I've had a sentimental pang recently for the wonders of Christmas in Chicago…
The tree in the Sears Tower lobby, Kristkindl Market in Daley Plaza, the windows and Walnut Room at Marshall Field's (it will Always be Marshall Field's to me!) and the trees and bushes all up and down Lake Shore Drive outlined in gorgeous white lights… Going to The Music Box to see White Christmas and It’s a Wonderful Life and the Broadway Christmas concert and Heike's Cookie Exchange party and Zoo Lights. There were so many kitschy, cool things to do with my single friends.
The office where I worked was beautifully decorated and there were festive events and the big office holiday party… Then I would hop on a train after a crazy last day at work and chug through the snowy wonderland to my parent's place in Princeton. It was like taking the Hogwarts Express and I always saved a really good book for the trip, or napped. Napping was also a favorite train activity!
Down here it was in the high 70's all last week and there doesn't seem to be much in the way of decorating. There’s not even a Hint of snow. Even I, never without my down comforter coat, haven’t broken out a winter coat yet! (The King Singers are singing "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas" as I write this!)
I haven't seen that many trees and lights up. Mostly what I see is the madness of over full parking lots and crazy traffic. We do have cards up in the office to decorate but one of my bosses started putting up the Sample cards way back in September when they first arrived so I've kind of learned to block them out which undermines their festive spirit.
So I've been thinking fondly of my Christmases in Chicago... And then a friend reminded me of the unpleasant reality of frozen boogers… and I snapped out of it! : )
I hope all of you, no matter where you might be when reading this, are having a Joyful and Blessed holiday season. Much love to you all.
Friday, December 21, 2007
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Final Lee
I made it! My last final of the semester was accomplished today. Whew! (So far the grades I've gotten back have been good too!)
Thursday, December 13, 2007
You Know You're Old When...
Sometimes it hits me at the strangest times. Like when I'm sitting on the couch at 10:30 after a long day and I just want to chat with a girlfriend and after waking up a couple of people I realize that there is No One that I can safely call at 10:30 to chat with anymore.
Move mountains to help me out of a crisis? Yes. Chat with me at 10:30 on a Wednesday night... No.
Move mountains to help me out of a crisis? Yes. Chat with me at 10:30 on a Wednesday night... No.
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Bravo!
I saw Dan's one man version of David Sedaris's The Santaland Diaries last night and I have to send some props out his way...
He was fantastic! The characters were hilarious and over the top. And his narrator was disarming and frank. The staging was smooth and he left us wanting more. There were a couple of moments where even I was eating out of the palm of his hand (and I've heard him running lines for weeks now so I wasn't expecting too many surprises.) The audience loved him!
And so do I.
Fallosity
Last week I thought I had experienced the ultimate fallish experience that North Carolina had to offer...
It was one of those magical days when the clouds, instead of hanging sullenly in the sky, come down to earth and add an intimate magic and stillness to everything. The now ragged fall foliage was smoothed out and given fresh glamour, the flaws hidden and just the last colorful bits peeking through. Even the giant mulch piles in the road construction sites sent up mysterious wreaths of steam.
I got to school early as I usually do, and (after lamenting a tragic lack of camera in the face of the most beautiful mauve bush covered in perfect dew drops) decided to go on a walk and get a little exercise and studying in. I grabbed my dampish exam study guide and headed down the trail through the woods that is part of the school property. It was so still, just my feet crunching on the gravel path and the anxious lowing of cows at neighboring farms. Something about tromping through the misty fields and down the path felt so right to me on such a deep level. A very Galbreathy thing to do… And the smell! I couldn’t get enough of the dark, loamy, woodsy smell. I stopped several places just to breath in that air.
And then I came around a corner and there were four wild turkeys huddled just at the point on the path that students aren’t supposed to pass. They looked for all the world like they were secret agents planning some covert action that would take them into the no man zone. As soon as they heard me they fled in pairs to opposite sides of the road and simply disappeared.
It was a perfect fall day and I thought it might be impossible to top… until this week.
This week I was once again at school early but not at such a propitious time for a walk. It was much colder and the sun was very close to setting… It took some convincing to get me out for a walk but I wanted to go over my massage sequences again in my head before class so I headed out, just for a short time. This time I stuck to the fields and had already gotten pretty far from the class building when things started to look a little pink in the sky in front of me. I looked over my shoulder and the whole western horizon was the most vibrant crimson color with delicate rose further to the south. It was so pretty, I kept checking over my shoulder as I walked, not wanting to miss anything. I finally turned around to go back and just stopped dead in my tracks. The pinkish hues were gone and it now looked like a giant golden hand was reaching out of the sky toward me. The reflection on the pond before me was stunning and I stood there, motionless, drinking the moment in while the muskrats swam across the pond sending golden ripples across the water, listening to the last few dry leaves of a nearby tree rattle in the breeze.
