HOPING I’LL SEE YOU AGAIN – PART 2

Posted on October 31, 2010 by Judy

BA’A M’NUCHA

Recording above of an Israeli song Carol and Judy used to sing

Good morning, Judy!

I just read your most recent post. What wonderful memories those photos and your recollections brought back! You write very movingly about the role of friends and music in your life, and about your feelings when we lost touch. I still can’t believe we let that happen.

I want to write about my relationship with Sam. Your experience with him may have been completely different, and I absolutely don’t want anything I say to besmirch your memory of him. Each relationship has its own dynamic. He was just completely wrong for me. I’m sure, that the soundtrack to this part of my life was Carly Simon’s “That’s The Way I Always Heard It Should Be!”

Not only was Sam the wrong man for me to marry, I was absolutely not ready to get married to anyone. I’d never lived on my own, never traveled, never had a chance to be, as Carly sang, “me first, by myself.”

My break-up with Sam was very sudden and dramatic. I know it took him by surprise; he didn’t really deserve that. I don’t think he ever understood what I wanted from the relationship. Then there was the issue of children. I’d always assumed when I was growing up, without thinking much about it, that I would get married and have kids some day. That’s just what people did, without questioning it. Well, during one of our arguments, I shouted, “I don’t have to have children unless I want to!” What I’d said was one of those things you blurt out in an argument, yet the minute the words left my mouth, I knew they were true. I didn’t have to have children unless I wanted to. Maybe I would, maybe not, but it was an option, not an obligation; my choice, not my biological destiny. And I never wavered from that realization in the years to come.

I have shared with you many of my other reasons for not marrying Sam (not for the blog). If I sound angry and bitter and hard on Sam, it’s because I WAS for many, many years. It wasn’t until I attended my 30-year high school reunion that this changed. I saw Sam there. We had a very cordial conversation. He seemed like a nice enough guy. I realized after our conversation that I was tired of carrying around all that anger and negative feeling, it took too much energy, and it was time to let it go. And *poof* there it went.

Love, Carol

It was very interesting to read this entry from 1980 in my diary. I pondered the paragraph where I mentioned I lied. It took awhile for me to understand that I must have told Sam I was engaged to Michael, before it happened. (Clicking on this brings it up larger)

Hi Carol,

I was going to surprise you, but I am planning to do a recording of Ba’a Menucha. I’ll just do it on Garage Band by myself. I just pulled out the songbook – it is quite beautiful.

Thank you for your honest sharing. I appreciate that you opened up so much to me, and I am sorry for what must have been a challenging chapter in your life. It was a good thing that you followed your heart.

I loved that Carly Simon song by the way. I used to sing it all the time!!!

Thank you so much for giving me peace tonight, as I process so much. Your words remind me that I also followed my intuition on my life’s journey.

I am happy with my life and feel so blessed with my family.

Love, Judy

Hi, Judy,

I’m very glad my story helped give you some perspective. I think we’ll have a lot to talk about when we see each other in person!

Looking forward to Post #200, and I can’t wait to hear your recordings, especially Ba’a Menucha! Have fun performing this weekend!

Have fun with your performance tonight, and let your spirit soar with your music!

Love, Carol

Carol with Cheryl and Cindy.

Are you okay with coming out to my house? Or I could come to you. I think with singing it would be nice not to be in public.

I think Thursday is the most open day for me next week.

I am going to work on editing and sharing our correspondence. I think we make so many choices in our life and the important part is to follow our intuition, which both you and I did. To question that is pointless. What a lesson that is for me!

Actually, I just had a thought – if you want, you can come over sometime and go with me when I perform at Borders. I have two mics and if you want, you could sing with me!

Love, Judy

Good Morning, Judy–

What a stunning day it is!

I would be happy to come out to your place, unless you need an excuse to get out of the house and want to come to me. Thursday morning would be great for me. That way I don’t have to worry about traffic coming back. As for singing with you; that’s such a nice invitation, but I’d have to work up to that one! I’m really out of practice and don’t remember very many songs in their entirety, not to mention I’ve never sung in public like that before.

As far as conveying in your blog anything I wrote about Sam, I have no problem with it at all. I have nothing to hide there and if you find a way to write about it that you are comfortable with, then I’m sure I will be as well.

Enjoy your music-making this weekend!

Love, Carol

Hi Carol!

Love your message. I am very excited about you coming over. My house is a little “messy” from my kids and pets; but after reading what you grew up with, I’ll know that you’ll be very accepting! I spend no time on housekeeping, and my housekeeper spends all her time cooking when she’s here in the evenings.

