Twenty Years Ago, I Wrote ...

     This post is not just a selection of journal entries from twenty years ago; more specifically, it is an homage to a little café in Houston called Epicure. I frequented Epicure during my many years living in Houston, always finding it to be, as the Germans say, a most gemütlich retreat with good food and coffee. It's on West Gray in River Oaks, a street that twenty years ago was one of the most charming commercial streets in the city; I believe it's changed a bit since.

     Epicure Café began rather humbly, as a true konditorei run by a certified Konditormeister; now, looking at its website, it seems to have evolved into a full-fledged café. If I ever visit Houston again, Epicure will definitely be on my list of places to go.

 

19 September 1993

     I'm having breakfast before a long day of chorus rehearsals. Epicure serves their coffee with hot milk, as it should be served, and their ham and cheese croissant is very substantial and comes with nice fresh fruit.

     The most beautiful child just came in—can't tell whether it's a boy or girl; I think boy—a Botticelli cherub crowned with copper curls. The parents are foreign, but I don't recognize the accent. She's very striking, strong dark features in a small face. The child is having gelato for breakfast, and his older brother is entertaining him by rolling his red toy convertible across the table. The cherub shrieks with delight, little pink mouth covered with vanilla gelato.

     I do love watching children, especially babies and toddlers.

     Epicure has retained the European way of not issuing bills—when you finish eating, you simply remind them of what you had.

     It's starting to get busy in here. Late-rising single women, older ladies just come from church, middle-aged bespectacled gentlemen reading the paper while their breakfast cools. Above it all, the white ceiling fans whir away, the soft lights casting small rainbows on their blur of blades. Sunday morning, a time of quiet recovery from the bustle of the week and the gaiety of Saturday night.

     The cherub is wandering around on his little unsteady feet, flourishing a menu. Maybe when he grows up he'll be a maître d'.

     And now, off to work and the stark, sterile surroundings of the opera house.

 

1 October 1993

     What a wonderful place this is. In the mid-afternoon, the bookish and artistic come in and read, or in my case write, with a pot of coffee. Just like Europe. A middle-aged couple has come in, obviously friends of the owner, speaking German. I wish I could really understand; I can catch a word here and there but can't put anything together. They always have good music playing; today it's Strauss waltzes. Sunday morning it's usually Mozart. Breakfast with Wolfie. I think I'll make it a custom to come here every Sunday, a mini-retreat of sorts.

 

26 October 1993

     There are two people that are almost always here when I am: a middle-aged woman with carrot-colored hair and matching glasses, and a young man who reminds me of James Stephens in The Paper Chase television series. Like me, they each sit at the same table every time. There's something very comforting about that. It's good to know that other people need these little rituals too. Both of them are writing something, too.

     The Paper Chase guy speaks French and Spanish. The other day, he spoke to the owner in French; now he's speaking to a companion in Spanish.

James Stephens

 

 

31 October 1993

     A quick sweet and a pot of coffee before going to Butterfly second cast piano dress. Saw, at the table behind me, someone writing in a cloth-bound blank book. A fellow journalizer.

     It gets dark so much earlier now. I much prefer it to stay bright as long as possible. This way, the day has such an early death.

     The street lights have just turned on. The sky is an iron gray, a strange transition from the brilliant blue it was an hour ago. West Gray is a fun street—all the buildings have been restored and done in stark white with black trim. Most of the street is lined on both sides with tall palm trees which are lit up at Christmas with tiny white bulbs. The shops are mostly of the "yuppie" type, upscale but not too; and of course there is the inevitable Pier 1 Imports. Two types of bookstores—one chain discount (Crown Books) and one independent (River Oaks Bookstore). Two types of movie theaters—one multi-screen mainstream, and one artsy-fartsy (the latter is still showing Like Water for Chocolate). The restaurants range from Black-Eyed Pea at one end to Café Express at the other, with a moderately priced seafood kitchen and moderately priced southwestern eatery in between. There is a pizza joint, a Chili's, and a grocery store. You can buy futons and antiques, coffee beans (at the wonderful Café Maison) and apple strudel, wilderness equipment and gently worn evening gowns. Or you can do as I do: hole up in Epicure three or four times a week and write in your journal. West Gray is probably my very favorite street in Houston.

Sometimes the Tortoise, Sometimes the Hare

     'Tis a paradox. Or, as the King would say in The King and I, "Is a puzzlement!"

     When I lived my incredibly busy life in Houston, I really had precious little time to read. True, on paper a typical work day at the opera was six hours, but "on paper" didn't include practice time, study, score work, or listening, all of which came with the job. Factor in meals and sleep, and I really did have precious little time to read. Factor in, as well, that I am not the world's fastest reader; I like to savor as I go along, linger over particularly striking passages. Yet I managed to read, on average, a book a week during production periods; outside production, I averaged two a week.

     If my life in Houston was allegro, my life now is andante tranquillo. Other than doctor's appointments (both mine and my mother's), twice-monthly grocery shopping, once-monthly mother/daughters lunches, weekly family gatherings, visits to the library every three weeks, and daily chores, I'm pretty much free to read as much and as often as I like. Yet I only manage to read, on average, one or two books a month. Some months, not even that.

     I do find myself turning to things that lend themselves to "dipping"—every day, I dip into literary essays (lots of those lately), writings of the Church fathers, scripture commentary, correspondence, poetry. Or I'll pick up a play, always a fast but engaging read. When I do read a novel, biography, or other extended work, I take my sweet time, and don't care that two weeks go by and I'm barely halfway through. In fact, I consider it the mark of a good writer if the book can sustain my interest that long.

     Every once in while, however, if for no other reason than change of pace, I can and will race through a book. I recently raced through Henry Handel Richardson's Maurice Guest, for instance; no mean feat, as it's about 567 pages of very tiny font; never mind that when I got to the end I was so pissed off I wanted to hurl the book across the room.

