note in photo: My dark hair, which you rarely see here on the blog, my cheekbones, which I used to have in abundance, a desk phone (no personal computers yet, no cell phones), and my Filofax! I remain a planner addict to this day.
I’ve said before that my favorite time in my career was the five years I taught at Boston University. I don’t think I’ve ever been as stimulated. I felt good about myself (my peak years – I think – were my thirties and early forties) I loved the students, I worked constantly, and I loved living in my rent controlled apartment in Cambridge. I didn’t have a car, so I took the “T” everywhere and I walked and walked and walked, just as I had in Philadelphia. I loved nothing more than exploring neighborhoods, visiting historic sites, people watching. I lived just down the street from Harvard. In fact, I lived on Harvard Street.
If I was earning more than I was, I would have stayed, because I was perfectly happy there. There was nothing I didn’t like – except being relatively poor.
Two things happened that made me start to think about leaving. My brother, who had been fighting lymphoma since the tail end of my time in Philadelphia, grew worse. Right after I returned from chaperoning our students on a trip to the Edinburgh Festival (where they performed two plays by BU alum, Craig Lucas,) my mom called me. She had held off telling me that Dave was critically ill because she didn’t want to ruin my trip. Within a week of my return, Dave passed away. This was in September of 1991. I won’t go into details but Dave’s death at the age of 44 was devastating. It still is. My students were incredibly loving and supportive when I returned from Michigan. They literally wrapped their arms around me. Then, the next year, I turned 40. Decade birthdays have always been hard for me, but ultimately positive. My 30th birthday generated some self-reflection that led to me auditioning for grad school. My 40th led to me saying out loud that it was perhaps time to move on to a job that paid better. My wish list was this: a teaching position in an MFA, rather than BFA, program and one that was affiliated with a major regional theater. BU was affiliated at that time with the Huntington Theater (which was in residence at BU’s theater space near Symphony Hall.) I had coached there several times and was starting to amass a lot of professional credits, in addition to all the productions (at least a hundred) that I had coached at BU. I worked with many well-known actors there, some of whom I worked with again years later. My professional world was expanding.
Dave would have urged me to take a chance.
I said it out loud. I owned it.
Rick, who was my colleague at BU and had become a good friend, was also thinking of moving on and we talked about what we wanted in our next positions, wherever they might be.
These conversations led, in a strangely wonderful way, to my next job. More later.
Rest in Peace, Johnny Crawford, of The Rifleman fame. I loved that show and I loved him. I got to meet him several years ago at the Old Globe Gala. He had his own orchestra and they supplied the music. I was star struck and he was awfully nice to me.
Stay safe.
Happy Friday.
