Updated: Dec 13, 2019

By Alison Barr, NCTM

I celebrated a milestone birthday on Thanksgiving night. Still digesting our huge supper, we lit up the firepit, put out blankets and queued up the 70’s dance tunes on my laptop. We stayed out for about an hour but were so frigidly cold that we couldn’t move out from under the blankets. My neighbors insisted on staying out there. Perhaps they didn’t want to see my birthday dream shattered. When we finally checked in with the reality of our frozen limbs, everyone agreed to move inside for cake and ice cream. I was happy to have shown a modicum of (fool)hearty youthfulness and fist-raising defiance on the eve of my 65th.

In our society, there’s lots of noise surrounding turning 65. Things are asked of you. Are you going to retire? Downsize? Go on Medicare? What surgeries have you had recently? Will you give it all up and move to Bora Bora? Nowadays, our behavior is predicted through demographic algorithms, but our actual performance is far from a conglomerate.

I like to think of myself as a maverick, an outlier. I’ve always swum upstream. My goal is to abundantly nurture that part of myself as I get older. Hey, what have I got to lose?

Here are my hopes for the next ten years:

• I hope to stay involved in MMTA, in any way they’ll have me.

• I hope to expand the visibility of MMTA’s Music Connect Program, which has the capacity to help many, many students across the state.

• I hope to attend MTNA’s National Conferences, keeping up my record of attending MOST since my first in 1980. It’s the BEST FUN ever and completely worth the price of admission.

• I hope to remain relevant and inspiring to my thirty students. I hope to encourage them to think of ways they can give back to the world through their music.

• I hope to continue to teach in summer music camps in the Middle East, where the hearts of my students are wide open.

• I hope to protect my hearing. With some trepidation, I had it tested a few weeks ago and it’s still above normal. I’m getting musician’s ear protection to make sure it stays that way.

• I hope to read, write, garden, play tennis, and swim.

• I hope to travel to Lapland.

• I hope to share my joy of living with any grandchildren I might have.

• I hope to stay in touch with my former students all over the world.

• I hope to continue to teach at Rosie’s Place.

• I hope to continue my flute lessons with the amazing Melissa Vining. Every teacher should have an even finer teacher.

• I hope to play through all the Beethoven Sonatas, at my leisure.

• I hope to collaborate in new ways; my colleagues have brought supreme richness to my life.

• I hope to enjoy riotous evenings or quiet moments of reflection with my friends.

In closing, I’m happy to say that I’ve built many more bridges than I have burned. For me, life is about growth, and I hope the next ten years don’t change that.

Alison S. Barr, NCTM

MTNA member since 1975