How clear it seems in retrospect.
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My senior year in high school I took voice lessons from a former opera singer. One of the songs I worked on was “Pippa’s Song”, a Robert Browning poem set to music by British composer Ned Rorem. It is short but very difficult and VERY high in the soprano range. If you click on the link below, it will take you to YouTube to listen to the lovely song. The lyrics include the “day’s at the morn”.

Yes, I could hit all those notes in 1970. I no longer can, but still thrill to the song.

Many years later, Ned Rorem released a CD of new songs and came to our wonderful bookstore Bickerton and Ripley, around the corner from my home on Martha’s Vineyard to sell and sign the CD. The owners of the store set up a table under a lovely shade tree in front of their store and we stood in line for our chance to have a moment with the famous composer. I purchased my CD and told him I’d sung “Pippa’s Song” while taking voice lessons, many years earlier. He looked at me in astonishment. “You must have a VERY high voice”, he said. “I used to”, I replied. We chatted a bit longer as he signed his CD. It was a quick exchange, but more than just “how would you like me to sign this?” The lyrics of the song are truly charming, ending, “All’s right in the world”. How reassuring.

Ned Rorem signed his new CD for me

The bookstore closed ages ago. The building, referred to as the “Yellow House” (I’m not sure why – it was not painted yellow), owned by the local slumlord, stood vacant, decaying, until the town took it by eminent domain.

A small group of developers refurbished it and turned it into a Lululemon store! The facade on the side street is a private entrance, leading to an apartment above the store and that is painted yellow. The front entrance has been rearranged, with new landscaping added and now impinges on the lovely shade tree, under which I met Ned Rorem all those years ago.

Current view of the “Yellow House”

For a different take on dawn, here is a photo from a cousin’s Facebook page of the sunrise over the Dead Sea in Israel, photographed by Nechama Finer Lurie.

photo from my Israeli cousin Nechama

And another gorgeous photo, taken by camp friend Carl Staub, also found on Facebook.

As a new day dawns, all is right in the world.

My journey through high school from 1959 to 1963 was more about what I wished I could be than about actually becoming my own person. For me, that didn’t happen until I left home for college.
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