     Almost every day in Houston, I fervently longed for a quieter life in which I could read (and write, for that matter) to my heart's content. Now I have it. But instead of devouring one book after another as I thought I would, I find the tempo of my reading has matched the tempo of my life—as it did also in Houston. I find, too, that I now remember more of what I read, whereas in Houston, a book went in one eye and out the other before I could make more than a nodding acquaintance with it. I can remember from that period of my life which books I loved and which I merely liked, but I couldn't describe the plot of any of them. Sad thing, that. Fortunately, I always kept a record in my journal of the books I read, so I'll just have to re-read all of them. I have the time now.

Kindred Spirits, Unlikely Friendships

     When I lived in Houston, one of my favorite places to go on my weekly day off was an antiquarian book shop called Detering Book Gallery. In those days it occupied an old two-story house on the corner of Bissonett and Greenbriar, and was the kind of cozy refuge, with its dark wood and worn oriental rugs, that provided just the right sort of comfort, whether on a cold rainy day or a searingly hot and humid one. I loved wandering through the various rooms on the ground floor, the children's section tucked underneath the back staircase, and the rare book room upstairs which was presided over by an affable, mustachioed gentleman named Oscar. I almost always came away from Detering with some hard-to-find treasure or other, usually a novel by one of the neglected British women authors for whom I have a predilection, or an old play whose film adaptation I loved.

     After a while, I began to notice that many of my purchases had something in common: the name "Mildred Robertson" on the flyleaf, or Mildred's bookplate on the front pastedown. This Mildred and I seemed to share the same taste in books; more particularly, a love for English women authors of the mid-twentieth century, as well as theater. The books themselves were of earlier printings, some first editions, all in wonderful condition. Best of all, dear Mildred had the delightfully meticulous habit of placing inside them clippings of pertinent articles and reviews from various newspapers and literary journals. Inside my copy of Elizabeth Bowen's A World of Love, for example, I found a wonderful review of the novel, along with a retrospective of Bowen's work from the London Times Literary Supplement. In my 1929 edition of Philip Barry's play Holiday are reviews of a 1987 West End production starring Mary Steenburgen and Malcolm Macdowell. Bless Mildred's archivist heart!

     One of the clerks at Detering told me they acquired Mildred's library after her death in Galveston, but he couldn't tell me anything more about her. I Googled her, but didn't find out much beyond her being a longtime resident of Galveston. No matter. I have a kinship with her through the books we both loved. I feel privileged to own a part of the library she had discriminatingly acquired over so many years. Her books still grace my shelves, and whenever I take one down to read again, I feel as if Mildred and I are settling down to hold our own private book club meeting for two, over a nice hot pot of tea and a plate of buttery scones—in Texas. We both know very well the power words have to transport one to places one longs to be. And I know that Mildred would thank, as do I, Detering Book Gallery and all those wonderful antiquarian bookstores—that sadly dying breed—for bringing about unlikely and enduring friendships such as ours.

Since posting this, my sister Celia found more information regarding Mildred Robertson and what became of her papers and correspondence. Thanks, Cel! 

Blogging A to Z: "M" is for March and May

A few memories of Marches and Mays at the Houston Grand Opera.


3 May 1993   Things are really jumping at the opera! The second cast of Aida is up and running; we fired Thomas Booth after the piano dress and hired Michael Sylvester. Then the tenor in Barbiere fell ill; Kip Wilborn was whisked in, he sang Sunday matinee from the pit; today we start staging him just in case he has to go on. Now it seems that Bartoli, God forbid, is getting the same bug. I hope she stays on because Tamara is in no shape to step in, vocally. Someday she may be a good Rosina, but not this week.

9 May 1993   I wish I had gone to Wednesday's performance of Barbiere. Apparently, it was a night to remember. Palacio had been ill for the past week or so, so we brought in Kip Wilborn to stand by. Anyway, Palacio was really sick by the Wednesday night performance and was removed by David Gockley after the first scene, and Kip finished the show. Then during the curtain calls, a piece of equipment that hangs on the DL wall fell and hit a dresser. He was rendered unconscious, suffered compound fractures in his leg for which he had to have surgery; furthermore, the accident triggered an epileptic seizure, of which he hadn't had one in ten years, and which caused temporary short-term memory loss. But he's on the mend now, thank God.

16 May 1993   I suppose Frida is going OK--the stagings are sometimes a zoo; the director, the choreographer, and the puppet master all doing different things at once, everyone's talking and putting in their two cents' worth, and who the hell is in charge? Even the music rehearsals--Ward had to command quiet more than once, which rarely happens in a music rehearsal, at least in the opera world. Things like ensemble and integrity of tone are apparently of no real value to anyone but the music staff; the actors don't seem to care. And that bitch-on-heels of a director is driving me nuts.

27 May 1993   I must say, Ward has been wonderfully patient during these Frida rehearsals. This cast is so unbelievably chatty! I guess in opera, we're used to a certain code of behavior; we're not used to everyone talking all the time, especially when the conductor is running the rehearsal. The other morning, we had a brief music rehearsal of the finale and Ward was making a change in a certain spot. As usual, as soon as they stopped singing, the cast broke into general discussion and murmurings; then one of them piped up to Ward, "Could you repeat what you just said, please?" Ward asked her in return, "Were you talking?" "Yes." "Then I won't repeat it." I nearly guffawed!
     Then there's the girl who is habitually late, or meandering around the sixth floor without telling stage management where she is. I was supposed to have a coaching with the three calaveras, and she was the only one missing at the appointed time. When she sauntered nonchalantly into the room a good five minutes into the coaching, Shawn, the ASM, told her she was late, to which she replied, "I've been here the whole time." She doesn't get it. Merely being in the building doesn't constitute being on time for your call. Space cadet.

18 March 1994  First day of Traviata chorus stagings. Harry Silverstein is the ideal director to chase away the 10 a. m. drowzies. The man is nuts.
     During break, a small group of us went out for a smoke by the stage door. A white stretch limo and a Wagoneer pulled up to the curb; from the second vehicle emerged Cecilia Bartoli, arrived to rehearse the recital she's giving tonight; from the limo emerged an obvious companion of hers--an absolutely gorgeous male speciman, tall, slender, broad-shouldered, dressed in shades of muted blue, hair slicked back into a ponytail. A walking advertisement for Drakkar Noir. I'm afraid I gaped a bit, and I might even have left a small pool of drool on the pavement.