I just found out that my Borders performance tonight was cancelled, due to a poetry reading that got shifted into my time slot. That’s fine. Last night when I played at the Simi Borders, it was very quiet. I didn’t put my heart into it as much as I would have liked. I think I prefer to play my own songs, but worry that people only want “familiar” tunes. But since I’m doing this for fun, I think I’ll just play my own songs more if that makes me happy!

I’m glad I’ll be home tonight. I want to post our beautiful correspondence. I am working hard to edit it down, but that’s not an easy task. I do think your honest words about your mom’s housekeeping would be something a lot of people might relate to.

Anyway, I am most excited that I took the time yesterday to play around at home with B’a M’nucha. I’m enjoying listening to it on my iPod. The harmony is so beautiful and now you can have it all come back to you. I’m going to share my recording with you now. Enjoy!

Can’t wait to see you!!!!

Love, Judy

Judy, thank you.

I have goose bumps, and tears in my eyes.

All my love, Carol

I transposed this into two keys, in order to record separate guitar tracks.

To be fair, I shared my posts about Carol with Sam to make sure he was also comfortable. Here is our exchange:

On Oct 29, 2010, Sam wrote:

Thanks, Judy…I appreciate your sharing this.  Hopefully, if Carol writes anything too inflammatory, (though I don’t know why she would), please tone it down for your blog.

I had kind of suspected the house issue…I didn’t want to share it first, because I didn’t want to portray Carol or her family in a bad light.  And I simply overlooked it…would have been completely unfair of me to judge Carol on the basis of her family’s housekeeping…and as I mentioned, they were always very nice to me and included me many times in their family events…Sam

Hi Sam,

I am ready to post Part 2 of my correspondence with Carol. I want to share the section where she mentions breaking up with you. If it makes you uncomfortable, let me know how I could edit it in a way that doesn’t embarrass or bother you.

I’m actually going to see her next week (on Thursday). She is going to come out to my home.

I’ll wait to hear from you. Hope you had a nice Shabbat.

Judy

Hi Judy,

Ran to the city tonight for an engagement party for the daughter of one of my friends…it is so strange as we progress to the time where our friends kids are getting married, and soon ours as well…we are becoming our parents generation…I definitely have not processed that!

You can certainly post what Carol has written.

I am glad that she has let go of those angry feelings, and hope that she has the life and relationship that she wants.  I certainly wish the best for her! (That is so trite, but that isn’t how I mean it!)

Have a great time with Carol next week.  Your friendship was very important to her.  If I was, in some way, responsible for your “breakup”, then it is only fitting that I helped to bring you back together….Sam

Hi Sam,

It has been awkward to be “in the middle!”

I can certainly say that my losing touch with her were because of the circumstances of her engagement to you and the move. However, that being said – I didn’t move much (my parents lived at 6000) for years and years. She could always have found me when her life changed. I posted my diary page. I knew I’d probably never hear from her again.

And I wouldn’t if I hadn’t become this new person eager for reconnecting! Thank you for helping me on “my journey of growth” to find her!

When I saw my diary page, it said I “lied to you” about being engaged to Mike. Gosh, I didn’t remember that! I was going to remove the line, but decided to show what a flawed person I was!

Have a great day, Judy

© Judy Unger and http://www.myjourneysinsight.com 2010. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Judy Unger with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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HOPING I’LL SEE YOU AGAIN – PART 1

Posted on October 30, 2010 by Judy

Carol and I in the back, Cindy and Linda (left to right) in front.

On this post, I am sharing my reconnecting with Carol. She was very much a part of my musical journey during my youth. I am sharing all of this with her permission. (Her words are in green.)

On Oct 27, 2010, Carol wrote:

Hi, Judy!

I was pretty surprised when I got the e-mail about your trying to find me, and it took me a while before I figured out that Sam was the link (then I actually read that in his reply to your blog). I didn’t expect that he’d remember where I volunteered, but I’m glad he did.

I don’t remember singing Christmas carols together; what I remember are all the wonderful folk songs in Hebrew (I can still remember the harmony part to Ba’a M’nuchah). I don’t think I heard your vocal compositions, but on post #6 I listened to 30-year-old recordings of a few of your instrumental pieces. Wow, what a flashback! You used to play them at the beach…you, me, Cindy and Cheryl (and I’m so sad to hear of her loss) and I forget who else…those are golden days in my memory, even though I tended to get very sentimental and cried easily (A memory here that you can include sometime: You played/sang “Both Sides Now” and I cried–of course–and you and the other girls crowded around to hug and comfort me, and a group of guys walking down the beach yelled out something about lesbians! Of course this outraged and cracked us up, and restored a cheerful mood).

