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I was raised on radio’s Monday Night of Music from 1942 through 1958. We two little girls would put on our pjs and curl up on the living room floor to listen to the Firestone Hour, Bell Telephone Hour, and the City Service Band Hour. That was the beginning of my love of music.

My mother also provided the next step in cultivating my love of music. This time it was through a spur-of-the-moment Christmas gift. It was Christmas Eve 1950, and my mother was quite short of gifts for my sister and me. She was out shopping and walked by the music store; she turned around and walked into the store. She wondered around looking for an idea, and there it sat—a portable record player that played 78, 45, and 33 1/3 rpm records. Our current record player played only 78s. She not only purchased the record player, but also bought 4 records to go with it—Johnnie Ray and Show Boat for my older sister and Mario Lanza and the opera Carmen for me. What a hit! After playing those 4 records over and over again and just before my mother lost her mind, we discovered we could check out records from the city library. We used the library’s collection extensively for years. Even so, throughout high school I spent most of my allowance on classical records. I still have three or four of those records (Danny Kaye sings Hans Christian Andersen and Highlights from Cavalleria Rusticana (Jussi Bjoerling and Robert Merrill) and I Pagliacci (Robert Merrill and Jan Peerce).

Now, it is 2023 with classical music via YouTube. It is not only about listening, but also about watching music being created. I find myself as engrossed as I was when I was a little kid lying on the living room floor listening to the Monday Night of Music, and I feel the same excitement I felt when long-play records first became part of my life. These days I wait all week for Saturday morning and the Berlin Philharmonic’s live video broadcast (via its website) of its regular Saturday evening concert. I treasure being transported real-time to the Berlin Philharmonic concert hall to join the in-person attendees to hear that wonderful music live.

Gorgeous, bright sun shining down on gleaming white snow with no wind and a temperature of minus 3 degrees. A beautiful morning for the ceremonial start of the 2023 Iditarod Race. I am not downtown on the street watching, but I am comfortably viewing it live on a large screen TV in my sunny living room (72 degrees).

But that is not the only live TV program I am watching at the moment. I am also watching and listening to the regular Saturday evening Berlin Philharmonic concert (Saturday morning Anchorage time). At this moment the Berlin Philharmonic is premiering the ‘Prayer for Violin and Orchestra’ by Toshio Hosokawa. Hosokawa composed this in 2022—his mother had passed away, he was hospitalized several times, the Covid pandemic was in full force, and the war in Ukraine had begun. His world was in chaos. Hosokawa hoped his concerto would provide support for others as they, too, go through trying times.

Oh, the universality of music. Though ‘Prayer’ was composed as a description of the trying times during 2022, on this particular day I hear it as something different. I hear it as a description of the tension of being out in the elements on the long, lonely Iditarod trail someplace between Willow and Nome, Alaska. I am by myself with my dogs on the trail. There is nothing but white snow as far as my eye can see. Suddenly out of nowhere, danger strikes. Stark terror in my throat, my dogs barking, crying, screaming. I am surrounded by danger and the terrible intense cold and wind! Then abruptly the music comes to an end.

“You will never leave where you are until you decide where you’d rather be.” Dexter Yager

“Sometimes it gets to the point of being anywhere but here.” Nancy King
I guess I am not yet to that point. Almost, but not quite. I am about ready to decide and describe where I want to be and what I want to be doing. ‘Any where but here’ isn’t exactly a place to head toward. The good news is that I no longer want to be where I am and doing what I have been doing.

The truth be known——no one else will take the job. If they did, I would undoubtedly rebel against the way he/she/it was doing things.

Why don’t I pick up the mantle (put my shoes on) and march forth or at least take one baby step?

What am I gaining by not moving ahead? I am doing the same things over and over—pick up the house, prepare a lesson plan for my student, and nothing else in particular. I have no expectations to fulfill and no disappointments to deal with, just more of the same—an acceptable degree of nothing. Yet, recently I am beginning to chafe at the flatness of my existence. I am becoming bored with the sameness and nothingness. The question is—-Am I sufficiently bored that I will begin to do something?