15 May 1994   We closed Turandot last Tuesday. I finally, finally got the Act II procession right, banda-wise. John smiled at me on the monitor; I wished he could see me smile back and hear my "thank you." The banda players were very complimentary afterwards, shook my hand and told me I did great.
     But oh, the agony I went through during rehearsals! The second orchestra staging was the worst. Understand, first of all, that I and the poor banda were situated in the catwalks, six floors above the pit. John kept picking on me incessantly over the monitor; he wanted every note perfectly in line with the orchestra, pick-pick-pick, I'm behind one bar and ahead the next, over-and-over-and-over, pick-pick-pick. Finally, it was intermission before Act III, and I went out to the loading dock for a much needed smoke. As soon as I sat down with my smoking buddies from the chorus, I burst into tears, babbling, "It's too hard, we're too far from the pit, it's never gonna be perfect, he's just got to accept that! I'm trying my damnedest, but it's never gonna be perfect!" They tried to console me, but I kept crying, non-stop, shaking all over. A nervous wreck. (However, you will recall, dear Journal, that this is the time of year when I usually have a meltdown. End of the season, and all that.) Top of Act III, I had to conduct chorus offstage left, which I did with the tears still spouting and the nose running. "Has Leticia got a cold?" "No, she's crying!" Back upstairs in the catwalk, I was still crying. The banda were very sympathetic. They knew what my problem was, since they could hear everything John said over the monitor. I took up my baton for our next entrance, my hand was shaking, and I could barely see the monitor through my tears. Somehow, I made it through, but I was still crying when I got home, and kept it up till the wee hours. I wanted to strangle John. He knows how hard it is; he conducted banda for Julius Rudel at NYCO in the early years; he knows what it's like to be constantly picked on. Now he's on the other side of the monitor, and he's doing it to me.
     But when he smiled at me onscreen during that last performance, I felt our old good feeling was restored. He's given me a lot of grief during the past five years, but deep down we have a solid respect for each other.

Note: Over the years, John DeMain and I forged a wonderful working relationship. He could be tough sometimes, but I wouldn't have missed those productions for anything in the world.

Blogging A to Z: "J" is for January, June, & July

Okay, I can't come up with a satisfactory "J" topic either, so I'm posting more journal extracts about my experiences at the Houston Grand Opera--this time, from entries written in January, June, and July.

20 July 1991   Here I am, recording the events of the past few days!
     Annie Get Your Gun going well; good reviews.
     Lohengrin preparation going very slowly; late start.
     Hoffmann preparation not going at all.
     Jean Mallandaine officially ousted from her postition as Head of Music Staff--and from HGO altogether--replaced by Richard Bado.
     John DeMain officially resigned, but will do some shows over the next 2 years. Smitten with his new daughter.
     Shauna Bowman Unger brand new mother of brand new boy.

28 May 1993   Frida is a mess and everyone who's seen a run of it says it's boring and too episodic. Ward is ready to kill both the accordian player and the guitarist. X, who plays a few of the smaller roles, has been a pain-in-the-ass diva. The production meetings have gone on till 1 or 1.30 in the morning. All in all, a pleasant and relaxing experience in the world of Musical Theater.
     And tonight we do it in front of an audience, Lord help us.
     The only really good thing that's come out of this is that my working relationship with Ward has gotten much easier and more comfortable. He really is a nice guy. He's incredibly tense and nervous about this show, which is perfectly understandable, and he's reached the point where Robert Rodriguez (the composer) seems more of a nag than a help to him.
     There are definite advantages and disadvantages in having the composer in on the rehearsal process. One of the advantages is that he tells you how the piece should go. One of the disadvantages is that he tells you how the piece should go.
     There have been several little scena's during this production period, one of which occurred between Richard and X (pain-in-the-ass diva). Richard is conducting all the off-stage singing. Now unless I'm wrong, and please correct me if I am, the off-stage singers are supposed to watch Richard, who is watching Ward on a monitor (the reasoning behind which is that a monitor can mysteriously go out, but a live backstage conductor can peek through he set if need be). X, however, chose not to watch Richard, and he, after conducting to the back of her head several times, told her, "If you continue not to look at me, I'll have the sound man turn off your vega (body mic)." He related this incident to me and Pat Houk and Jim Ireland. In the meeting following that rehearsal, Jim informed the director, "Please make it clear to X that regardless of what she's used to doing, as long as she's working in this house, she'll do as she's told. We'll replace her if we have to; that's never a problem." In that same rehearsal, X had bitched at one point about singing in the dark (the lighting was by no means set yet) and when we repeated the scene, she walked on stage holding a flashlight to her face.

18 June 1993   Production threw a party for Jim Ireland to celebrate his 50th birthday. I played for Ward and Richard; they sang a parody of "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" ("When Irelands Eyes Are Flashing"), after which, I ate half of the available amount of guacamole, then left. I hate parties.

3 June 1996   I love coming here to Panini. I sit here eating my mezzo sei or mezz'otto or mezzo nove (those ae my favorites), and when I'm done, Ellie or Vittorio brings me my doppio macchiato, and they either yell to me from behind the counter, or if there are no more customers, they sit with me and chat. Facciamo quattro chiacchiere. Around 1.00 Ellie brings her soup to my table and eats, while Vittorio stays behind the counter. Or if he's not there she sits with me till a customer walks in, then she mutters under her breath, "Accidenti!" ("Damn!") and gets up to attend to him. When it's very busy, Ellie works the register and Vittorio takes the orders and hands out the sandwiches as they're ready, callng out in his sing-song Caprese accent, "Number twaynty-sayven! Oo ees number twaynty-sayven?"

