Going to a voice lesson in Carmel Valley
an essay by a dedicated Monterey-area
adult voice student
December 2006
A little after Ocean Avenue, Highway 1 merges into a single lane on each side, and you meet with an ungracious snarl of suddenly stagnant traffic. This may last for a little distance, but quite soon the road begins to incline gently downwards, and ahead of you loom the mountains, often swathed with a ribbon of white mist. And you are at the edge of Carmel Valley.
At the light one makes a left turn, to see the little shopping centre on the right. The road continues, and you can see that you are now in the valley proper, a wall of mountain to your left, and to the right a brief relief of greenery, trees, bushes, and the occasional farmhouse, but always and ever, further to the right, more mountains, tall and cool and dark green and grand, but always near and present. Today sunlight falls on them, but it is no more illuminating than the mist, as the shadows form and drape themselves on the mountainsides, one over the other.
About 3 miles down the road you meet with a little turnout, where the mountains by some strange or perhaps human hand, fall away, and you catch a glimpse of the green and golden valley below, dotted with little houses. There is magic here, and music, in this little valley. As you turn in, the traffic silently melts away, and there are simply the usual three or four cars on the road. You pass wide green fields, red farmhouses; an occasional sprinkler waters the fields. It is truly a green and pleasant valley.
Further down the road there are shops and a nursery, brightening the roadside with vivid blooms, chrysanthemums today, and pumpkins too, but winter will likely see holly and poinsettia, and spring! What will spring bring!
But now the shops pass, and it is simply a quiet country road, though paved and neither narrow nor winding. And if you are careful, and know where to look, you will find the right mailbox and the right driveway.
Turning in you are greeted by a white house with flowers on the porch. If it is summer, and you are lucky, a fluffy black cat jumps into your path, silent but affectionate, and demands that you play with her, and not go in to the house. That is indeed a tempting proposal, for the garden will be bright with flowers or pumpkins, sunlight from behind the tall mountains will filter through the canopy of the great oak tree to one side of the garden, casting golden shadows.
But you have parked in the spot marked “Parking for Musicians Only,” and it is for that that you are here, for that that you abandon the cat and step through the screen door, to make sounds tumble through your lips and face and body, and be reminded of yin and yang and to breathe, to be moved and to move yourself, and perhaps, just perhaps, other people.
For you have arrived at your voice lesson with a real teacher.
I give a deep bow of gratitude
to the author of this essay.
~ David