I could try something new (I have a list of possibilities) for 45 minutes a day for the next 5 days with art and writing and see what happens. What if I like the new? What if I am successful? I will no longer be the person I have known so well for the past 3 years.

Marvelous music this morning via a live telecast of the Berlin Philharmonic performing Mendelssohn’s oratorio Elijah. (Berlin’s Saturday evening is my Saturday morning.)

My home town’s city-wide chorus and orchestra performed Elijah annually every spring from 1926 to 1992. I sang in the chorus for three years in the early 1950s.

It’s amazing how many of the words to the choruses I remembered; I found myself occasionally singing along with the Berlin chorus. An awe-inspiring Saturday morning experience.

Now, it’s time to switch gears and watch the Seattle Seahawks play one last game of the season. No, they aren’t going win this play-off game (my prediction).

This is “one of those” days. At least for the day I have turned into one of those negative old people. What else is in my thoughts except aches and pains which are really not much at all——swollen feet and hard to breath. So, I need more exercise. The only exercise I have liked and tolerated is ballet barre and center work. If I am not careful, I will turn into one of those old folks who talk only about their trips to the doctor and their aches and pains. I do not want to be that person.

Yesterday at a picnic I realized that I had little to talk about because I have not kept up with current events. My philosophy has been “been-there-done-that.” Thus, I have dismissed 95 percent of the news. It is hard to become really concerned about the local, state, and national happenings because the country has “been there” before and moved on with each new generation. Each new generation reaps what it sows. So where do the members of the oldest generation fit in? How do we fit in socially? Certainly not by talking about our aches, pains, and medicines, and how things used to be. How do we make ourselves relevant and acceptable in order to remain engaged? We need to remain knowledgeable about current events, current happenings around town, and reengage in the community post-covid. Make it a point to read and discuss the headlines and beyond.

Thanks Phileas Fogg (Daughter and Son-in-law’s partially completed camper van) for a family fun overnight outing. We arrived at a friend’s cabin near Hope, settled in, drove into Hope, and walked around the downtown area (two blocks). Lots of fisher people were busy catching salmon where the Resurrection Creek empties into Turnagain Arm. After an excellent dinner at the Seaview Café, we relaxed at the cabin and ended the evening by playing several rounds of cribbage. I slept in the cabin while Daughter, Peter, and Oliver, the dog, overnighted in the van. Due to Oliver’s restlessness, the van’s residents had a less than stellar night’s sleep. This was Oliver’s first night in the van.

The next morning, I read and relaxed in front of the fire in the cabin while Stephanie and Peter walked into Hope for coffee. They came back to the cabin to shift gears, then were off on their bikes to ride up the Resurrection Pass road to the beginning of the 38-mile Resurrection Pass trail. Later, they drove me up to the trail head—well worth doing whether on a bike or in a car.

Later in the afternoon, we packed up and drove back to Anchorage via an early dinner at Jack Sprat in Girdwood. Such a fun two-day outing.

Daughter and I decided to designate the weekend as our annual “arrival in Anchorage” celebration even though the actual date is not until next Sunday, July 31.

I am a dyslexic, non-fiction reader. I like to read and I value it, but I don’t read a lot because of the time, energy, and concentration it requires. When I do read, I focus on non-fiction books and articles to feed my brain. However, . . . .

As I am coming out of the Covid shut down, and slowly restarting my life, Daughter has suggested I read the Miss Maisie Dodd mystery series. No way—however, I did not tell her that. First of all, 95 percent of what I read is non-fiction and the other 5 percent tends to be Danielle Steel and such authors. Their characters live happily ever after, and their books require no thought. Second, I never read mysteries. Third, I read only one or two books every four or five months which means finishing the ones I have already stated. Finally, The Miss Maisie series consists of 17 books. I might get them read by the time I am 90. On the other hand, at this time I am doing nothing in every sense of the word. With nothing to lose and knowing that Daughter will subtly check my Miss Maisie progress, I downloaded the first book in the series—appropriately titled Miss Maisie. That was 2 weeks and 10 books ago. Each is a great read—tightly woven, good vocabulary, great background information (new learnings for me), and realistic characters who grow and change throughout the series. Only 7 books to go, then it is onward and upward to restart my pre-Covid activities.