30 July 1996, (in New York performing our production of Four Saints in Three Acts for the Lincoln Center Festival)   In the morning, went strolling along the water with Sandy Campbell, Barbie Brandon, and Audrey Vallance. Then to Little Italy for lunch and browsing with them, plus Kathy Manley, Brett Scharf, John-the-Acrobat, Pat Houk, Kim Orr and Kimberly Lane. Afterward, Brett, Kathy, Sandy, K. Lane, John, Barbie, and I wandered around Greenwich Village. After an hour or so of very hot walking, Brett, Sandy, John, and I went on to Lincoln Center, stopping for a rest in the park before rehearsal. There was a woman on the next bench, must have been around 150 years old, with an unbelievable cartoon profile and a shock of white hair. Four or five dogs ran round her playing, their leashes trailing free behind them. Every two minutes or so, she would call out, "Donny!" and make this extremely penetrating whooping sound. "Has anyone seen a black dog on a leash?" she would call out at the top of her lungs to the park at large. We left her still calling for Donny, and went to rehearsal. On being released early, Nathan Wight, Kevin Moody, Mark Swindler, Susan Stone, and I went up the Empire State Building. Incredible--the lights of New York beneath a full moon.
     Monday, cast free day. Went with Jonita to play for her Sarasota audition, took her to lunch at Sarabeth's, then to Patelson's. In the p. m. to dinner at Carmine's Bar (W44th) with Richard, Barbie, Mark S., Kevin, and Denise Thorson. Fabulous meal; the chicken cacciatore was top-notch. All of us but Richard went on to A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum with the extraordinary Nathan Lane. Wildly funny--at least, we thought so; but the family in front of us, obviously tourists from some podunk Bible Belt town, sat frozen as statues through the whole show; not one of them cracked a smile.
     Tuesday--two sitzes, morning and afternoon, then with Eric Edlund and Derek Henry to some beer joint run by Trappist monks (or were E and D pulling my leg?); then tried to get tickets for Blue Man Group, waited for returns, but no luck; so down the street for a wonderful dinner at Time. A nice evening, despite the Blue Man disappointment.

1 August 1996 (still in New York)   Very early dinner at Pasta d'Oro, then the opening of Four Saints, which was highly successful. Afterwards (the show only runs about an hour and a half), Nathan Wight and I went to see Cold Comfort Farm. We laughed and laughed and laughed.

28 January 2002   Another relatively light day at work. We had a Mice and Men notes session over which Cesca Zambello presided (the original director of this production, but she just came in for the final orchestra stagings). It is a well-known fact that Cesca hates prompters, and she tried her damndest to get rid of the prompter (me) in this production, but Patrick was adamant. So today, with her sitting but three feet away from me, I bellowed out cues in my most authoritative manner, revelling in the knowledge that I was annoying the crap out of her. I can be ornery. When the situation warrants it.

Blogging A to Z: "I' is for Intermission

No, I am not going to write about intermissions. This post itself is an intermission. I can't seem to choose a satisfactory "I" topic, including "Intermissions," so I'm taking an intermission from the alphabet challenge to do one of my journal retrospective posts, which is what I do when I can't think of anything else to write.

Here are some journal scribblings from some past Aprils when I worked at the opera:

7 April 1991   Cecilia Bartoli absolutely delightful! Couldn't be more than 5'2", girlish, vivacious, genuine, and funny. And adorable on stage. Doesn't have much English yet, but everyone in the cast is Italian and the director, though British, is fluent. I had forgotten that this is her American operatic debut. What a coup for HGO!
     Last night at about a quarter to six, the power went out in the Wortham and we had to rehearse a couple of blocks away, on the the Music Hall stage. The balky upright piano was on the house floor, way in the corner off DL--that was the closest it could go. Ward was also on the house floor, conducting at the center of the apron; so, in order to see him, I had to turn my head all the way sideways. Plus, the singers were marking, and from that distance I couldn't hear a damn thing. It was not fun. So of course, when Ward yelled at me, "You're behind!" I could have punched him.

8 April 1991   Yesterday was probably the most bizarre day I've ever experienced at work. By the time I went in, which was about 1.00, not all the power had yet been restored. We had lights, etc. on the sixth floor, but no plumbing. One had to use the facilities in neighboring buildings. Which was easy enough to deal with, if we were a simple 9 to 5 workplace. But last night was final orchestra dress for Aida. So, due to insurance considerations (no lights in the lobby), the invited audience got uninvited; and, due to the absence of lights in the dressing rooms, we scrapped costumes and makeup. Bottled water and porta-potties were sent for. We had no lights onstage except work lights, no video or sound monitors, no intercom system. And conducting backstage without a video monitor was an adventure. It was like opera in the old days.

23 April 1995   For some stupid reason, I decided to dress up for the show today. I pulled out my straight black skirt and silk blazer, panty hose and spectator pumps. My feet hurt, my sleeves feel snug, I can't bend at the waist, but hey, I look good.
     Now that this season is nearing the end, I've been giving considerable thought to the advantages and disadvatages of my firendships with Jen, Ana, and Mary. They're all younger--about 8 to 10 years younger than I--and they still, especially Mary and Jen, have one foot in college. What a difference those ten years make! There have been many occasions when they went out after an evening rehearsal (around 10p) and asked me to go with them; but frankly, after a long day of rehearsals, there's nothing I'd rather do more than go home and crash. They do party a lot. It'll catch up to them. They'll learn. Mary would say to me, "We're going to a movie after this; you wanna go?"
     I answer, "I have a 10 a. m. rehearsal tomorrow." 
     "So? So do I. Besides, you're always up late anyway."
     I could say I'm too old to carouse every night and expect to have all my brain cells working during the day; I need to concentrate for these rehearsals; and there is a big difference between staying out late and staying up late. But I just smile and say no.
     Well, let them enjoy their youth. The day will come soon enough when they'll have to muster all their discipline and sacrifice their nightly partying for their art. Ana is a bit more mature. She knows when to rest. Jen would rather be at the beach. Mary would finish off a bottle of wine one night and wonder why her voice sounds fuzzy the next day. But they have good hearts, all of them.

5 April 1996   Piano dress (Norma) last night was certainly an event for me. Carol (Vaness) didn't want to sing; she didn't even want to mark. So I sang the entire role for her from the pit while she walked it onstage. It was the MOST FUN I've had in a long time! I marked a couple of high notes, but most of it I sang full voice and was surprised at how un-tired I was afterward. Joe gave me a good technique!
     I also had to conduct the banda, which plays between the cavatina and cabaletta of "Casta Diva"; so when it came time for them to play, I left the pit and ran backstage, still singing. My banda players realized then, with a shock, that I had been singing the role. It was very funny.
     Afterward, Carol saw me backstage, grabbed me by the shoulders, and gave me a shake, saying, "Why the hell aren't you singing?"
     I was too chicken to tell her that I felt safer being a coach.

