Jack of all Trades, Master of None

When I was growing up, I remember my father telling me that I was a 'jack of all trades, master of none.'

He didn't mean it as a compliment.

I wasn't very interested in the academics of elementary school, although I did passably well. But what they called the extracurricular, well, that had my full attention.

I took violin lessons starting in fourth grade and joined the orchestra. You had to be a parent to love the recitals. I remember the realization that when I couldn't hear my own violin, that meant we were probably all hitting the same note. Unfortunately I was probably in my second or third year of orchestra before I understood.

Ouch.

I also begged for a piano and eventually one Christmas they relented and an old upright was moved into the basement/play room and lessons began. As the ultimate perfectionist, my father persuaded a concert pianist to give me lessons. My father believed that if you were going to do something, you were going to do it well. I wasn't her star pupil and although I played around on the piano, I don't actually remember practicing. It had to be painful for her.

Then there were the dance lessons. Years of creative dance through the YWCA.

And the horseback riding lessons, before I finally wheedled my own horse out of my parents, another great gift. She was a wonderful Appaloosa named Happy, and I spent many a hot summer day riding around a friend's farm and down to the lake to cool off, meandering through the apple orchard on our way.

Then the pressures of growing up started, my father passed away during my early teenage years, and I put my creative interests aside. I got multiple degrees, had children, had a successful career. And then I retired. And got time.

Four years into retirement, I'm beginning to think I'm going to need professional help to prioritize my interests. I simple can't fit in anything more and it might possibly kill me.

And Michael.

We landed in New York in early April and I immediately signed up for a quilting class from a fabulous, thriving quilting store in Watkins Glen, O'Susanah's. For four Saturdays in a row (plus plenty of homework during the week), we've learned how to create a quilt. I'm almost done with my first and I've loved working on it. It takes a lot of creative energy and it's soothing to the brain, having to fully concentrate on each step. Otherwise there is a lot of ripping out and re-doing. And I don't reverse and redo well, as many of you might imagine.

Then there are my music friends who are double and triple-booked with gigs and jams and, of course, I don't want to miss any music. But then you also have to find time to practice between jam sessions so that I can stand to hear my own playing.

And, of course, I'm committed to getting exercise so Michael and I walk almost day, exploring Watkins Glen and finding amazing historic homes, views that take our breath away. Although that might also be because everything is uphill from our place.

And I don't want to give up the exercise of dancing with my Zumba friends --- I love getting out there and dancing for an hour 'til the sweat drips off my pony tail. And now I'm trying to memorize some routines for an occasional team-teaching opportunity since I got certified last November.

And I can't wait to get the living room painted in our new house, find the furniture we want, get the wallpaper off the bathroom wall and re-paint, find a place for the jacuzzi, maybe build a deck off the front.

And I don't want to give up learning to speak Spanish, which requires study time. It doesn't just happen. I tried that approach.

And there's a piece of writing that I really, really want to do. All I have to do is plunk my butt in a chair and make the time to start writing.

I think you get my drift.

I've hit a wall, the wall of no more time in a day, no more energy to do what I want. And that's unacceptable.

Even I think that sounds crazy.

But here's the problem. I'm aware that I'm getting older. I now have to use eye drops because my eyes are too dry. I spend a lot of time with my favorite physical therapist and my favorite local massage therapist getting my neck and shoulder to cooperate with my lifestyle without a lot of pain. I get the occasional skin cancers removed. I'm not quite as perky in the morning (which my husband probably thinks, 'Thank you, God').

I feel the urgency of my meter running. I love doing all of this. I want to do more. I want to save every dog, drive the elderly neighbor to see his father's house before he dies, spend quiet time at the lake house, meet a friend for a movie and have dinner afterward.

And I can't. It's simply not possible.

So my thought this morning was to make a chart of all my interests and prioritize them (is that possible?), and put the rest of them aside for a while.

Last year I told my friends who hold Passion and Priorities Workshops that I didn't need to figure out my passions. I have plenty.

But --- aha! -- maybe it's time to figure out how to be happy doing less.

And maybe, like my father remarked, I can become a master of some. Maybe I can choose to do some things well and not try to do everything not-so-well.

In the meantime, gotta run. Michael is waiting for me up at the lake house so we can open it up for the season. And then it's time to decide between a movie with a friend or Zumba.

Back to our New York state roots

In a surprise move even to us, Michael and I have bought a house and settled into a small upstate village of Watkins Glen at the end of Seneca Lake, near our family's lake cottage and near dozens of our relatives.

Michael and I met 21 years ago on a job interview (he was interviewing me) in Sacramento, California. It wasn't until we were almost heading down the aisle that I discovered that he, too, was an upstate NY "lake kid". He was raised first in Brooklyn, then on Lake Chatauqua, about three hours from where we now live. We had both migrated west in the late 60s, me to Flagstaff, Arizona and Michael to Northern California.

