by

My Story As Told by Music Part II

My husband and kids are used to it by now—me walking around the house and singing like I’m starring in my own personal musical. I won’t even realize I’m doing it, and my husband will comment that it’s been a long time since he’s heard that particular song. Music energizes me, inspires me to write, and gives me a creative outlet that I can share with others. I have been in one kind of chorus or another since I was in the first grade, when I started singing with my church’s children’s choir. Church, school, community chorale—the longest I’ve gone without singing in a group was the first year I homeschooled, but even then I tagged along with my parents to the Don Thompson Chorale’s rehearsals every Monday night. The members eventually got tired of seeing me sitting there and allowed me to rehearse with them. A year later, I made it to full-fledged performer, my first concert being the weekend of my fifteenth birthday.

Many important events in my life have been marked by music, from the day my husband and I started dating (which happened on a chorus trip) to our wedding five and half years later (the Don Thompson Chorale sang five pieces at our wedding) to the births of our two sons (I sang a requiem the day the first was due, although he didn’t grace us with his presence for another eight days, and I performed in a concert exactly one week before the second one was born).

Some of my favorite performances were in grand settings with mass choirs. I sang three times at Epcot in Disney World. My high school chorus performed in district and state festivals every spring, which allowed me to sing, among other places, at both the University of Florida and Florida State. With the Don Thompson Chorale, I have performed in the Florida Theatre and the Times-Union Center. My most memorable performance was in Carnegie Hall, but before you get all impressed, I was one of at least two hundred people. Even better than the setting, our conductor was John Rutter, the composer of the Requiem we performed (that’ll mean something to you if you’re a choral buff).

And now for my shameless plug—I have yet another opportunity to make wonderful memories in my near future. The Don Thompson Chorale, which has performed one hundred fifty concerts to date, is giving a free concert at the Jacoby Symphony Hall at the Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts on September first. Our previous performances there were with other choirs. This will be the first time we’ve done it on our own. And this concert is particularly special because we are celebrating our Director Emeritus Don Thompson’s seventy-fifth birthday. Students from his college directing days are joining with former and current Chorale members to provide an evening of choral fun in the River City (click here to listen to us). Oh, and by the way, it’s FREE! Check out the graphic below for details, and I hope to sing for you there.

by

An excellent blog from my good friend Amy

amyfquincy's avatarAmy F. Quincy Author/Freelance Writer

Rosa Parks, Susan B. Anthony and now Oscar Pistorius. Willing to take the not-so-comfortable road. Willing to be an activist, each in their own way. Willing to be The First, a vehicle for social change. I champion them. I applaud them. Unfortunately, I’m not one of them.

I watched with great interest as Pistorius, a 25 year-old double amputee from South Africa, competed in the 100-meter individual race and then the 4×400-meter relay race of the 2012 Olympic Games. He made history, becoming the first disabled person to compete against able-bodied athletes in the Olympic Games.

I saw the Games with my friend Anna, who’s also disabled, and it sparked a discussion. Anna keeps up. She’s much more in the know than I about what’s being talked about within the disabled community. And apparently, many folks would like to see the Olympic and Paralympic Games integrated into one event. My…

View original post 415 more words

by

My Story As Told by Music Part I

I get it honest, even if I don’t have a lot of it. Musical talent, that is. My maternal grandfather was a percussionist and wrote snare drum cadences that were used for years in solo percussion competitions. My maternal grandmother was an organist, my paternal grandfather an organist and elementary school music teacher. Both of my parents’ sisters were/are singers and instrumentalists. My dad’s younger sister gave me piano lessons for almost thirteen years (poor thing). She taught my cousin fifteen years, and now he’s the worship director at his church.

But it’s what my parents did with their musical talents that matters most to me. My mother was in high school chorus, and I suppose if my dad had started singing back then, they would have met sooner. Instead, he was in the marching band, playing bass drum, or in the orchestra playing bassoon. He earned a full scholarship to FSU for his musical talents, but thank goodness he decided he wanted to go on a European tour instead.

Mama and Daddy in Leningrad, 1975

It was well-known in 1974 that the Florida Junior College (now Florida State College at Jacksonville) had a chorale whose director liked to take his students overseas every other year. My mother sang with him for the first tour in 1973. By the fall of 1974, she should have moved on to an upper school like the University of North Florida, but something made her stick around—that something being the upcoming trip to the then-Soviet Union and Austria. It was this same trip that attracted Daddy away from the band and to a chorus, where he met my mother, fell head-over-heels for her, and they’re still together today.

I grew up singing in my church’s children’s choir, and I was always in a chorus in school. High school proved a challenge because I chose to homeschool my last four years. Year one found me a chubby, reclusive couch potato, and my cousin (the worship director) suggested I join the summer musical program at his school, where they were performing Annie. I did, kind of kicking and screaming in my non-violent way. The male lead, it turned out, was my future brother-in-law. Despite myself, I loved every minute and was allowed to join the school’s chorus and musical theatre program, and that’s where I met my husband. Not as enthusiastic a musician as I was, still, he was involved so he could spend time with his elder brother and cousin before they graduated. He quite literally swept me off my feet as my dance partner in my second musical, Once Upon a Mattress.

