Oh Canada

by Dorothy 

We're playing in Toronto this week at the beautiful new Koerner Hall.  It will be ETHEL's first-ever appearance in Canada.  I have longed for this - bringing my child home.  We will also be giving classes at the University of Toronto, which I attended, and at the Glenn Gould School.  It will be awesome and deeply fulfilling.  Also, profoundly different from what I would ever have imagined.

My own family have never heard us live.  Over the last 11 years, while ETHEL has been growing, my parents gave been coping with age and decline.  They have always been very interested in us, but were less and less able to travel.  My father suffered from Alzheimer's and my mother devoted herself to his care.  He died 3 years ago and she has been slowly recovering and reorganizing.  Now 91, she decided rather suddenly at the end of last summer to move into a retirement home, so my brother and I had to manage the sale of her house as efficiently as possible to cover the cost.  She stayed there with me and my family for the last time over Christmas and I am returning now for the first time knowing there is no family home anymore.

I am not shattered by this, just nostalgic, and impressed, as I often am, at how fundamental change is.  Also, at how differently one's dreams can look when they finally arrive.  There is always so much more to the picture....