I guess Sam is a common link here. What I remember about our losing touch is this: I started dating Sam when I was 21, after running into him at Israeli folk dancing (the dancing is another set of golden memories). It happened on the rebound from a relationship that disappointed and saddened me extremely, and so with Sam, things got intense pretty quickly. I knew you’d dated him, but until I read your blog, I had no idea how long you’d dated or how close you’d been or anything (and he never talked about it much). So I’m not surprised, in retrospect, that you were floored when I disclosed that Sam and I were together. I should have been more sensitive in telling you, but I hadn’t anticipated that it would upset you so.

I think we grew apart after that; and like so many silly young girls, I probably ignored our friendship as I spent more time with Sam. I do know that you told me at some point about your mom forcing you and Mike to marry early, so you did confide in me, but I also recall that I wasn’t invited to the formal wedding. It may be that I’d already moved to Galveston to be with Sam.

I’m surprised–and, I’ll admit, a bit sad, that you’ve drawn a blank on your memories with me until now, because they have been with me always. Well, some of them, anyhow. It’s scary how blurred memories can become as one gets older.

I have so enjoyed reading your blog, though it’s been hard to read about what you’ve been through all these years. I’m happy that you’ve rediscovered your music, and that you’re recording your lovely songs; so much honesty and openness there!

I don’t have a blog, so a recap of my life will take a little time. And it is past lunchtime, and I need to take a walk to clear my head (too much virtual, walking down memory lane), so I’m going to sign off for the time being.

My head is still spinning!

Love, Carol

Hi Carol,

I’ve been thinking of what to write all day! It’s been difficult to narrow down everything – there is so much there!

I am certain you were not at my wedding because you moved away, and that was when we lost touch. I think the revelation that caused the most distance for me was when you revealed your discomfort about your religion. And all is forgiven for whatever happened all those years ago. I do think I was probably hurt and surprised that you felt it necessary to carry on a charade of being Jewish.

I would love to share the story of our friendship. I really was not accurate when I said I drew a “blank.” I think I just haven’t written much about any of my friends except Cheryl. I think I am now ready to write more about friendship, now that I’ve released all my traumatic memories. I did write about Marge, who was a big part of my folk dancing memories. When I saw Marge recently, we sang Ba’a M’nuchah – such haunting harmony! Today I sang the Israeli song “Eli Eli” at the nursing home where my mom is a resident!

So, I’m going to write about some of those memories. I might share some of our email exchange and what I’m going to do now is edit what you’ve written. I can also change your name if you want. Sam said I could call him Mohammad!

He’s very funny, isn’t he?

So look at your writing and see if anything is a problem for me to share. I am very much excited to be back in touch with you!

By the way, I sing “Both Sides Now” at every show practically! Come to think of it, writing this story is like both sides now!

Love, Judy

 

Oh Judy, where do I begin? I’ve been thinking about you all day and wondering how to bring you up to date, which stories to tell you first. And I can see from what you have written that I must write a chapter about the “charade” of being Jewish. It wasn’t a charade, at least not in the sense of me worrying about you caring what religion I was. It arose from an unfortunate chance, derogatory conversation I heard in college, regarding a person who converted to Judaism, and a perception of negativity, that I responded to in an attempt to protect myself from ridicule as I quietly studied how to be a Jew. But that is a story for another time!

And I feel that Sam must be another chapter, although one perhaps kept between us; we’ll see. Writing about Sam is going to be hard. I have no idea what (if anything) he told you about our relationship, and I don’t know if you feel comfortable telling me–your call.

I’m not sure how much time I’ll be spending on this in the next few days, but I’ll have lots of time to write next week since my husband will be out-of-town and my normal routine can be adjusted. So bear with me!

This is going to be interesting…

Carol

Hi Carol,

It’s funny, but I was just writing about you now.

I can even share my writing in progress – I should be done with it soon. There really isn’t that much, Carol. It’s all so simple.

Sam has truly been a gentleman. He said little about you – he said you hated Texas, and he understood that! He mentioned you didn’t have any children, and here he and I have both had four kids! As you know from my blog now, my life has been filled with tremendous challenges from having children. I have no regrets, though.

I am actually sensitive to the fact that my writing about you might embarrass him, so I’m going to have to think that through.