18 April 2001   There have been quite a lot of goings-on with Don Carlo, but suffice it to say that this production has been a true and extreme example of Instant Opera. My job as prompter has never been so arduous; not even Resurrection was so nerve-wracking, because we had sufficient rehearsal time.

Three Sunday Mornings

     It's a Sunday morning in the year 2000; time, about 9.00; place, my apartment in Houston. I awaken sans alarm clock, since I don't have to be at the opera house till 2.00 for a chorus staging. Since I am still an agnostic at this time, I have no thought of going to Mass. Instead, I get up to grind my coffee, brew it in my french press pot, and retrieve the newspaper; then, armed with steaming cup (Italian pottery) and said newspaper, I head back to bed, put some Mozart on the CD player, and settle down for a leisurely morning of reading, sipping, and listening. I wonder where I'll have lunch.

     Fast-forward to 2003. It's Sunday morning, same city, same place, but I have set my alarm for 7.30, despite having had a four-hour piano tech the night before, followed by a half-hour production meeting, and not getting home till nearly 1.00. I am determined to go to the 9.30 Latin Mass at Holy Rosary. I could go to a later service, but I love the Latin and the chants. This particular Sunday is a day off for me, so I look forward to lunch with my journal at my neighborhood La Madeleine, followed by an afternoon of book hunting.

     A Sunday morning in 2005, The Monastery of the Infant Jesus in Lufkin. I awaken in pitch darkness to the silvery tinkle of the rising bell, which is rung by one of the novices. It's 5.20. The tinkling continues as the novice goes down the narrow hall of the novitiate past the other cells; I get up from my hard, narrow monastic bed and feel with my feet around the cold linoleum floor for my slippers. Standing up, I weave groggily as I silently pray a Hail Mary. Then I quickly throw on the tunic of my work habit over my long muslin nightgown (because nuns are not allowed to be seen in their nightgowns), straighten my cotton night veil (because nuns are never allowed to have their hair uncovered) which has gone askew in my sleep, trudge down the hall to the toilets, then trudge back to get dressed. As I don tunic, belt, scapular, cape, and veil, I say the prayer that accompanies each one, thus reinforcing in my mind the symbolism behind every component of the holy habit. These prayers are a custom long dead, but having seen it done in a movie, I asked my novice directress if I might do it. (Unfortunately, I have now forgotten all those beautiful short prayers.) Once dressed, I go out into the dark to the main building. I have about fifteen minutes before Office, so I step into the small oratory situated on the other side of large windows behind the altar and tabernacle. If I keep the lights off, no one in the chapel will be able to see me through the windows. I kneel behind the tabernacle with only the cool glass separating me and the Blessed Sacrament, and place myself in the silence of Christ's presence. No words go through my head. I simply focus on his presence. Ten minutes later, I join the rest of the community in the chapel to prepare my breviary and hymn book for the Office of Readings and Morning Prayer. At exactly 5.50, one of the chantresses quietly goes out to the hall to ring the bell. Our day of prayer and contemplation has begun. After Office, individual meditation; at 7.00, Holy Mass (on weekdays, Mass is at 7.20). By 8.15, I'm sitting down to breakfast. If it were five years earlier, I'd still be fast asleep in my bed in Houston.

The Move to Houston

     This will be a short one, due to my father's illness.
     I didn't keep a regular journal around the time I auditioned for the Houston Grand Opera Studio; for that reason, and also because my memory has gone bye-bye, I don't exactly recall the timing of events. I know I had to do two auditions, because there was no vacancy for a new coach in the Studio when I auditioned the first time. What I can't remember is exactly how long it was between auditions.
     But I do remember that first audition quite clearly: I had to prepare the Composer's Aria, the Act II Finale of Figaro, and the whole first act of Boheme. I had to be ready to sing any of the parts while playing, show how well I followed a conductor, and also sightread. To start the audition, I had to play a solo piano piece of my choosing to demonstrate my basic technique and musicality. I chose the first two movements of the Beethoven Op. 109 Sonata.
     My flight into Houston was a bit late, and the auditions were running a bit early due to a couple of cancellations; consequently, when I got off the elevator on the sixth floor of the Wortham Center, Shauna Bowman, the Studio's administrator, was right there waiting for the next victim. Which was me.
     "We're running ahead. Are you ready to go in right now?"
     Maybe someone else would have answered, "Actually, could I just have ten minutes to warm up?" But I, knowing my nerves and not being a big warmer-upper, said, "Sure!" Better just to go in and do it before I had the chance to get nervous.
     Anyway, it went very well (by the way, my sightreading piece was an ensemble from La Rondine), and they did ask me to come back and audition again when they had a vacancy. Some months (or maybe a year?) later, I got a call from Shauna saying that one of the Studio coaches decided not to stay a third year (three years is usually the maximum a coach or singer can stay), and could I do another audition in a couple of weeks? Sure!
     The real reason for the second audition, since they already knew my playing, was so that the Music Director of HGO, John de Main, and the co-director of the Studio, Carlisle Floyd, could hear me and give final approval. And approval they gave.
     I moved to Houston in the autumn of 1989 to embark on what was to be one of the greatest and most rewarding adventures of my life.

An Exericise in Humility

     Sometimes in films about nuns there is a scene where the nuns are gathered in a room; one steps forward, kneels before the prioress or mother superior or novice mistress, and states her "faults" for that week (she broke silence twice, arrived late to Office once, etc.). Then the superior gives her a penance (an extra chore, or extra prayer); the nun then kisses the floor, goes back to her chair, and the next nun gets up and follows the same procedure. This custom is called the "Chapter of Faults" and takes place on a regular basis (usually weekly) in all monasteries. The procedure has changed somewhat over the years, and from order to order and house to house. At the Monastery of the Infant Jesus -- in the novitiate, anyway; I never got to find out how the professed sisters do it -- they no longer kneel before the novice directress and they no longer kiss the floor in an act of humility. However, the basic elements of stating their faults in front of their fellow sisters, asking their pardon, and receiving a penance, remain the same.

