Our 2020

Merry Christmas, happy holidays and a happy New Year.  

In spite of COVID, I’m blessed with good memories, good kids, and a strong stock market.  I’ve done my best to get my kids outside.  We’ve explored parks and areas of parks where we hadn’t been before.  When I went on the nature walk at Kensington Metropark with William and Livia, we got so close to a crane that we could touch it!  It even primped for us, flapped its wings and made its pterodactyl sound.  It was great!

Lara (age 21)
Lara graduated, “Pro Flight” from Purdue University on Friday, December 11, which means she’s a pilot.  There was unprecedented demand for pilots prior to COVID.  The timing was perfect and her decision, based on her view that she could “think of no better way to see the world,” was affirmed by her prospects for work.  It’s still a great decision for her.  She’ll spend spring semester employed by Purdue as a flight instructor.  Afterward, she wants to buy a trailer with her best friend, Annah, and live in Utah, in a beautiful landscape they discovered, just a stone’s-throw from the Las Vegas airport.  Hopefully, the vaccine will assuage our collective fear and the travel industry will “pop.”

She’s taken three epic road trips this year-to too many places for me to know.  First, in mid-June, was a giant loop due south, then west, as far as California, then north, then east and back home.  Next, was a northeast loop through the Adirondacks as far as Maine, then south and east, through the Catskills and home.  She and her boyfriend, Harrison, met-up with my mother’s cousin, Laura,  and her partner in the Catskills.  She showed them a great time and many beautiful vistas.  Laura’s (mom’s cousin’s) partner, is a private pilot with a repertoire of flights for celebrities and other notables.  He swayed Lara into thinking she’d rather do that than tow the company line, but she’s at a malleable age.  Right now, she’s on the final leg of her final 2020 trip down to New Orleans and west with Annah, through Texas to New Mexico and back.  She called me this morning and said she’ll return to Ann Arbor, from New Mexico, by tonight.  

She’s made so many memories with her adventurous spirit.  She and Annah met a young woman in New Orleans, near their age, who lives on a houseboat and let them stay overnight for free.  Stories, like this, are status quo for her.  “Life as an adventure” is a takeaway from the pain of Ben’s death for her, just like it is for me.

Harrison (17)
Harrison was in the wrong age at the wrong time to endure the pain of my divorce and his brother’s death.  Last August, after two years of estrangement, he returned to me, where he now lives full-time.  He’s navigating rough headwinds, but I believe in him and know he’s still on-course and making progress.  He’s taking the time he needs and is still in the process of “becoming.”  He’s a Senior at W.A.V.E., an alternative high school, and maintains a strong G.P.A.

William (14)
William finished St. Paul School in early June and became a Freshman at Ann Arbor Skyline High School in September.  He’s yet to set-foot in the building, but he has all A’s.  His sport is ice hockey.  It’s profound for me to see him follow in his late brother, Ben’s footsteps.  He also plays saxophone in the Skyline High School band.  His doctor said he would grow 6’ to 6’1” tall.  If so, he’ll be my only son to reach my height.  He’s well on his way.  He’s skinny, charismatic, funny, and growing like a weed.

Livia (11)
Livia is in 6th Grade at St. Paul School.  She’s good-humored, has good friends, and uses technology to socialize and do homework with friends and has embraced this “new normal” without a second-thought.  It’s amazing and affirms my perspective that we’re in an ongoing, long-term “Technology Revolution.”  It’s hard for me to miss it when I reflect on how fast and how much things have changed.  Livi’s passionate about volleyball, has played for her school, for a private club, just south of Ann Arbor, and hopes that the COVID lets her play for another private team just north of town. She’s a joy to be around.

Me (51)
I continue to feel blessed.  I found a girlfriend at the end of 2016, just shy of two months after my son’s accidental death, and it’s the best, most compatible relationship I’ve ever had.  We’ve traveled many times-to places we’ve never been, both domestically and abroad, and we’ve had genuine, unpretentious, real happiness together.  

Liana’s a medical doctor from Dallas who works at University of Michigan hospital.  She was born in Nicaragua during the Contra/Sandinista conflict, raised by a single mother, endured an earthquake, moved to Dallas to be raised with her Aunt and Uncle’s family when she was 11, was thrown into English school without knowing English, performed in a professional dance troupe in college, and now, she’s a Doctor.  I respect and admire her.  I don’t know how I got so lucky.

This year, I’ve been determined to remain positive despite COVID.  I found a beautiful vacation spot, La Terrazza Lavanda, a bed and breakfast on the highest elevation on the Leelanau Peninsula, Michigan’s western-most “pinkie finger.”  It overlooks Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore’s “Pyramid Point,” the north and south branches of Lake Leelanau, North and South Manitou Islands and Lake Michigan.  My most vivid memory was watching the sun set from the breakwater in Leland.  It’s perpendicular to the shore with an “elbow” and 90-degree “forearm that turns due-south -in the middle of the shallows of Lake Michigan.   The oranges and yellows of the sunset and the blues, greens and grays of the water were inspiring.  Livia, William and I also ventured out to Pyramid Point, the northern-most dune in the Sleeping Bear range.  Colors were beautiful, bright blue sky and water, bright green flora and fauna, and brightly colored shirts on me and my kids.  It was a synapse-cleansing delight!

I went there twice in July, once for a weekend with Liana and once for my annual week-long vacation with my kids.  Liana and I found a restaurant in Traverse City, named “Little G’s” owned by a Nicaraguan ex-pat, “Tony.”  I called, asked to speak to him, and handed the phone to Liana.  He told us they hadn’t been prepared for the city’s COVID-Procedures test, so they wouldn’t open till the week after we left.  However, he told us to visit for a private dinner the following day that he would cook for us.  He gave us four authentic Nicaraguan meals for free and told me to return with my kids the following week.  We did, indeed, and were treated to a great quantity of food for “peanuts!”  His hospitality and zest for life were heartwarming and memorable!  William told me it was the best meal he’d ever had!

In August, I met a fellow Ann Arbor native, Allie Ketcham on Facebook who owns the “Ketcham Estate” winery in Sonoma Valley CA.  We were Facebook friends, already, but never met “I.R.L. (in real life).”  She lost her husband in April and came to Ann Arbor with her kids to visit her parents over the summer.  She was doing scattered wine-tastings nearby.  Her Facebook post offered anyone the chance to host backyard-tastings, so I took it!  I lit a fire in my backyard pit, had 20 people in spread-out chairs in my backyard, served fancy, homemade hors d’oeuvres made by Liana and me, and hosted my best event, ever.  It was very well received and everyone left happy! 

I’m still singing as much as I can, but less than before.  Each week I coach with Martha Sheil, Associate U-M Professor Emerita and former opera singer.  I was even referred to a local opera composer by a soprano, with whom I’ve sung, in October to record a demo of the tenor role, Ichabod Crane, for his “Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and expect to complete it in 2021.  In early 2020, I had plans to self-produce a recording of a longtime (30+ years) favorite, Schumann’s Liederkreis song-cycle (songs composed around similar themes), but COVID placed the effort on hold.  I get anxious when I’m not allowed to try and make-up for the time I lost not singing when I didn’t believe in my voice or myself, but I take deep breaths and tell myself to do just what I can, no more.

My business grows.  I work with people I like.  It’s no coincidence that my business has grown this way, and the privilege of helping people is an ongoing blessing!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Steve