life choices | The Overeducated Housewife

Back in April 2014, I posted the following essay on my music blog, Dungeon of the Past. I don’t post on that blog very often anymore. It’s mainly a place where I write about obscure songs from the 70s and 80s, as well as some musical book and album reviews. I love music, but I don’t really enjoy writing music reviews, so there aren’t too many there. Anyway, since we are all on house arrest, lately I’ve been doing a bunch of new recordings. I was reminded of how my very first voice teacher, an adjunct professor at Longwood College (now Longwood University) changed my life. I’m going to repost that essay, along with some updated thoughts.

I have a few friends who are college professors. One of my teaching friends is a woman I met while we were both working as waitresses. She later earned higher degrees in English literature and now teaches at a small college in Virginia. Yesterday, she shared an article from The Atlantic about how some adjunct professors at colleges are living at poverty level. While the article itself was shocking reading– it’s hard to imagine a college teacher being forced to sleep in their car— it also made me realize that an adjunct professor changed my life in a profound way.

In the fall of 1990, I was a brand new college student. I had signed up for the usual general education classes… math, English, history, music appreciation, etc. One course I had signed up for that was kind of a surprise was voice class. I chose it because I needed an arts class for my general education requirements. Of the four disciplines offered– theatre, art, music, or dance– music was the art that spoke most directly to me. I had never sung before, except in the car when I was alone. I knew I had a pretty decent singing voice, though. My parents were musicians as are a number of my extended relatives. I have a cousin who is a professional musician in Nashville. My mom played organ professionally for over 50 years. My dad was a much celebrated singer in many local ensembles.

So I signed up for voice class, which was a one credit course that met once a week and was taught by an adjunct professor named Ann Brown. My father happened to know Ms. Brown’s mother, who is a concert level pianist and was the accompanist for one of the many singing groups of which he was a member. He was excited when I told him Ms. Brown would be my teacher. He knew she was very qualified because he’d met her through her mother. Ms. Brown had attended Westminster Choir College near Princeton, New Jersey and, like me, had perfect pitch (I found out about mine during a brief period during my childhood when I studied piano). Besides teaching at college, Ms. Brown was also a professional singer.

On the first day of voice class, about five students met in the choir rehearsal room at my college. Ms. Brown was there, looking like she’d jumped off the pages of a Spiegel catalog. She wore colorful, stylish clothes and had long, curly hair. She was very tall and seemed serene as she sat behind the grand piano in the rehearsal room. She immediately put me at ease.

The five of us each had a copy of the required textbook for the class, Basics of Singing. It was basically a songbook that had a nice selection of songs for beginning voice students. I actually wish I still had that book. I see it’s listed on Amazon and very expensive… it also gets low ratings. Well hell, I liked it at the time. I sold it back to the bookstore, no doubt because I needed beer money.

Ms. Brown asked us each to choose a song. We would be learning three each that semester and performing it in her class. Basics of Singing had a number of familiar songs in it, which was a good thing, since I never did learn how to play piano and was too poor to buy the optional accompanist tapes. The first song I chose was “Summertime”, from Porgy & Bess. I sang it with relative ease and Ms. Brown was apparently impressed. She took me under her wing.

Sometime near the end of the course, Ms. Brown took me aside and told me she thought I was very talented. She said I should study voice privately and encouraged me to audition for Camerata Singers, which was our college’s “better” choir. I had never sung in a choir before. My dad’s obsessive devotion to his choirs had turned me off of them. Besides, my mom was an organist, which meant she was always at choir practice, too. I grew to enjoy the couple of hours with the house to myself.

Studying voice would entail an extra expense. I would have to hire an accompanist and pay an extra lab fee. However, given my parents’ devotion to music, I knew they would agree. They did… especially after they heard me sing for the first time during a beer enhanced Thanksgiving celebration (but that’s another post).

The audition for Cameratas didn’t go quite as well because I was nervous and, at that time, wasn’t such a good sight reader. Dr. Trott, the director of the choirs, asked me to join the non-audition group, Concert Choir, instead, which I did.

The following semester, I took private voice lessons from Ms. Brown. Her class quickly became my favorite, even though I was an English major. I found studying voice challenging, yet relaxing. I enjoyed exploring this part of me that I had just discovered. I felt like I’d found a new super power, because seriously, before I took voice class, I almost NEVER sang in front of other people, not even in church. My parents had no idea I could sing.

I grew to really like Ms. Brown as a person, too. She became more than a teacher. She was a friend. While I was her student, I got to go with a bunch of music majors to Richmond, Virginia, to see Cosi Fan Tutte. After the show, we visited Ms. Brown at her home and looked at her college yearbooks. She had attended Westminster Choir College at the same time Dr. Trott had and it was fun to see them when they were college aged. With Ms. Brown’s help, that semester Dr. Trott welcomed me into Cameratas when I demonstrated my uncanny tonal memory, which also makes for a fun party trick.