     "How humiliating!" some may say. Well, yes, that's the whole point. It takes humility to admit one's faults and ask pardon, and even more humility to make reparation for your faults.

     A "fault" in the monastic sense is not the same as a sin. Faults are infractions of the rule, that is, the "laws" governing the day-to-day life and customs of a religious order. Each order in the Church has its own particular rule, usually drafted by the founder of that order, but some orders adopt the rule of another order as their own: the Dominicans, for instance, follow the Rule of St. Augustine. All rules, however, take their cue, if you will, from the grandfather of monastic Rules -- the Rule of St. Benedict. It is the model on which all others are based.

     Yes, confession is good for the soul, including the difficult and humbling confession to a fellow human being; it cleanses you, frees you, and receiving forgiveness heals the wound between you and the one you offended; moreover, in the larger, more mystical sense, it heals the wound you inflicted on the Body of Christ, which is the Church. Even when a sister asks pardon for breaking silence, a seemingly small thing, she confesses that she has broken a code of behavior which was forged to keep order and peace in that house. She is placing herself, rightfully so, below the higher law of obedience, and humbling herself before her fellow human beings. She is placing herself last, as Jesus himself would do.

     After I experienced my first Chapter of Faults, I couldn't help thinking back to the "notes sessions"  at the Houston Grand Opera. A notes session takes place at the end of a run-through, or perhaps between performances after a show has already opened. The cast, stage director, conductor, head coach, prompter, and stage management gather together; each member of the cast, one by one, in front of all his colleagues, receives notes from director and conductor (or head coach): every mistake in staging, every mistake in diction, and every musical mistake that singer has made, is pointed out. Most singers -- almost all, in fact -- consider this to be a necessary part of their profession and take their notes for the good of the show. They know that the performance as a whole, the product they present to a paying audience, is more important than themselves.

     Obedience -- exercising humility -- is for the common good as well as for an individual's good and ultimate sanctification. That is why God gave us commandments and why the government drafts laws. When we disobey through lack of humility -- when we act out of pride -- we wound others as well as our ourselves. To confess and make reparation is to heal one's soul and to help heal the Body of Christ.

City Mouse Meets Tufted Titmouse

     Living in the midst of pinewoods is a joy that for me came too late and lasted for far too short a time. I have always considered it unfair that I should have been born with such a deep love for the glories of nature, yet have grown up and lived in urban areas. And now, after having tasted the myriad delights of the woods, I must, due to circumstances, once again live in an area that has no delights whatever, except the birds that sing in its stunted trees and soar over its depressed streets, and the few Chinese tallows that, given sufficient rain, remind me there is indeed such a thing as autumn.
     Even the birds in my particular neighborhood are limited in breed. On a regular basis, I see sparrows, finches, mockingbirds, mourning doves, martins, starlings, the occasional bluejay and cardinal, and of course, those ubiquitous grackles that must spring fully grown from oil slicks. Hawks cruise constantly, casting great shadows on the pavements and brittle fields. In summer, hummgingbirds come.
     In the woods of Lufkin, I saw my first woodpeckers, my first siskins, my first tufted titmice (titmouses?), and believe it or not, my first robins (hordes of them!). Host upon host of migrating birds would stop in the monastery woods on their way south, drinking from our pond and resting in our trees. All these new wonders inspired me to write passages in my journal such as the following:

11 February 2005   It was such a glorious dawn today! A sheet of little puffed clouds, lined up in formation, arose from behind the pine trees -- not quite a mackerel sky; not that tightly packed -- and all their undersides glowed a neon salmon color. Stunning and almost surreal, a Maxfield Parrish kind of sky. As I stood gazing at this magnificence, I suddenly heard a great whoosh of wings from the north, and I turned to see the hugest host of birds rise in unison from the woods on the other side of the monastery, covering half the visible sky. The birds swept in one graceful, undulating, enormous wave over my head to the south. I have never in my life seen that many birds in one flock -- flying, that is; I have countless times witnessed the deafening, chattering, squawking hordes of starlings that infest the trees and line the edges of roofs in downtown Houston right about dusk at certain times of the year. They are truly Hitchockian, and leave behind Pollack-like splatterings all over the sidewalks. (I wonder if that's where he got his inspiration???) They are frightening to see and their aftermath is disgusting; but the flock of whatever type of birds I saw this morning left me breathless with the wonder of God's Nature. What instinct did he give them that makes them move in such perfect unison? Humans try in so many ways to imitate that kind of precision: drill teams, corps de ballet, soldiers, the Rockettes, and of course, the "wave" that fans do in stadiums. Yet more examples of how we humans try to recreate, in our crude and imperfect fashion, what God has already created in glorious and incomprehensible perfection. We keep striving, consciously or not, to be God. To be like God is commendable -- it is our very calling as human beings and creatures of our Creator. But comes a point when one has to admit one's shortcomings.

The Closure of a Life

The most difficult months of my life thus far began when I returned to Houston after my aspirancy in Lufkin. 

8 May 2004  I wondered today, for the zillionth time, what will happen to my journals when I'm gone. What is it in people that makes them want to be remembered? I suppose it's because our time on this earth is so short, yet we labor so hard just to live; we want someone to acknowledge and even appreciate our labors. I will have no descendants, no husband to cherish my memory. It is my dearest and most fervent desire that I be known, truly known, through my own words.

     Today must be the day I mourn my past and would-be loves. I felt very odd, very emotional, for some reason, and needed just to drive around. You know, old and faithful friend, that I am one of the world's biggest romantic saps, that I have always followed my heart rather than my head, and that my heart has led me to some rather bizarre places. My romantic sensibilities belong to another era -- or maybe they belong in the pages of a melodramatic, gothic, Victorian novel written by a middle-aged spinster who still dreams of experiencing that one "great love." In any case, I was never so happy as when I was miserable in love. And tonight it has begun to dawn on me that when I enter the cloister, I say goodbye to those wonderful heart-wrenching torments that in the past have made me feel alive and purposeful. Sad, aren't I?