Those of you who have been following our adventures know we've spent the last decade or so living on sailboats, cruising Mexico, living in a small Mexican surf village, doing a canal trip in France ---- just generally not letting any dust settle anywhere on our lives.

It's not always been appreciated by our children. But we've had a blast.

So, what happened?

I guess we're getting ready for the 'final' retirement from the university and wondered where we were going to keep our stuff. We had always assumed it would be our lake cottage for four or five months a year, the remainder in Mexico or wherever else we would be traveling.

But the lake house is over 100 years old and I swear I can feel the breeze blowing through it, even with all the windows tightly closed. It would need a lot of work for me to be warm enough to survive even an early fall or a late spring.

So we started looking around and realized what a delightful area Schuyler County has evolved in to, a Northeastern version of Napa, California, with probably close to 50 local wineries and bistros on the Seneca Lake Wine Trail surrounding the lake. Not the small Upstate New York town we escaped from almost 40 years ago and that Richard Russo so aptly describes in his novels.

After being here for a week and initially wondering what the hell we were thinking, it's also clear to me why we've chosen to return.

The initial shock: It's still cold. Damn cold for my thin blood. Shockingly cold, despite what the natives say. But we have this lovely radiant baseboard heat that keeps our new house a nice constant shade of warm, an electric blanket on our bed, and soon, our jacuzzi.

A second surprise: I'd forgotten how many layers of clothes you have to wear on a daily basis. Long pants. Long sleeve shirt. Socks. Fleece sweater. Then a jacket. Sheesh! It feels bulky and abnormal after the majority of 21 years spent in balmy climates.

And what shouldn't be surprise: the bane of Upstate New York ---- the gray, about 200 gray days a year. We open up the curtains early in the morning and wait to see if the sun comes up. Often it doesn't. It goes from a dark shade of gray to a lighter shade of gray. Then it gets dark again.

So why on earth would we choose to move home?

Family: On our first Saturday back here, both my brothers dropped by for dinner and to see the house. My cousin Ruthie can swing by when she comes to town to do errands, as can many of my other cousins.

Friends: Yesterday morning I went to yoga at a friend's house, something that I miss every year when I leave in August. Our good friend Amanda dropped by after work one evening with her new dog (a lovely boxer) and a bottle of wine. Betsy, who is now a neighbor and is 'band leader' in my music world.

Music: I've started to practice my fiddle again, getting ready for the multitude of jams and gigs available in the area, more than I could ever fit into a schedule. And soon I'll start informal lessons with a friend who plays awesome old time fiddle and is willing to 'show me what he knows.'

Proximity: We can keep the cars parked and walk almost everywhere! The general store is 10 minutes from the house and makes two choices of homemade soup on a daily basis (and publishes the menu on FB). We have restaurants and great shopping just minutes from home. And I can walk to some of the Zumba classes offered during the week. The steep uphill trek home should only add to my workout.

Community: Tonight we're going to a meeting on a proposed gas storage facility. Tomorrow the protest group is having a separate meeting. We'll attend both. We might even go to a City Council meeting. What the heck. The SPCA is having a benefit at a friend's winery. Other friend's are playing at a nearby restaurant on Saturday night. We just don't feel isolated here at all.

So if we hate the cold weather, what else --- besides the fantastic summers! --- would make us still decide to commit to living part of the year in Upstate New York?

Oh, about two hundred years of family history in this area. It's amazing to walk through the local cemeteries and recognize dozens of the local family names, including our own, families who are still living in the area, people who still remember my mom, remember some of the mischief my brothers and I got into during our summers on the lake.

Serious roots.

If we had moved back to San Diego, moved on to South Florida, it would have been lovely. But it would have felt like starting over. And I just didn't feel like doing that anymore.

But don't be deceived. Come the first snowflakes of winter, we'll continue to hightail it out of here to follow the sun with the multitude of other snowbirds heading south. For those of you who have been perplexed our latest move, really, nothing's changed. We just finally settled down enough to have a home base.

It feels great!

Jammin' for Betsy's birthday

Betsy, our fearless leader in Watkins Glen who hosts us every other week to play music at her place, let the cat out of the bag about her upcoming 'big' birthday.

So her good friends Kate and Danni, both hammered dulcimer players, threw the big surprise birthday bash for her last week, and even the sun showed up to help the celebration. It was the nicest weather we've had since our arrival in late May.

The company was great, the food was fantastic and the music was even better (at least for those of us who got to play). Betsy lives to sing the old time tunes (or anything else), plays the dulcimer and the bass, joins every jam in the area.