Besides teaching me the basics of singing and showing me that opera can be beautiful, Ms. Brown introduced me to the wonderful music of Kathleen Battle. She gave me a copy of Battle’s CD, Kathleen Battle Sings Mozart. I became a big fan of Kathleen Battle’s crystalline voice, even though she has a reputation for being a bit of a prima donna. I now own many of her albums, but before I met Ms. Brown, I had never heard of her. Because I listened to Kathleen Battle, I started listening to other singers and developed quite an appreciation for classical music.

My exploration of classical music enhanced my study of literature, which made me a better writer and a more cultured person. I can’t even count the number of poems and literary works I became familiar with because I first encountered them set to music. The very first Robert Burns poem I ever heard was set to a lovely melody in four part harmony. When I went to Scotland years later and enjoyed my first taste of haggis, I appreciated Burns’ gift of language even more than I might have, for I associated him with music. It made his “Address to A Haggis” much easier to swallow.

I took lessons from Ms. Brown for three semesters. Unfortunately, after the third semester, the college decided to lay her off. It turned out another professor, one who was tenured and had been working in the Office of Continuing Education, had decided to come back to the music department. There was no longer room for Ms. Brown and her very special style of instruction. I was very sad when I got the news, especially since I had already signed up for lessons the next semester. The next professor didn’t make as good an impression on me at first, though I eventually grew to like her. But let’s just say, the initial transition was very rough.

A year later, Ms. Brown was asked to come back to my school. Rumor had it she declined, because as an adjunct professor, there was no guarantee that she wouldn’t be laid off again. Another very competent adjunct professor was hired. I wanted to take his class, but by then the tenured professor had claimed me as her student and changed my schedule back to her class. At the time, I lacked the assertiveness to raise hell about that… in the long run, it probably wasn’t a big deal anyway. I eventually grew comfortable with Ms. Brown’s successor and learned from her, too. The last time I saw Ms. Brown, she was on a stage in Richmond, performing the starring role in The Medium. She was outstanding, of course!

Adjunct professors can and do make a huge difference in the lives of their students. I think it’s shameful that so many of them are struggling to survive. If it weren’t for Ms. Brown, I might not be a singer today. I might not be writing about music. I might not be as fierce a competitor as I am on SongPop because I know more about opera and art songs than I might have. She truly did change my life and enhanced my college experience in the most amazing way. If I had never taken her voice class almost 24 years ago (now 30), I couldn’t have made this video.

Video production is another skill I’ve learned, in part, because I sing. I’ve most recently been teaching myself how to do sound production and have even been improving my photography skills. It’s all a work in progress, obviously… In this video, I’m singing with my YouTube friend, George, who lives in Scotland.

Ms. Brown was the first of many teachers I’ve had who have helped me develop a part of me that, until I went to college, was completely undiscovered and undeveloped. I may not be a professional singer, but being able to sing has improved my life exponentially. I have an adjunct professor to thank for that. Yes, she really did change my life for the better. I sure hope she’s not sleeping in a car these days.

Now– back to 2020… Thanks to the coronavirus, I’ve been thinking about ordering a guitar and picking up a few chords. I can’t go anywhere, and my piano is in storage in Texas. I can’t play piano particularly well, but I have zero guitar skills. But guitars are more portable than pianos are, and lots of musicians are generously offering video tutorials. And hell, I’ve got nothing else to do. I have always regretted not sticking with music lessons when I was growing up, but horses gave me a lot of joy, even if I wasn’t the most talented. There’s probably a reason things turned out the way they did.

I’m so glad Ms. Brown was there to help me discover a part of myself that went hidden for 18 years. Learning to sing and becoming willing to do it in front of others has changed my life on many levels. It’s a skill I’ve been able to use worldwide and helps me connect to people even when I don’t speak their language. Just last week, the memorial video I made for our dog, Zane, helped me convince locals how much I treasure our canine family members. Yes, the pictures helped, but I think the emotional music was also useful in conveying how I felt about Zane.

As I’ve been making more music lately, I’ve thought about my very first teacher, and how if it weren’t for her, I probably would have just taken that one voice class and left it at that. She truly cared about her students and took an interest in developing their skills. I will always remember her, and feel much gratitude for what she did for me.

I saw the above photo this morning and decided I had to add it to my personal collection. There’s so much truth in it, especially for me. My whole life, I’ve been called “weird”, even by supposed loved ones. I suspect I have this problem because I have an outspoken personality and a rather well-developed vocabulary… (in English, anyway). Many people tend to chafe at anyone who doesn’t go along with the crowd. I don’t like hanging out in groups, nor do I enjoy having queen bee types trying to tell me what to do. I like having good friends, but I prefer to see them one on one or in small groups. I also have a very unique laugh that annoys some people. I can’t help it. It’s the laugh God gave me. It’s loud and distinctive and I’ve caught shit my whole life for it. Other people find it “infectious”. I like ribald, inappropriate humor. Bring on the fart jokes and oversharing. I’m all over it.

For many years, I tried to be more like the way other people said I should be. I can remember agonizing in grade school and high school, trying not to say or do such “weird”, offbeat things and trying to tone down my raucous laugh. Nothing worked, and I became really depressed because I didn’t think I’d ever find a tribe who accepted me for who I am. I also figured I’d wind up an old maid, since I didn’t have a lot of dates. But stifling my true self led to self-loathing and destructive habits. After years of trying to fit my square self into a round hole, I decided I needed to simply be the most authentic version of who I am.