I think when we were twenty we were both immersed in huge, life changes. Once I was married and isolated with my art career – all of my friends disappeared; not just you. I did maintain some contact with Cheryl, but not much. She was in grad school and after that, we lost touch also.

I am sorry for using the word “charade;” that wasn’t gentle. I guess I was a little hurt that you weren’t able to tell me. But obviously, it had nothing to do with me – you had reasons that you’ve shared. I think I felt sad that I was never able to meet your family after so many years!

I’ll send you my rough draft soon. I love looking at these old pictures, too.

I don’t think you have to write much. Your “shock” was palpable and I sense so much warmth in your missing our friendship. Now we’re all grown up and there is so much insight into everything!

I would love to hear what you’ve done over these last, thirty years!

Love, Judy

My twentieth birthday was a wonderful outing. We drove out to Lake Hughes and I have many beautiful pictures from that day. With Carol are (from left to right) Cheryl, Hillary, and Cindy.

 

 

 

 

 

After this exchange, I shared with Carol my draft for the prior post. I wanted her permission before putting it on my blog.

Judy, hold off on this one, will you? I need more time to process what you wrote and how to reply.

 

There were no crosses in my family’s house. That isn’t why you weren’t invited in. The truth is much harder to write about, and I’m tired and going to bed now. Can this wait a day or two?

With all my love, Carol

Of course it can wait!!!!

I hope I didn’t upset you. Look, this has waited over thirty years. I have written about many traumatic things, and I’m very honest. I’ve been doing a lot of this, so it’s familiar for me. Perhaps this is a heavy load for you – I sense it is.

I don’t want you to be uncomfortable – it absolutely isn’t necessary for “my journey.” I’ve had a wonderful time with what I’ve been doing, and I thought it was so amazing to hear from Sam after all these years.

Anyway, I think it’s fine to process. I am so sorry about my assumption about the crosses.

Love, Judy

Dear Judy,

No, you didn’t make me uncomfortable–I’ve been processing my childhood for a long time now and writing about it is always helpful. But I need to find a way to convey the gist to you without penning the Great American Novel! After all, it’s your blog and not mine!

So here’s an e-mail you can include if you like, to explain both the Judaism thing and why you weren’t invited in:

I wasn’t raised with any particular religious belief. I yearned for a trustworthy sense of history, and for community, and continuity–something greater than me to belong to–and found myself drawn to Judaism. As a teenager, I spoke of my interest in Judaism to our neighbor, a rabbi, and he advised me to “live into it”.

So I did. In college, I took classes and attended noontime Torah discussions, got involved in Jewish social groups and wrote a couple of poems and articles for the Jewish student newspaper, immersed myself as much as I could in Jewish life. I decided to keep my interest in conversion to myself. I tried to “pass” and told people that I WAS Jewish. I reasoned–again, erroneously–that my “conversion of the heart” was as good as a formal conversion. And once you live with a deception long enough, you come to believe it and it’s very hard to extricate yourself from it.

Luckily, once I started getting serious with Sam–before we were even engaged, I think–he convinced me to drop the deception and go for the real thing. I

converted to Judaism for real when I was 22. It was a very profound experience, and I’m really so sorry, Judy, for my deception and the pain it caused. It would have been so nice if we’d been able to get past that and you could have shared that experience with me…When people ask if I converted in order to marry a Jew, I can honestly say “no”, but Sam was indeed instrumental in my conversion.

As to why you were never invited into my home, when I was always so very welcome in yours, it’s because my home was, simply put, horribly uninviting. I suspect my mother was clinically depressed, at the very least, and probably had additional psychiatric problems. But she never sought help and so I’ll never know. She was a chain smoker and didn’t take good care of herself (she died of lung disease in 2002). Mom didn’t take good care of the house, either. On the BEST days, we lived in comfortable chaos.

Usually, though, it was more like squalor.

The best times were when she had a job; she would at least then put on clean clothes and get out of the house, get some activity and stimulation. But other times, she’d sit until noon in a dirty bathrobe, chain-smoking and watching TV. In the afternoons she’d take long naps on the living room couch, and we were very careful not to disturb her, because her moods were unpredictable and usually angry.

We were never encouraged to have friends over, but I didn’t WANT friends over, I was too ashamed and embarrassed. My mom’s ashtrays were constantly overflowing; dog poop and pee would sit around for days before someone cleaned it up, dirty dishes would be piled up in the sink and on the counters until someone had to do dishes (which, invariably was me), and the kitchen garbage-can habitually overflowed onto the floor.

