Losing Roger Ebert

The arts world, as well as the larger movie-going world, lost a treasure yesterday. At age seventy, film critic and writer Roger Ebert died. It’s not unlike the feeling I got when the world lost Steve Jobs. It’s a loss that clutches at your emotions, your heart, losing this stranger but not. This genius of … Read more

How I almost didn’t go back to ballet

You stop ballet, you start back up. Life gets in the way. You stop, you start back up. Now here I was in the longest stoppage, ten years, amid an understanding that maybe that was IT for me and ballet. Having a child changes you, changes your body, your priorities, your sense of what you … Read more

The Inheritance – a short story

“The Inheritance” by Terez Rose Opal chanced upon the violin the day she went searching in the attic for her husband Stan’s gun. The attic was awash in clutter. She waded through it all, stubbing her toe on the Christmas tree stand and knocking over a stack of boxes. And in the end, no gun … Read more

Serenade for Violin and Song Sparrow

This article first appeared at Violinist.com in May 2008 It is Saturday, a warm, drowsy afternoon in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and my family and I are doing our respective family things. My husband is in the office, tapping away at the computer while my son putters about in the playroom, pausing from time to … Read more