March is Women in Music Month: A time to celebrate the achievements, contributions, and influence of women in music throughout history and more personally in our lives.
I've been reflecting on this recently, thinking of the women in my life who guided, nurtured, and empowered me to be the musician and teacher I am today.
Here are a few of the influential teachers and mentors I want to acknowledge this month:
Here we are: another year before us full of possibility and promise. Leaving another year behind with mixed feelings of delight, sadness, and everything in between, as is usually the case.
But we never really leave it behind, right? It's not as simple as turning the page on the calendar and erasing everything that's come before.
“A whispered chaos swirls in the mind of those who carry unmade decisions,” Emily P. Freeman writes.
And for those of us who feel the tension between outward signs of change—the frosty mornings, the wisps of wind through the cherry tree, the shifting light at end of day—and inward ones, we know this is true.
The days are shorter, but our to-do lists are longer; the natural world around us is slowing down, preparing for a season of darkness and quiet and rest, but we are moving faster, preparing for a season of light and holiday performances and dinner parties.
“A whispered chaos swirls in the mind of those who carry unmade decisions,” Emily P. Freeman writes.
And for those of us who feel the tension between outward signs of change—the frosty mornings, the wisps of wind through the cherry tree, the shifting light at end of day—and inward ones, we know this is true.
The days are shorter, but our to-do lists are longer; the natural world around us is slowing down, preparing for a season of darkness and quiet and rest, but we are moving faster, preparing for a season of light and holiday performances and dinner parties.
I know we're almost there when we reach this intersection.
We stopped here once, at the bottom of the hill, and I took this picture out the passenger window, which I later painted—"Country Road in Summer." Steve was driving and Rory was in the backseat going back and forth from window to window, ears flapping in the summer breeze. Every time we drive this way, through the hills of the Finger Lakes, I remember that moment in time as vividly as if it were a Polaroid.
Do you have places like this? Scenes that evoke such clear picture memories?
There’s a season for growing and a season for scaling back.
A season for doing and a season for undoing.
A season for reaching out and a season for reaching in.
There's a season for singing and a season for listening.
A season for leading and a season for following.
A season for going and a season for staying.
There’s a season for creating and a season for taking it all in.
A season for moving and a season for standing still.
A season for being and a season for becoming.
It can be subtle, that line in between. Is this a season of leading or one of following? Are we creating or recreating? Are we moving or standing still, with the world spinning around us?
It's hard to tell, sometimes.
We almost missed it driving in.
Tucked into the bluff, the peak of the slate roof is just above road level and was barely visible through the thick summer foliage.
We pulled onto the side of Skyline Drive to park. The air was still damp from the afternoon thunderstorm as we climbed down the stone steps to the access road.
My Sicilian grandmother was just over five feet tall, like me. She had thick brown hair and olive skin, like me, and she wore a ring on almost every finger.
"Mangia! Buon appetito!" she'd say, setting down an antipasto platter, a plate of warm arancini, or a slice of spaghetti pie made from leftovers.
Last week, a neighbor three doors down invited our dog, Rory over for a dog play date. While Rory and Red chased each other in a loop around the backyard, we admired the garden—azaleas, forsythias, pink flowering almond, and blue phlox. Hasta, wild violets, Japanese water iris, an old dogwood tree, and a large weeping willow in the middle of the backyard.