As the gold turned again to rich pink and began to fade, one brave muskrat soul began to nibble in the pond just below me. As if this wasn't already a beautiful scene, I heard geese over my left shoulder and a dozen or so flew right by me, so low that I thought for sure they were heading for the pond at my feet. They ended up banking sharply and flew off in another direction instead of landing. Just as I turned to trudge back to school, feeling the nip of the night chill through my jacket, the lights on the school porch came on in a most inviting way.
Experiencing both the passing of the fall foliage and the short lived beauty of the sunset recently have caused me to reflect on the necessary fact that beauty is fleeting and cannot last forever. Which is good. If it did, I would still be holding my breath in that field...
It was one of those magical days when the clouds, instead of hanging sullenly in the sky, come down to earth and add an intimate magic and stillness to everything. The now ragged fall foliage was smoothed out and given fresh glamour, the flaws hidden and just the last colorful bits peeking through. Even the giant mulch piles in the road construction sites sent up mysterious wreaths of steam.
I got to school early as I usually do, and (after lamenting a tragic lack of camera in the face of the most beautiful mauve bush covered in perfect dew drops) decided to go on a walk and get a little exercise and studying in. I grabbed my dampish exam study guide and headed down the trail through the woods that is part of the school property. It was so still, just my feet crunching on the gravel path and the anxious lowing of cows at neighboring farms. Something about tromping through the misty fields and down the path felt so right to me on such a deep level. A very Galbreathy thing to do… And the smell! I couldn’t get enough of the dark, loamy, woodsy smell. I stopped several places just to breath in that air.
And then I came around a corner and there were four wild turkeys huddled just at the point on the path that students aren’t supposed to pass. They looked for all the world like they were secret agents planning some covert action that would take them into the no man zone. As soon as they heard me they fled in pairs to opposite sides of the road and simply disappeared.
It was a perfect fall day and I thought it might be impossible to top… until this week.
This week I was once again at school early but not at such a propitious time for a walk. It was much colder and the sun was very close to setting… It took some convincing to get me out for a walk but I wanted to go over my massage sequences again in my head before class so I headed out, just for a short time. This time I stuck to the fields and had already gotten pretty far from the class building when things started to look a little pink in the sky in front of me. I looked over my shoulder and the whole western horizon was the most vibrant crimson color with delicate rose further to the south. It was so pretty, I kept checking over my shoulder as I walked, not wanting to miss anything. I finally turned around to go back and just stopped dead in my tracks. The pinkish hues were gone and it now looked like a giant golden hand was reaching out of the sky toward me. The reflection on the pond before me was stunning and I stood there, motionless, drinking the moment in while the muskrats swam across the pond sending golden ripples across the water, listening to the last few dry leaves of a nearby tree rattle in the breeze.
As the gold turned again to rich pink and began to fade, one brave muskrat soul began to nibble in the pond just below me. As if this wasn't already a beautiful scene, I heard geese over my left shoulder and a dozen or so flew right by me, so low that I thought for sure they were heading for the pond at my feet. They ended up banking sharply and flew off in another direction instead of landing. Just as I turned to trudge back to school, feeling the nip of the night chill through my jacket, the lights on the school porch came on in a most inviting way.
Experiencing both the passing of the fall foliage and the short lived beauty of the sunset recently have caused me to reflect on the necessary fact that beauty is fleeting and cannot last forever. Which is good. If it did, I would still be holding my breath in that field...
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Thanks Full
Thanksgiving is This week?! But I was just wearing a T-shirt outside Last week! How can that be?! I guess when your life centers around the age old question of “What’s due tomorrow?! Aaargh!” then it’s pretty easy for a holiday like Thanksgiving to sneak up on you. But as far as the sentiment behind it? I’m way ahead of you there…
This fall has been absolutely Gorgeous down here in North Carolina. I imagine the trees are actually just as pretty in Chicago, but there are so many More of them down here! My drive to school on the back roads is so stunning I have literally become a hazard to myself and others as I gape at the tongues of flaming reds and oranges and yellows licking out from between the evergreens. You can’t help but be thankful when surrounded by beauty like that.Then there’s the little old miracle of life as embodied by my absolutely adorable new nephew, Ian Muir Galbreath. He was born on November 9th and weighed in at a whopping 10 lbs, 12 oz and 20 inches long! Reports are that the first thing he did after emerging was STRETCH! I’m just bursting all over with AuntLee excitement and pride. And very thankful that everything went okay with the birth.
