Wisdom and Wrinkles do not always go hand in hand. There are plenty of older people who are astonishingly foolish- and plenty of young people who are wise beyond their years. I was reminded of the latter at last weekend’s graduation ceremonies for Tremper High School, where my sister-in-law Polly is the choir director. (I play piano for the vast majority of their concerts and competitions.) I was on hand to play for the choir (they sang quite a dramatic song titled “The Awakening”) but made a point of sticking around in order to hear the commencement speaker. I’m not in the habit of listening to graduation speeches if I don’t have to (the proportion of good to poor graduation speeches I’ve heard in my lifetime is probably 9:1) but in this case, I had to stay; the speaker was Colin Robertson, one of my most gifted private voice students. I have seen him deliver some truly remarkable performances onstage (most memorably in the lead role of Catch me if you can) and it has been great to see him evolve and blossom as a young singing actor. And not too long ago, when the Kenosha News did one of its focus features about him, I was the person he identified as his Role Model. I was absolutely blown away by that and continue to reread that newspaper clipping from time to time just to make sure that I didn’t imagine the whole thing.
Anyway, I’m really glad I stayed around for the speech, because Colin, Tremper High School’s Valedictorian – had something very worthwhile to say – and I’ve been thinking a lot about it in the days since …. (which is more than I can say about the vast majority of graduation speeches I’ve endured over the years.) The gist of Colin’s speech concerned the importance of appreciating and honoring those who have helped shape us into the people we are- and if there was a central thesis statement to the speech, it was this: the best way to honor those who have helped us along the way is to go on to live as happy a life as we possibly can.
I’ve heard that basic premise before but in the framework of honoring our mentors by living a successful life, not a happy life. I haven’t had a chance to ask Colin why he pinned his premise his speech on the word “happy,” – but here’s one possibility: Colin happens to be a tremendously gifted singer/dancer/ actor who aspires to make his living as a professional performer in musical theater, maybe even on Broadway. But his dream is shared by thousands of other young people, many of them comparably talented- and in such a crowded landscape, even the most talented performer cannot possibly say with certainty that their highest hopes will be achieved. There are no guarantees. Success in any field- but especially in that field- hinges on all kinds of circumstances and realities completely beyond one’s own control. That being said, my fervent hope is that the right doors will open and allow Colin to seize the exciting opportunities that would turn his dreams into thrilling reality. That would be just about anyone’s idea of <<Success.>>
But as much as I want that for Colin, what I want even more is that he will be happy and fulfilled in whatever his life ends up being- whether or not his highest dreams come true. And the fact of the matter is that even if he makes it to the highest levels of the musical theater world does not necessarily guarantee happiness. What I want for him more than anything is that he is happy in whatever he ends up doing- to feel good about who he is and about the mark he is making in the world – and that is all the ‘honor’ that I need or want from him- and I’m sure that his other mentors (his mom and dad, Polly, Holly, and others) feel the same way. I think about this whenever I think back to my first important mentor- Cherie Carl, my first voice teacher. I know she would have loved to see me make my mark as an opera singer- but that ended up not happening beyond my Lyric Opera apprenticeship. I pulled back from the pursuit, realizing that I simply did not possess the drive and focus and hunger that would have been required. (And even if I had pursued that dream with ferocious focus, that still would be no guarantee of success.) But the life I ended up building has been incredibly happy – not just for the fulfillment it has given me through my various jobs, but also for the joy I’ve had in working with talented and committed young singers like Colin. And the happiness I have experienced for the last thirty years has a lot to do with what Cherie and my other mentors gave me and taught me – and with how they helped me to appreciate and nurture my talents and to find all kinds of ways to use those talents in world around me. Cherie is one of the people I have to thank for this exciting, joyous, happy life of mine- and in turn, I hope that the way I am living my life is also an important means of thanking her.
And if I have played even a tiny role in whatever happiness Colin experiences in his life from here on, that would make me very happy indeed.
<P.S. – By the way, the Tremper salutatorian also gave a nice talk in which he said that none of us are handed a good and successful life; it’s something we have to earn for ourselves, which is part of what makes it worth having. I liked his theme a lot- and I thought it was in nice counterpoint to Colin’s focus on those who have helped us be who we are. To set the stage for his thesis, he talked about how he had been given a lottery ticket as a graduation present- which of course got him daydreaming about what he would do with 200 million dollars. (Foolishly, he went out and bought some more tickets in the hopes of boosting his chances of winning; for someone who professes to be interested in numbers and statistics, that was not a smart thing to do.) As you can guess, he did not win the big payoff- so he is going to have to set about building his future success the hard way… which is also the best way. A good message.>