So thank you, music, for bringing my parents and my husband and me together. In fact, the four of us (with several other aforementioned family members) sing together every Monday night with a volunteer choral group. . . the choral group that formed from the original chorale from my parents’ college days. It’s called the Don Thompson Chorale, and they even performed at our wedding in 2004.

The Don Thompson Chorale at our wedding, June 12, 2004 (photo credit: Joe Parker)

Stay tuned for a post about the Don Thompson Chorale’s free concert at the Times Union Center for the Performing Arts on September first.

by

Sometimes I Like to Be a Wee Bit British

English: British versions of the Harry Potter ...

Bloomsbury editions of the Harry Potter series

When my husband and I saw the movie The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, we joked that if we ever had a daughter, we’d have to teach her to speak with a British accent because Lucy Pevensie was just so darn cute. As fate would have it, we had two boys instead, so I guess we’ll never know if we would have stuck to the plan. But there are still many things British that we love.

We’re Harry Potter geeks, so much so, in fact, that when I found that some of the language was Americanized in the Scholastic editions, I searched far and wide and finally purchased the Bloomsbury (British) editions of all seven books. There’s something about reading the words the way J.K. Rowling wrote them (not to mention that the title of the first book was changed in the American version) that makes me feel like I’m getting a more authentic experience.

I have to extend my love to the entire United Kingdom. I recently saw Disney Pixar’s Brave, and anything with bagpipes stirs my soul. (And I still say that real men wear kilts.) Being Presbyterian, I am Scottish by denomination, although my heritage is mostly Irish.

I guess the biggest give-aways about my occasional British affinity are a couple spelling choices that I make. I cannot make myself write “gray” or “theater,” unless, of course, those spellings are used in proper nouns. I’m more of a “grey” and “theatre” kind of girl. I can’t ever remember a time when I chose to write these words the preferred American way, nor did any teachers ever try to correct me—nor should they. I suppose I’m inconsistent, since I still write “color” and “labor” instead of adding the optional “u,” but I’m not the only one out there doing these kinds of things, am I? Come on, somebody, admit you like to break out of the mold a little, too. (And not capitalizing doesn’t count! e.e. cummings already took that one.)

by

Hold It! You’re Exercising Wrong (I Know I Was)

Cover of "Hold It! You're Exercising Wron...

I read Hold It! You’re Exercising Wrong: Your Prescription for First-Class Fitness Fast! the first time in 1999. I was about to give up on exercise completely because I exercised all the time, yet I never lost weight. I was chubby and had low self-esteem. I wanted to tell people I ran into, “I really shouldn’t look like this. I do workouts from a weightlifting book by Lou Ferrigno. I do step aerobics, too, I promise.”

Searching the fitness section of Chamblin Bookmine (the most awesome bookstore in northeast Florida, by the way), author Edward Jackowski’s title practically jumped out and grabbed me. I knew I had to be doing something wrong to work out so often and have absolutely no results. And when I read the book, I discovered that there were many people in the same situation. The reason is that there are many fitness programs out there, but they are often directed at anyone and everyone instead of targeting the appropriate body types.

Jackowski lists four body types, according to where one puts on weight. Cones are broader of shoulder and narrower at the hips, putting more weight and muscle on the upper halves of their bodies (usually men but not always). Rulers gain weight evenly from top to bottom, with small to medium hips. Spoons are the opposites of cones, amassing weight on the lower halves of their bodies, particularly thighs. And finally, hourglasses (most often women) are proportional on top and bottom, usually with slender waists.

Body types are genetic, so there’s no way to change that. Jackowski, however, details plans for each type, listing which exercises to avoid (because they accentuate the negative aspects of those particular body types) and which to add to a person’s routine to become as fit as possible. I found out, since I was a spoon, Lou-Ferrigno-style weightlifting and step aerobics were the two last things that I should have done. As soon as I adopted Jackowski’s workout, I became physically fit within a few short months.

The most gratifying part was running into friends several months after losing weight, and they looked at me and asked where “the rest of me” was, since there wasn’t as much of me as there had been before.

There are many things I love about Jackowski’s workout. First, he explains why we need to do certain things, like a warm up and stretches and why they need to go in a particular order. And the exercises he recommends don’t require any special or expensive equipment. If I don’t have time to do a full workout, I can pick and choose exercises and tailor the whole thing to my limited schedule. Since 2009, I have also added the spoon-appropriate exercises from P90X and Spartacus.