I was the only person who ever cleaned the refrigerator and it always made my stomach ache from disgust and anger, it looked like a science experiment gone wrong; the laundry room was ankle-deep in dirty clothes; the toilets were often overflowing…etc. etc. etc. And my mom was half crazy, on top of it all!

I loved my mother, but I was scared to death of her, and didn’t like being around her. Small wonder that I preferred to visit with my friends in their homes, always feeling guilty that I couldn’t reciprocate in kind.

I hope that this helps explain some things. I’m sorry that we couldn’t/ didn’t talk about all this 30 years ago, because maybe our friendship would have continued. But these are things I didn’t work out myself until I was in my early 30s, which I’ll tell you about in the future!

Love, Carol

Ps. Do you know, one of my secret, aching dreams was to sing with you one day again?

Hi Carol,

As far as singing together – that’s not a maybe – that is a for sure! Unless you’ve lost your vocal chords. I found mine! We’re not too old!

Your writing aches with honesty. I am so sorry for the stress you must have endured. It was interesting for me to realize that I never judged you for not inviting me in while I was younger. I’ll admit I was curious. However, I think when you shared your conversion, it caused me to look at things differently.

I love what you’ve written today, and haven’t had a chance to really delve into it yet – I was busy recording another song. Since you mentioned Ba’a Menucha, I’ve gotten it into my head.

I love my musical life now and all of the closure from revisiting my youth has been immensely healing for me. I think from your writing, you might have achieved it in this instance also.

I miss you and would love to see you again.

Love, Judy

Ps. Memories are flooding back all at once. It is wonderful.

Judy,

I am so glad we reconnected. I miss you, too, and look forward to when we can plan a time to meet in person. And no, I haven’t lost my vocal chords–I’m rusty and need some good old Frankie warm-ups (I love that you’ve been corresponding with her! I adored her, too) but just a few weeks ago, when I sang the Star Spangled Banner at the Hollywood Bowl (yes, they still start with an audience sing-along!), a woman turned to me afterwards and told me how beautiful my voice was (:

I think I will try to bring you up to date in my life chronologically, starting with my relationship with Sam, particularly why it didn’t work out. I’ll try to be diplomatic, because I know how highly you regard him.

Love, Carol

Ps. Maybe, someday, we can sing it together again…

That’s not a maybe – that is a for sure!

I was actually going to ask you to update me – especially about the religion part. Are you still practicing Judaism?

Thank you for your openness – it is beautiful for me, because I have a lot of people who enjoy reading my blog. So many people can appreciate our life experiences!

I am going to put you in touch with Frankie, if that’s okay. She would love to know that we’ve reconnected.

Tonight, I’ll think of you when I play. I always play Both Sides Now.

Love, Judy

ps. Your secret, aching dream can become reality. When your hubby is gone next week, come on over and sing with me!

© Judy Unger and http://www.myjourneysinsight.com 2010. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Judy Unger with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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WE’LL STILL FEEL THIS LOVE

Posted on October 28, 2010 by Judy

Carol reminds me of Joni Mitchell in this picture!

Oh, my friend, it won’t be long

Before this touch is a memory

One day we’ll be older; we’ll know where we are

And we’ll still feel this love, though our lives may be far

We were so crazy and I love you today

Will we stay friends?

For you might live away

Through the passage of years. . .

Here I can touch you, but I only feel tears


The first message from Carol conveyed her shock. I could almost hear her voice quivering as I read her comment left on the prior post of my blog.

Perhaps now that I’ve written and released all of my traumatic memories, I am willing to embrace the beautiful friendships that were the embodiment of the “musical life” of my youth.

I am certain to follow this post with many more on this subject.

Before I was married, I lumped my feelings into my song, “Only Tears.” Although I played it often and associated it with Cheryl, it was truly for all of my friends. All of us were “moving on” to uncertain careers and leaving our childhood behind.

I wrote back to Carol, and erroneously told her that I “drew a blank” when it came to our memories. That wasn’t true because I can easily feel them in my heart once again. There are interesting stories regarding all of my friends. One of my friends doesn’t even know that I wrote the song “More Than You Know” for her. The lyrics were different from what they are now.

After I have shared my background regarding our friendship, I will share some of our recent, correspondence. I have felt almost giddy with amazement to rediscover my good friend after thirty years!

Also, Carol will have the opportunity to share her perspective about our friendship.