And finally, I cannot say enough just how thankful I am to Dan for all of the support he has provided through these first few months of school, putting up with my crazy schedule, coddling me through nervous breakdowns and keeping the fridge stocked with food for me to take for my loooong days. He has been so thoughtful and funny and understanding and kind. Not to mention sexy. Thanks for everything, Baby.
Hope you all have just as much to be thanks full about as I do. Happy Thanksgiving!
Thursday, November 8, 2007
A Most Amazing Story
It’s 6:30 AM (a time that only happens to other people as far as I’m concerned) and I am sitting at my computer writing a blog entry… Has the world gone mad?!
Dan had to get up at 5:15 this morning to get to an early morning school gig. Now I was under the impression that 5:15 was one of those “imaginary numbers” that physicists like to bandy about to make us all feel stupid. I now have empirical evidence that an alarm clock set to 5:15 Will go off! Amazing!
Even more amazing is the fact that although I fully intended to roll over and go to sleep again, try as I might and despite Dan being as quiet as a mouse, I could not manage to regain the blissful state of slumberland. Instead I tossed and turned, my mind busy telling and retelling the following story, which I now will tell to you:
Once upon a time, a long time ago (yesterday at 3:45) in a land far, far away (Chatham County) I arrived at school for the first of the KMI sessions mentioned in the last installment of this blog. I was excited and nervous as I met my therapist at the door. He was obviously a bit excited and nervous too. A very nice young guy, bursting at the seams with the desire to do a good job and impress his teacher. We talked for a minute about my goals and then went inside to find my familiar classroom full of oddly short massage tables and people I did not know talking quietly in observational groups or working through various stages of their sessions.
I disrobed down to my underwear, was photographed in my underwear (my “before” shots), met Tom Myers (in my underwear!), and began the assessment process, which they called a “launch.” And here is where my story really begins.
I stood there calmly, trying to be a good piece of meat, as Tom and my young therapist discussed what they saw in my body. They bandied about a lot of language I don’t really remember and didn’t really understand anyway but I think the gist was that my hips and rib cage are thrust forward a bit more than they should be. In the middle of this my therapist mentioned that my breath did not move into my chest when I breathed… I couldn’t help but try to interject that this is because I am a singer and singers don’t breath with their chests! (We breathe from the diaphragm into the belly and back. A rising chest is a sign of a young, inexperienced, tense and gasping singer.) I was turned to the side so I couldn’t see his face but Tom’s reaction to this response was such a dismissive “yup” that I was mortified for saying anything. It wasn’t my place to say anything! I was just the Meat! I bit my lip, shut up, and tried to be as completely apologetic looking a piece of meat as possible.
And then they finished their physical analysis of me and Tom turned to me and very kindly asked what kind of singing I had done. I said that I had sung opera for years. “Was I singing now?” “Well, that’s a long story but, ‘No.’” And then he turned to my therapist and told him my life story: “It’s the same thing with all musicians. They practice alone for years and years with dreams of being a soloist but only a very thin slice actually make it because the competition is so fierce and then they end up in the orchestra trying to blend in and only noticed when they make a mistake. Now I want Lee to close her ears because I have a larger goal for you. I want you to help Lee find her voice again. It’s possible that Lee would be happy without singing but I don’t think so and she has a beautiful voice so we need to help her find a way to use it.”
I am not kidding or exaggerating. I might have forgotten a phrase or two and changed a word or two but that is what he said and it’s all true! I suppose it’s a rather common story. He must have heard it before. But I was astonished to hear it from someone who knows so little about me! Not to mention that I have recently come to the same conclusion myself, that I could not be a good therapist or a completely happy person with this part of myself locked away. That I needed to heal my relationship with my voice. But I had no idea how to go about it! And here was someone saying that they could help me do that very thing…
So my young therapist got excited with this new mission and we started our session while I tried to get over my shock. I think that perhaps it's not fair to ask a student to help me “find my voice again.” He is overwhelmed by just trying to remember what he’s supposed to do in each session and I don’t blame him at all because that’s Exactly how I feel right now in my training. Also completely changing my life is a lot to ask of anyone especially when I don’t know what it would take myself. But I will say that even after my first session I feel a change.