The central component to the You’re Exercising Wrong workout, which is challenging for many people, is jump rope. According to Jackowski, “you burn more fat with rope jumping than with any other exercise” (81). I try to jump rope two to three times a week, and at one point between babies, I could do so continuously for ten minutes. It sounded impossible at first, but I built up gradually from 30 seconds to one minute on up. If an average girl who barely participated in team sports can do it, anyone with two functional legs can. Even if you’re skeptical about the jump rope part, I highly recommend this book if you want to get into shape and learn more about your own body type.

by

My Babies Slept with the Help of Babywise

There is a reason On Becoming Baby Wise: Giving Your Infant the Gift of Nighttime Sleep is my favorite gift to give new parents; it is the number one parenting book in my own collection. Authors Gary Ezzo and Dr. Robert Bucknam not only offer advice on how to get infants to sleep through the night, but they also cover a wide range of issues from how to raise multiples to what to do about colicky and reflux babies to fitting baby in with an older sibling or siblings to which baby products to buy and beyond.

I was very skeptical when a family member recommended Babywise, but she swore that it was the main reason all of her babies slept through the night by eight weeks. I had many other books in my maternity collection, but even the book that was specifically about breastfeeding didn’t give me nearly as helpful advice as Babywise did about the pros and cons of breast versus bottle, when to feed, and most importantly, why to feed (or not feed) at certain times.

Both of my sons had colic and reflux. Not only is there a chapter dedicated to these specific issues, but it also encourages parents like me to stay on the Babywise plan, with necessary modifications. Instead of giving up because my children had a few early problems, sticking with it helped them regulate and sleep through the night at seven and eight weeks, respectively.

So what is it that Babywise recommends? It’s called parent-directed feeding (PDF). Someone asked me, “Is it one of those books where it tells you not to feed your baby?” Absolutely not! Rather, it teaches parents how to recognize when the baby actually needs nourishment versus a diaper change or some other form of care. Just because the baby cries doesn’t mean he needs the breast or bottle, in other words. Many people of the attachment persuasion are opposed to this method, but think of it this way: You wouldn’t eat when you had a stomach ache or just needed to get some rest, so why would you put food in your baby’s upset tummy or try to pacify him by nursing when what he really needs is a nap?

Ezzo and Bucknam explore the history of parenting theories and explain the extremes of hyperscheduling (the baby must eat every X hours—no flexibility!) to no schedule at all. PDF is a happy medium, creating a predictable, flexible routine, which babies and children crave. They will be happy, well-rested, self-assured babies with equally well-rested and satisfied parents.

by

Apparently, I Have A Conflicted Personality

They say you write what you know.

Well, maybe not you specifically, but I know I’m guilty.

I can’t help turning my life into stories. There I am, walking along, minding my own business, when I realize I’m narrating what I’m doing. But instead of carrying a bag of groceries into my condo, maybe I’m a World War II nurse with an armful of gauze and blankets for my patients. Or maybe the phone rings in the middle of the night. It’s someone dialing the wrong number, but I can’t help wondering, What if that had been the call that no one wants to receive, that something terrible happened to a loved one?

Years ago, that very situation happened, and instead of going back to sleep, I lay awake all night, constructing a new story. I built it around what might have happened. Since the catalyst was something that actually happened to me, it was hard not to give the main character some of my own attributes. Sure, I made her older, gave her a different job, changed her appearance, let her live in my dream house, but to take it from a theoretical “what if” to the story I’d imagined, the main character turned out a lot like me.

I decided to workshop my story, and according to the class rules, I was not allowed to say one word during the reading or subsequent critique. I’d been through the process several times before, so I was over how unnerving it feels to have my story alternately praised and criticized with me sitting right there, helpless to answer any questions or defend myself.

My fellow workshoppers started talking about the character. She was too needy, they said, and there was no way she could be A and B, when she was so obviously P and Q, as well as Y and Z. She was conflicted—how on Earth could a person like her exist? Part of me wanted to laugh, and another part was dying to defend her—because I was A,B, P, Q, Y, Z, and every letter in between. Of course she was real because she was mostly me! But I certainly wasn’t needy. . . they’d gotten that part wrong. (Gulp—am I needy?)

Since then, when other English majors I know complain about how they hate math or just can’t get organized or don’t understand other kinds of artists, I smile and remember that I shouldn’t be able to do those things either. After all, my type of personality isn’t supposed to exist. But somehow I got creativity and organizational skills from both parents, a talent for spotting typos a mile away from my mother, and a math brain from my father (and his mother before him). If asked about my favorite pastimes, I’d be hard-pressed to put my top four in order of importance, but alphabetically, they are as follows: bookkeeping, reading, singing, and writing. Yep, that was bookkeeping on the list. I also love editing (sometimes I have more fun editing something I’ve written than actually writing it to begin with), but I lump that in with writing.

It makes me think that, while I don’t know any other Sarah Cotchaleovitches, certainly there are other “conflicted” personalities out there. Come on, admit it—you are, too, aren’t you?