The lovely thing about getting older is realizing that you’re never going to please everyone. Someone will always find something to dislike about you. Fortunately, in most cases, just as many people will find something to love. I have a number of wonderful friends, and even a few family members, who think I’m just great. My husband, who is himself one of those people who works hard at being liked, has told me more than once that he admires my ability to express myself. I have helped teach him that being “liked” isn’t always the best thing, especially when it causes you to compromise your own values. It’s still hard for him to stand up for himself, but he’s now better able to do it than he used to be. He’s told me that it’s partly because he sees that not being liked isn’t the end of the world, because in most cases, for every one person who dislikes you, there’s another who will get everything you are and love you for it.

I have a friend who is struggling with some life choices right now. She’s around my age and has decided to go back to school for a master’s degree. She’s been in other master’s programs and has never been able to finish, mainly due to the programs not being a good fit for her. Still, she has the drive to keep trying and one day succeed. Recently, she announced her decision to get a master’s degree in social work. I piped up to tell her that I have a MSW myself. I don’t use it, or either of my other two degrees, in a professional manner. However, I can’t say that I regret any of the degrees I’ve earned, especially now that they’re paid for. Each educational experience was worthwhile and each one left me with new skills and knowledge. I do use the skills and knowledge, just not in the manner in which I expected.

I told my friend that she’ll find that the emphasis in social work is encouraging clients toward achieving self-determination and adapting situations to work for specific clients. I encouraged her to look at herself as her very first client. The first step is to ignore the naysayers and do what works best for her situation. Social work is going to require a lot of hands on work, paper writing, group work, and hours. My program, had I not done a dual degree with public health, was 60 hours. With the public health degree, it was 81 hours. I actually completed 90 hours– 84 for the graduate degrees and two undergrad prerequisite classes. I took an extra graduate class because I was interested in the topic and thought it would be useful. It might have been, if my life had gone the way I planned it once I determined that I was an old maid. But then, it turned out I wasn’t an old maid, and I got swept into the globetrotting Army wife lifestyle. So now, here I sit, writing these sage words for those who care to read them.

There is more than one way to get through life. What works for one person doesn’t always work for the next. Each person is cut out for different things. You can’t control what people will say or think about you, so it does no good to worry too much about it. People have their own reasons for thinking and feeling the way they do, and you’ll never fully be able to know or understand the vast majority of those reasons. I’m sure that my personality triggers people positively and negatively, because I’m not particularly laid back and I tend to say exactly what I think. If I don’t say it verbally, it usually comes out on my face. I have very expressive eyes and facial expressions that often do my talking for me. That’s why I tend to be verbally direct. The eyes don’t lie.

If I don’t say something out loud, I’ll often write it. People read what I write and some people connect to it. Other people get angry or offended and try to silence me. I’ve gotten plenty of negative feedback on posts I write on my blogs. It always surprises me how upset people can get when another person dares to express themselves, even on something like a blog post. It’s like they can’t fathom how or why someone might want to write something down. They can’t seem to understand why I would write something so upsetting to them, seeming to forget that I don’t even know the vast majority of the people who read my words, and they don’t know me. I have no idea what most people’s personal situations are, or what will trigger them. Most of what I write isn’t for other people anyway. It’s for me. Moreover, while this is mostly a public blog, it’s still my space. Anyone who reads this has come into my space, the same way they might visit another person’s home. Everyone is free to leave my home anytime they want to.

I can be funny and entertaining for some people, yet others have told me I rub them the wrong way. I find that it’s usually “leaders” and controlling types who don’t like me, because I’m not much of a follower. I don’t take orders well, particularly if I sense that the person doing the ordering is not worthy of being followed. I do best when I work independently and am allowed to be creative.

I haven’t seen my friend in person in many years. We knew each other in high school and are now connected only on Facebook. She’s always struck me as smart, talented, caring and kind. While there’s a pragmatic side of me that would worry about trying so many different academic programs, there’s another side that thinks about how short life is… and how there are only so many opportunities to try new things. People are going to say whatever. They’re going to think what they’re going to think. It’s her life… and this is my life. When it comes down to it, deep down, most people know what’s in their hearts and what they can do.

There’s so much truth in this. The older I get, the more I realize that other people’s opinions, especially about me and what I do, are none of my business… because they are mostly formed by things that have nothing at all to do with me.

While I wish I were still as young, healthy, and pretty as I used to be– even though my love life is much better in my 40s– I would not want to relive any part of my life. Wisdom is a good thing. So is the ability to tell other people to fuck off without fearing repercussions. In my case, telling people to fuck off happens verbally or non-verbally. I can’t help it. But I really am a nice person deep down… I have a big heart and a great capacity for compassion. If people want to think I’m more of a bird flipping lion, that’s on them. Sometimes being thought of in that way is also advantageous.

Those are my deep thoughts for today. Now it’s time to watch Bill brew his latest homebrew.

The Overeducated Housewife

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How an adjunct professor changed my life…