I’ve been experiencing discomfort and tightness when I breathe deeply for years now. I always assume it has to do with just needing to warm up, one reason I hate warming up. But I got off the table at the end of the session and felt a lot more ease in my breath. My student therapist didn’t understand the significance when I told him but that’s okay. I know what it means even if he does not. It’s the first baby step toward him achieving the goal his teacher gave him. And mine too.
Dan had to get up at 5:15 this morning to get to an early morning school gig. Now I was under the impression that 5:15 was one of those “imaginary numbers” that physicists like to bandy about to make us all feel stupid. I now have empirical evidence that an alarm clock set to 5:15 Will go off! Amazing!
Even more amazing is the fact that although I fully intended to roll over and go to sleep again, try as I might and despite Dan being as quiet as a mouse, I could not manage to regain the blissful state of slumberland. Instead I tossed and turned, my mind busy telling and retelling the following story, which I now will tell to you:
Once upon a time, a long time ago (yesterday at 3:45) in a land far, far away (Chatham County) I arrived at school for the first of the KMI sessions mentioned in the last installment of this blog. I was excited and nervous as I met my therapist at the door. He was obviously a bit excited and nervous too. A very nice young guy, bursting at the seams with the desire to do a good job and impress his teacher. We talked for a minute about my goals and then went inside to find my familiar classroom full of oddly short massage tables and people I did not know talking quietly in observational groups or working through various stages of their sessions.
I disrobed down to my underwear, was photographed in my underwear (my “before” shots), met Tom Myers (in my underwear!), and began the assessment process, which they called a “launch.” And here is where my story really begins.
I stood there calmly, trying to be a good piece of meat, as Tom and my young therapist discussed what they saw in my body. They bandied about a lot of language I don’t really remember and didn’t really understand anyway but I think the gist was that my hips and rib cage are thrust forward a bit more than they should be. In the middle of this my therapist mentioned that my breath did not move into my chest when I breathed… I couldn’t help but try to interject that this is because I am a singer and singers don’t breath with their chests! (We breathe from the diaphragm into the belly and back. A rising chest is a sign of a young, inexperienced, tense and gasping singer.) I was turned to the side so I couldn’t see his face but Tom’s reaction to this response was such a dismissive “yup” that I was mortified for saying anything. It wasn’t my place to say anything! I was just the Meat! I bit my lip, shut up, and tried to be as completely apologetic looking a piece of meat as possible.
And then they finished their physical analysis of me and Tom turned to me and very kindly asked what kind of singing I had done. I said that I had sung opera for years. “Was I singing now?” “Well, that’s a long story but, ‘No.’” And then he turned to my therapist and told him my life story: “It’s the same thing with all musicians. They practice alone for years and years with dreams of being a soloist but only a very thin slice actually make it because the competition is so fierce and then they end up in the orchestra trying to blend in and only noticed when they make a mistake. Now I want Lee to close her ears because I have a larger goal for you. I want you to help Lee find her voice again. It’s possible that Lee would be happy without singing but I don’t think so and she has a beautiful voice so we need to help her find a way to use it.”
I am not kidding or exaggerating. I might have forgotten a phrase or two and changed a word or two but that is what he said and it’s all true! I suppose it’s a rather common story. He must have heard it before. But I was astonished to hear it from someone who knows so little about me! Not to mention that I have recently come to the same conclusion myself, that I could not be a good therapist or a completely happy person with this part of myself locked away. That I needed to heal my relationship with my voice. But I had no idea how to go about it! And here was someone saying that they could help me do that very thing…
So my young therapist got excited with this new mission and we started our session while I tried to get over my shock. I think that perhaps it's not fair to ask a student to help me “find my voice again.” He is overwhelmed by just trying to remember what he’s supposed to do in each session and I don’t blame him at all because that’s Exactly how I feel right now in my training. Also completely changing my life is a lot to ask of anyone especially when I don’t know what it would take myself. But I will say that even after my first session I feel a change.
I’ve been experiencing discomfort and tightness when I breathe deeply for years now. I always assume it has to do with just needing to warm up, one reason I hate warming up. But I got off the table at the end of the session and felt a lot more ease in my breath. My student therapist didn’t understand the significance when I told him but that’s okay. I know what it means even if he does not. It’s the first baby step toward him achieving the goal his teacher gave him. And mine too.
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