11 May 2004

Carol called last night; we had a good chin wag. I needed to voice to someone all the bewildering emotions I’ve been feeling suddenly about this tremendous change in my life and how much more difficult it is than I thought it would be to say goodbye. I almost wish there would be no fuss at all, no acknowledgement of my leaving the company; I would just quietly disappear and avoid all the sadness and turmoil. But that wouldn’t be fair to those who do want to say goodbye to me. Carol very kindly offered to fly me out to Santa Fe for a few days in July. I think I will take her up on it; I think I can get all my packing and shipping done even if I do go.

13 May 2004      The music staff lunch yesterday was really nice. I only cried a little, when I read the card they signed and gave me. Otherwise, it was a lot of laughter and good will and questions about the monastery.

     It’s very hard to put into words everything I’ve been feeling. But if at any given moment it seems I might be overwhelmed by the emotions whirling inside me, I go back in my mind, very calmly, and retrace the path that has led me to this point.

16 May 2004      I received the call from Sr. Mary Jeremiah with the news of my acceptance.

     Why is it that, when it comes to the most profound and complicated times of my life, I find it difficult to write? There’s something in me that disdains the cliché “There are no words to express X” yet there is truth to it and a reason it was coined in the first place. These past two days have in many ways been the most confusing and difficult of my entire life. I didn’t think it was possible to plunge from the highest joy to near despair in so short a time. I don’t even think I can write about it now -- but I will sometime. I have to.

     My life is in Your hands.

20 May 2004     Last Saturday was very gloomy indeed. I of course prayed very hard for my family, especially my mother, and that God would give us all the strength necessary to accept his will.

     Saturday night, the 15th, was closing night of Barbiere -- my very last performance in the Wortham Theater. I played the chorus warm-up, and at the end of it Richard announced very quietly, “This is Leticia’s last chorus warm-up.” It was a small group of 16, but those 16 men applauded me warmly. Richard, who is not given to public displays of emotion, hugged me as I sat crying on the piano bench. Some of the chorus stayed to say goodbye to me personally. It was very sad for me. I continued to cry until half-way through Act I of the show.

      During the Act II finale, when the entire company came down to the footlights to sing the closing phrases, a few of the choristers looked straight at me in the pit where I sat at the fortepiano. The final cut-off came; I looked at Patrick on the conductor’s podium. He turned to me and blew me a kiss.

      As with every closing night, I went onstage after bows to say goodbye to the cast. I didn’t think Earle would ever let go of me -- he held me very tight, both of us crying. Same with Patrick. And Joyce.

      Oh, it was one of the saddest, hardest nights of my entire life! I’ll never forget the love -- the love that grew through these 15 years, despite the grumblings, the bad world premieres, the less than pleasant rehearsal periods, the frustrating and tedious (some of them) coachings. There is so much I’ve loved about my job -- Mozart, Handel, bel canto, playing continuo,  the many great and rewarding coachings, the many happy productions and rehearsal periods. And the people. I will miss them sorely.

      Saturday and Sunday, I busied myself with cleaning and packing, which helped much in the way of distracting myself from worrying about my family.

23 May 2004, Ascension Sunday      I’m feeling a bit melancholy right now. Understandable, I suppose. Fr. Victor told me that when he got accepted into seminary, he sat in his apartment surrounded by his packed boxes and cried. Sr. Mary Jeremiah told me that when she got her plane ticket to go to the monastery from Rome, where she was living at the time, she cried; she was so depressed. Isn’t that funny? I mean, funny-peculiar? I wonder if pre-wedding cold feet feels this way. But I’m scared. It isn’t the thought of entering the monastery that depresses me; it’s this transition time. All the goodbyes, the packing, the throwing out of things -- the closure. Closure of a life. It’s said that when a woman enters the monastery, she dies to the world. But it’s much more specific and personal than that. She dies to her previous life.

      For years now, I’ve been trying to discover what life really is. So much of the time I felt as if I were faking a life -- yet, at the same time, wondering if that’s what living was: “playing” at things. Trying to convince yourself that you’re this, that, or the other. And all the while suspecting you should be “that” instead of “this.” But it was all just a preview. Now comes the true search. Now I have to confront life without playing at it.

      All these goodbyes have made it very clear to me how much a single person can influence and play such a part in so many other lives. How many people each and every one of us touches! I had no idea I mattered so much to so many. Now I’m beginning to see the network my own existence has built. It is an awesome vision, at once gratifying and humbling. I have made a difference in the world. I matter. What a great gift life is!

24 May 2004     Started cleaning out my studio at work this morning, putting scores in boxes to store in the HGO library until further notice; leaving the coat tree, small wooden table, and stool to Peter; the Maria Callas life-size cutout to Marjorie; the "Golf in Italy" poster to Norman; and everything else to Jim to do with as he pleases, since he is inheriting my studio. Yes, this is hard.

     Vai, e non fermarti mai,

     Perché il futuro è lunica ricchezza che hai.

     Non conta ciò che hai,

     Ma solo quello che sei e quello che darai.

     Sei solo tu il giudice che hai;

     La vita che hai davanti sarà come vorrai.

                                 ~ Enrico Ruggeri

     Go, and don't ever stop,

     Because the future is the only wealth you have.

     What you own doesn't count,

     But only what you are and what you will give.

     You are the only judge you have;

     The life you have before you will be as you want.

On My "Reversion" and Religious Vocation

     Some of my friends have asked me to recount how I received my religious vocation and the journey I took from there to entering the cloister. Though many books and articles have been written specifically about "the call" and how different people experience it and respond to it, I can't think it's an easy thing for anyone to discuss. It certainly isn't for me, mainly because it was such a complicated thing that happened in two stages. The first stage unfolded so subtly and over such a long period of time—the course of many years—that I was hardly aware it was happening. The second stage was more like the proverbial thunderbolt, or, to use a more contemporary vernacular, a boot in the rear.

     I can only say that an ever-growing restlessness and dissatisfaction with life as I was living it in the 1980s and '90s prompted me to re-examine the need for a spiritual center, which I once had as a child and adolescent, but in my late teens had pushed down and buried deep inside me while I pursued my musical career. In the beginning of that career, my talent was not to me "a gift from God"; it was simply something I was born with, and I developed it with a purely selfish, vain ambition and ruthless competitiveness. I loved my talent because it was mine (so I believed), and I loved that others admired and respected me for it. I found success and did indeed have a good career in opera, but eventually selfishness and competitiveness led, as it always does, to dissatisfaction. Dissatisfaction led to anxiety; anxiety led to the search for, as I defined it then, "something stronger than myself."