I had a circle of perhaps seven friends that I was very close to. Carol was very much a part of my group. She loved to sing and harmonize; all of our dancing and beach excursions were joyous. She had attended my high school and was similarly involved with choir and music. My choir teacher, Frankie, was special to her also – I had completely forgotten about that! I am going to put them back in touch!

I haven’t mentioned too many of my friends from this time other than Cheryl. Perhaps I wrote a lot about Cheryl because she and I had a lot of conflict and then it saddened me terribly that she died. I still maintain contact with several, good friends who have interesting stories, which I might share later on.

Friendship played an integral part of my musical life. My group of girlfriends did typical things that were all part of a glorious time in my life. From the age of 15 until I was married, friendship and music were intertwined. My friends and I would sing and harmonize; usually we were at the beach every weekend. In between, I would be folk dancing to music several times a week. Music was so deeply engrained into all of it for me. My friends allowed me to play my guitar wherever we went, and the harmonies would lift me up into the heavens. When we would go dancing, I would be soaked in sweat as I allowed the music to propel all of my energy into those steps.

This was taken on our week long vacation in Carpinteria. I had cropped Carol out of this picture recently. It was sad for me. However, I loved seeing myself in a bikini!

When I heard from Sam, my boyfriend of four years (age 15 to 19), I was reminded of my friend, Carol. That was because it ignited my vivid memories of the very last time I saw Carol. It was shortly before my “formal” wedding in June.

When I’ve thought about Carol, it has been sad for me. My memories of our friendship were deeply buried. It was such an abrupt ending that our friendship had! I remember our last encounter vividly. We were riding on a bus to the Hollywood Bowl; it had been awhile since just the two of us had gotten together. I was busy planning my wedding and coping with the stress of my “secret marriage.”

We never knew that our last time together would be the end of our special friendship. After sharing so many memories, our last evening together would be the last memory for thirty years. It was interesting for me to realize that during our time together that evening, we both revealed things of such a personal nature!

Carol shared with me two, huge revelations. She was with my former boyfriend, Sam, and they were engaged!

She also shared that she was not Jewish and had recently converted.

I reciprocated by sharing my situation with her. It was easy to do so under those circumstances. Her situation sounded exciting, whereas I was confused and stressed out over being secretly married.

Carol was not at my wedding. She had moved to Texas to be with Sam. For many years, I’ve wondered why Cindy wasn’t  there. My memories were fuzzy. I vaguely remember that Cindy was struggling with something difficult in her life. I thought she was deeply depressed or ill, but it turned out that Cindy was going through a lot with her mother’s illness and subsequent death. We lost touch before my wedding and I have deep regrets about it.

In June of 1981, I had my beautiful, big wedding.

It was after my wedding, that I embarked on an artistic odyssey. Every ounce of my energy went into being an illustrator. I was isolated and there were no more outings with friends as I developed my watercolor technique.

My husband built my art studio. He set up airbrushing compressors and taught me to use the equipment. He installed a special projector, which enlarged my photos. I learned how to use a darkroom, which he set up in our bathroom.

Michael also showed me how to use a 35mm camera. He bought me an expensive, macro lens to shoot my reference up-close.

He still laughs at how resistant I was regarding learning the computer. He built his own computer many years before I ever was willing to look at one!

My career was my “baby.”

I had a wonderful time on my twentieth birthday. My group of friends went hiking with me as we explored a lake in the mountains.

My first message to Carol after I received her comment on my blog is below. Her reply will follow on my next post.

On October 27, 2010 Judy wrote:

Hi Carol!

I can’t believe how quickly I was able to reach you and hear back – amazing!

It is interesting for me that I’ve drawn a blank on memories of our times until now. It seems that Sam entering the picture revived a lot of those memories for me. Perhaps it was the sadness that we abruptly stopped staying in touch; I’m not sure why it became that way.

Anyway, you have a lot of reading to do – but it will completely catch you up on my life. On the other hand, unless you have a blog – you’re going to have to give me an essay update.

I am thinking that you will find much of what I’ve written interesting. Losing Cheryl was very sad indeed.

I would also like to write about my reconnecting with Cindy. She and I were also out of touch for many years.

Did you ever hear my songs back then? I don’t remember much about that. I do know that we sure enjoyed harmonizing and singing Christmas Carols!

Take your time. If you would like to write something, which I could post to my blog, I would love that. It would enhance this wonderful “story.” My writing is usually very honest. I’m not sure how you feel about that. I could run by you what I write before I post it.

I am extremely excited to share my musical journey with you!

Love, Judy

© Judy Unger and http://www.myjourneysinsight.com 2010. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Judy Unger with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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