On my family’s pilgrimage to Wisconsin the day my Grandma died, I do believe that Grandma told God to make a beautiful sunset for us.  The picture is a tad blurry due to the fact that I took it in a moving car.  I actually think the picture is pretty that way, in an artsy kind of manner.  When I look at this picture now, I realize that it couldn’t have captured the emotion I felt seeing it in person.  The colors were amazingly vibrant, and the peace that this nature-display emitted soothed my broken heart.  It’s the kind of sunset about which I knew my Grandma would talk for minutes on end.  I can even hear her voice raise in pitch slightly as she exhaled in amazement, “Oh, my land!  Would you look at that?!”  Her hushed and humbled excitement at such things was truly contagious.  I do believe that I inherited her love and amazement for the little things in life.

I think I’m going to give this blog another try.  And this first post of a new generation of chortles is inspired by the recent death of my grandmother.  I don’t think I’m ready just yet to process into words what I’ve been feeling, so I won’t even try.  I do hope that soon, I will be able to write a memoir of sorts that will document my fond memories of the sweetest lady to ever have walked the face of this earth.  Anyone who has had the pleasure of knowing my Grandma knows that she was truly a special woman.

In the past few years, she suffered from a progressive form of dementia.  In fact, nearly all of my memories of her are from after she started losing her short term memory.  As I take this time of grieving to remember her, I find that the concept of a memory is so bewildering.  And I am confounded by the irony of me recalling memories, which became increasingly difficult and impossible for her.

While in Wisconsin to attend her services and visit with my family, I was able to bring back these beauties:

Yes, as a male, I will not be adorning these vintage treasures on my clothing.  But I will save (display?) them to remind me of the grandmother who helped to shape me into the person that I am today.  As she has moved on from this world, she has been released from the prison of her confused mind.  She is truly free.  And the (above pictured) pins serve as tokens of her memories.  She may have not been able to store memories over the past few years, but they continue to live.

Oh, and a quick, related side story, which I find to be simultaneously heartbreaking and precious.  Toward the end of her living days, she was found with the pearl pin around her finger…she thought it was a ring!  The image of her slipping that around her finger makes me so sad, yet I find it adorable.  I will choose to categorize that as a cute/funny anecdote.  That’s how she would want me to think of it, I know.

Sure, probably none of the pins are made of overly valuable materials, but I can’t even describe how much they mean to me.  I plan on keeping a couple of them and sharing the others with special people in my life who deserve a token of my grandmother.  (And who might use them for their intended purpose: to be worn!)

Ever since I’ve started my student teaching, I just haven’t practiced like I need to. I’ve been way too tired to make myself go to the practice rooms and practice, and it makes me feel awful. I feel as if a part of me has been disconnected.

Of course, there’s a (fairly) simple solution: go practice. Since I only have two days of student teaching left to go, I guess it will be somewhat easier for me to do. The only thing is, I only have a super busy period of time coming up. At least that does entail singing. I just have this burning need to perform. I don’t mean taking center stage with a huge cast and performing a musical or anything. No–I need to do what I love: perform art songs. I think it must seem trivial to those who don’t know me very well or who don’t understand the art form, but I do believe that singing Lieder and mélodie is just simply a part of my essence. The surreal connection between singer and pianist as the two find the twirling emotion of the music cannot be matched. I miss it terribly, and regardless of what I’m doing career-wise, I vow to always find a way to make this type of performing a part of my life. Otherwise, I will always have a part of me missing.

I’ve come to terms with the fact that music has stolen a piece of my life. I can’t say I terribly mind, but I realize that I’ll never be able to be the person I was before I began to discover the joys of a quietly resolving dissonance.

Note: I decided to publish this post, because I do believe that understanding my passion for Classical music is a key to understanding my sense of aesthetics. Music moves me, just as other beautiful wonders of this world captivate me.