Some years ago I was in therapy and I must have seemed unfocused because George (the therapist) asked me where I wanted to be “five years from now.” That question really annoyed me because not only didn’t I know, I didn’t think it was relevant to today. I answered, “Not dead.”

This attitude kept me back in business, notably because, even though I met all my deadlines, my way threatened the anal-oriented who planned the how and why.

I loved the newspaper business but I didn’t have the hard nose and personality one needs to succeed in it as a reporter. I enjoyed being near the greats. It was enough.
So I didn’t make a real career and the arts were important to me so for a while I wouldn’t take any job that wasn’t within walking distance to Carnegie Hall and City Center where my ballet schools of choice were. One day I realized how counter-productive that was and took a real job even though it meant I’d have to travel on the subway at rush hour to get to class.

Despite the fact that I did good work and was the glue that held many projects together, my contributions were not showy. Someone once said if I wasn’t doing work that showed a profit I would not be recognized. But I didn’t want to change and I just wanted to get things right. You have no idea how little that is valued.

Another reason that lent itself to treading water instead of succeeding was that I was not high energy. In order to work all day and then go to ballet class, I would nap during lunch hour in any empty office I could find. I was often too tired to do ballet laundry, so in the morning I would dump leotard and tights in a soapy bucket, rinse them out, stick them in a plastic bag, and hang them up in the office closet. If I forgot to hang them up (oh, $%^%) I’d wear them wet. Skipping class because of wet clothes was not an option. Anyway, they don’t stay wet long once you have them on.

I was studying classical piano at the same time, having found Sophie, who made a real musician out of me. She kept me going forward no matter what I had or had not worked on that week. Now that I have fewer distractions I am recalling everything she ever told me and applying it to everything left undone.

Here’s an item on Sophie’s brother, and one of her obits on the Cello Geek website.

Emanuel Feuermann (1902-1942) was almost universally recognized during his brief lifetime as a peerless master of the instrument. Artur Rubinstein said "Feuermann became for me the greatest cellist of all time"[1], Jascha Heifetz accepted him as the first cellist worthy of serious collaboration, and would not play with another for nine years after his death. He was the cellist of choice for conductors including Toscanini, who described him as "the greatest" and said that "there is no one after him"

Sophie Feuermann dead at 99 - Robert Battey
Sophie Feuermann, younger sister of the famed cellist, passed away on 11/6/07 at 99. She was Feuermann's accompanist in the early years of his career.

I wonder if I am making it clear that just having her attention was enough for me.

There have been several times in my life where the future was very tenuous. Strangely, I did not worry, knowing that somehow I would solve my problems when I needed to. And my last therapist in New York, with whom I still correspond occasionally, once said, “You always seem to pull a rabbit out of the hat when you need a rabbit.”

Finally, without planning any of it, I have wound up in a very fine retirement. Surely that is not just luck?

xx, Teal