DILEMMA

I graduated from Cal Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude, and second in the Department of Spanish—a standing I didn’t feel I deserved because I doubted I would have gotten the straight A’s at Cal that I did at the University of Madrid my junior year. I will say, however,...

read more

SELF-HARM

When I look over the Callie’s Ragbag vignettes I’ve posted about this period, a—I mean I— remember an event that isn’t even mentioned. (Yeah, I just made that same old Freudian slip.) My senior year of college I started to go out with a boy…er, young man named John,...

read more

IT KNOCKS BUT ONCE

“Kirsten Flagstad is quoted as saying that the subject of breathing is ‘almost impossible to learn or understand and almost impossible to teach’”—The Singing Voice, by Robert Rushmore. There are three basic types of breathing, Rushmore tells us: upper chest...

read more

SELF DELUSION?

The first time I ever experienced a higher state of consciousness—that I can remember, anyway—happened shortly after coming to terms with my own mortality. I wrote:I was walking alone along Strawberry Creek on campus shortly before a therapy session with Dr. F when...

read more
NO TIME

NO TIME

Once I was back at Cal for my senior year, I was able to see a therapist at the student hospital as I had during the spring of my sophomore year. Since Dr. Camarer had committed suicide, I was assigned to a new psychiatrist, Dr. F.In A Patchwork Memoir I wrote: It was...

read more
WELLSPRING

WELLSPRING

From A Patchwork Memoir:

I started with two voice lessons a week, then went to three, then four. While jealous of the more advanced students, I felt a pugnacious competitiveness. “Just you wait,” I thought fiercely, “I’ll…

read more