     Once I acknowledged there was something stronger than myself and my ambition, something that I couldn't control but could rely on always, then, and only then, was I open to the gift of faith. I was given the grace to question, to explore, and to learn. I was given the grace to see beyond myself and the ephemeral world I lived in. For this, and for my subsequent return to the Catholic Church, I must give some credit to my beloved mother, who prayed for me constantly during my years of faithlessness. She was my own personal Saint Monica, and I am forever grateful to her.

     In my quest to find a parish in Houston I felt at home in, providence led me to Holy Rosary, a parish run by friars of the Order of Preachers (commonly known as "Dominicans"). At the same time, I was also beginning to feel an inexplicable pull toward religious life. To this day, I have no idea specifically how or when it started, but suddenly—and this was the "boot in the rear"—I was reading everything I could lay my hands on about religious life.  I learned there are basically two kinds of religious orders: contemplative and active. Religious in active orders are sisters (technically not "nuns"). Their apostolate is teaching school or nursing, or doing some kind of charitable  or missionary work, and sometimes they live "in the world" while doing these things, or sometimes they live in convents. Mother Theresa's order, for example, is an active order. Religious in contemplative orders are nuns, but are addressed as "Sister" (or, for those who hold office, "Mother"). They live in monasteries called cloisters and their only apostolate is prayer and contemplating the word of God, which is why they are called "contemplatives." Nuns only venture outside the cloister for the most essential things, such as doctor's appointments or the death of their immediate family members, or for conferences and workshops. In the simplest terms, active sisters are "Martha"s and contemplative nuns are "Mary"s—and both are necessary to the Church and to the world.

     To say I was not bewildered and frightened by this pull toward religious life would be a lie. Frankly, I was scared out of my mind, and many were the times that I tried to convince myself it was just a passing fancy.  My life at that time was so settled into my work at the opera house; to give up everything for which I worked so hard for so many years and to which I had become so accustomed was unthinkable, akin to madness! Finally, I consulted both a therapist (who, thankfully, was a very faith-filled woman) and one of the priests at Holy Rosary. Both encouraged me to explore this mysterious and frightening thing that was happening to me, but they also cautioned me: "Take it slowly. Don't jump into anything without a lot of examination and (my priest told me) prayer."

     And so, I began my discernment in earnest. . . .

On Possessing and Being Possessed

     I come from a family of pack-rats and collectors. My mother's house is filled with gifts from her friends—candles, little angel statues, etc.—and so reluctant is she to offend a friend, she hardly ever gets rid of anything. If a gift isn't useful or aesthetically pleasing to her, she simply stows it in a closet or drawer. Whatever display space is not occupied by friends' gifts gets filled up with family photographs and tchotchkes of her own choosing.
     My sisters collect things—Depression glass, Firestone dishware, teapots, oil lamps—and I myself have been blessed/cursed with the collecting gene; loving the written word as much as I do, I'm prone to furnish my surroundings more with books than with furniture. My apartment in Houston looked like a used book store: every inch of shelf space stuffed, coffee table and nightstand strewn, mini-towers of tomes stacked against walls. Where there weren't books, there were films, because if my spare time wasn't occupied by reading, it was spent watching my favorite movies over and over again. Moreover, like any other healthy, normal female, my closet was fairly choked with clothes and shoes, most of which I wouldn't wear for months or even years at a time.
     Every so often I would look around at the semi-organized wreckage that was my apartment and, momentarily contrite and not a little disgusted, I would vow to throw out every garment and pair of shoes I hadn't worn in two years, every film I wasn't that crazy about, and every book I had already read. And, indeed, I would gather a few articles and give them to the Salvation Army or Half-Price Books, feeling virtuous—then I'd realize I had hardly made a dent in my plethora of possessions, and I was still buying books and clothes to replace the ones I had given away. So, naturally, I would rationalize (at least as far as the books were concerned): "Most of my books are out of print and really, really  hard to find. I just can't  get rid of them; I know I'll read them again. I mean, would I throw out a cat  no one else wanted?"
     Eventually, and quite literally, Divine Intervention saved me from being drowned in my clutter. As I wrote in an earlier post, I felt a call to enter religious life. When I got accepted into a contemplative monastery, I of course had to get rid of all my earthly possessions except for the most basic and necessary—personal things that can't be used in common, such as toothbrush, underwear, etc.—and in order to make the process less wrenching, I adopted a mantra: Ruthless. I must be ruthless.  As I sealed each boxfull of precious books and labeled it "Salvation Army" I would mutter, "Ruthless!" Purses crafted of Italian leather, triumphantly snatched up for a song at my neighborhood T. J. Maxx, were handed over to eager friends with, "Use them in good health (ruthless )!" Jewelry from QVC, CDs collected with care over the course of my career, all perused and appropriated by friends and co-workers (ruthless, be ruthless ).
     At the end of my despoilment, I surveyed the relative starkness of my apartment and thought, why on earth didn't I do this earlier? Why did it take a religious vocation to spur me into action and unburden myself from the tyranny of possession? For suddenly I felt lightened and enlightened. I was free! I really didn't need all those things !
     Some weeks later, in the monastery, I surveyed the starkness of my cell: there was a bed, the simplest kind; a small writing table and wooden chair, a narrow closet for my three habits, enough drawers and cabinets for my underclothes and basic toiletries, and a small sink. What more did I need? Even if I had remained "in the world," would I really need much more than that?
     Now that I am indeed back "in the world," my answer to that question is still "no," but a slightly qualified "no." Yes, I am determined not to have more clothes and shoes than I actually need. I no longer buy jewelry. My one sturdy, basic leather purse serves me just fine at all times of the year, with any outfit. I was never a huge cosmetics consumer, and even less of one now—I keep my face clean and my hair short. However ....
     I have  rebuilt—not to their former extent, but to a considerable one—my library and my film collection. Some things are just so much harder to do without.