I also got to hear a great singer and local musician, Chris Holder, play (he's in the video too). Check him out!

A perfect celebration, for all of us.

Here's a wrap-up of some of the day's tunes (courtesy of Cap'n Michael):

Country living is not for wimps

I'm seriously considering moving back to the city where my anxieties will be confined to the possibility of a drive-by shooting or the quality of the air I breathe. When I'm city living, I forget about the underbelly of dealing with nature -- the storms, the incessant creepy-crawly-stingy things that like to live with us.

I'll report in reverse order.

Yesterday Michael decided to do a quick mow on the half-acre or so of grass that's been growing like gangbusters lately, before we headed down to the lake for an afternoon of boating.

Just as he's finishing the upper side yard, I see him race in the back door and into the kitchen to peel off his sock because something had bitten or stung him. Ten minutes later he's covered in hives and --- with brother Dan's urging (our family paramedic) --- we're racing to the local hospital in Watkins Glen.

It got serious enough to call 911 halfway down the hill when Michael starting complaining about serious chest pain. The ambulance grabbed him at the end of the lake, started an IV of benadryl, with steroids to follow. Apparently he was stung three times by a white wasp -- a big hatch of the nasty things are around this year and they must have a nest in the ground where he was mowing.

It's the exact same spot --- the base of the big sycamore tree --- that the yellowjackets nailed me last year. As we pulled out of the driveway, I heard Michael yell up there, "It's war now, buddies."

Poisons and fuel accelerants are being gathered for the midnight retaliation, now that he's home and recovering. The hospital photo shows him taking his Benadryl-induced nap.

The wasp incident followed a quick moving strong storm cell the day before that hit a narrow path of Valois and Hector on the east side of Seneca Lake. We watched it on the radar as the red part of the storm tagged us dead on, like a bullseye on a target. It's happened a few times this summer but this was the most dramatic.

Trees came down, the wind howled across the lake, lightening strikes every few seconds followed by loud rolling thunder. I've been in a lot of storms, some out on our boat in the ocean. This rivaled that kind of anxiety.

We looked out the window and up, up, up at the huge Sycamore tree that we've been talking about trimming for the past few years --- a tree that's been here for probably a hundred years. And the big pine trees and the several huge locust trees that are much higher than the house.

Now I understand why all the neighbors have clear cut around their property. Aha!

The big willow tree came down across the road just few houses down the hill from us, a tree that was also probably over a hundred years old. And a friend's willow tree that measured more than four and a half feet in diameter came down across his truck and his new lake cabin --- with them in it! Everyone's okay but boy, will they have stories to tell for the rest of their lives.

We've been aware of nature up close and personal from all our years of sailing. But then we would get off the boat and retreat to Sacramento, the great urban, comfortable escape, get complacent again.

But between Mexico and Valois, I'm feeling a bit like the early settlers. There's so much beauty in the life and the land we've chosen. But it sure comes with a creepy, crawly, stingy, windy reminder that there is probably no such thing as paradise.

Time to 'fiddle around' again

When we were getting ready to leave Mexico in May, I remember telling Michael that I was dreaming about being able to spend the summer playing my fiddle --- practicing, taking lessons, playing with friends.

More than a month later, I'm just putting down the project list and picking up the fiddle.

I've been playing music every other Friday night at a friend in Watkin's Glen. You never know who will show up, or what instrument they'll be playing but it's always fun and they're quite inclusive of all us newbies who are starting to play music late in life.

And I've played the violin a few times with cousin Brett and brother David, both professional caliber musicians, as we play some evenings by the campfire.

In early June I headed up to the top of the actual Glen --- of Watkins Glen fame --- for the Old-Time Fiddler's Gathering, with jams facilitated by the Valley Folk Music group. We were huddled under a big tent while thunderous rains rolled over the park, then cleared to a beautiful afternoon. Some excellent musicians were there and I learned some new tunes and made some local contacts.

In the second half of the video I've posted, the guy I was sitting next to (a great fiddler!) had just played with Jay Unger on his radio program the week before. Impressive! And I met Hope Grietzer, who gave us some quick pointers on how to add a little more fun to a tune. Hope has one of the best instruction books that I've found, including three CDs of songs. It has a great selection and it's really well organized. Practice has gotten a lot more interesting and fun.

When I'm struggling with the violin, I really question why I decided to pick up this difficult an instrument. But my spirit soars when I get to play music with friends. So I guess that's as good enough reason as any to keep practicing.

I've got a great network here in the Finger Lakes in New York. And there are a couple of groups that play together weekly in Sacramento, so I'm covered there. But I still haven't figured out who I'll play with in Mexico. I just don't have that mariachi thing down yet....

Here's a video from the Glen.