I was born in 1983 in the Northern San Francisco Bay Area of California. A couple months after I was born, a family friend pointed out that I wasn’t responding to visual cues like other babies were. A visit to a doctor informed my parents I had something called Optic Nerve Hypoplasia, a condition present at birth in which the optic nerve is underdeveloped or small. I was very thankful I had some usable vision that allowed me to identify colors, read dollar bills, find an empty swing on the playground, follow the other kids in line, etc.
Learning Braille had its share of confusion and challenges as I’m sure learning print has for sighted children. I had to repeat second-grade because my teacher didn’t think I knew enough Braille to compete with my piers.
Music was always a huge influence in the house from as far back as I can remember. The very first songs I ever learned were the hymns they sang at church and that my mother played on the organ every week. I actually have musicians on both sides of my family, for which I’m very thankful and of which I’m extremely proud. My mother is fabulous at the piano and my great-grandmother who’s no longer with us was a passionate, talented, enthusiastic pianist as well. It was her idea for me to take classical piano lessons, and for the three years I did them, she took me to every single lesson. On my father’s side of the family, his mother, my faith-filled, devoted, cat-loving, artistic, inspirational grandmother who was also quite the painter at one time in her life, was also fantastic on the piano.
My great-grandparents had a piano when I was a little girl, and I used to love to play it. When my family and I went to church on Sundays, my parents literally had to restrain me because I often tried to play before the service. I usually found my way to the piano when the service ended, and the adults were very encouraging of what was likely very cute and a good effort, but not quite correct. I remember when I was about three or four, I dug out some of my great-grandmother’s sheet music and pretended I was gonna play with it, maybe not realizing I couldn’t actually do that.
My other major musical influence as a child was country music. There had to be other songs I heard first, but the very first country song I ever remember listening to was “You Lie” by Reba McEntire. But it wasn’t just current country we listened to. My mother also loved older country artists like Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, George Jones, Merle Haggard, Dolly Parton and Conway Twitty among others. I wasn’t crazy about oldies from other genres, but you could never go wrong with country music with me.
The piano lessons stopped at nine years old and I was quite okay with that. I didn’t miss having to practice, didn’t miss the enormous pressure of those scary recitals and having to dress up, and I didn’t miss the weekly lessons or my piano teacher. I couldn’t admit this then, but my teacher was very creative in how she made lessons easily accessible for me. I think I was her first blind or visually-impaired student, but she seemed to know exactly how to work with me despite that. She put my lessons on tape and sent me home to practice with the cassette. On particularly embarrassing lessons, she actually recorded the lesson and I had to hear myself every day until the next lesson. I learned really quickly to keep silent during lessons, because who wants to hear themselves recorded? Yes, I know, I’m doing it now, this time by choice, but as a kid I really didn’t like it.
At around ten years old I discovered my first favorite singer I tried to sing like, Martina McBride. If you asked my parents, I bet to this day they’d still remember the one song I played and sang on repeat for quite a while during the early to mid-90s, a vocally fun but emotional song to sing called “Independence Day.” I had no idea what that song was really about. All I knew was its title referred to the one thing I wanted, to be and feel independent.
Country and Christian music were all I listened to and really knew until I was twelve. Mom and Dad gave me one of those big five-disc CD changers for Christmas in 1995. At that time, all I had were cassettes, so Dad took care of that as he often did with things by putting a couple of CD’s in there. There was an album by a Christian male singer I liked, one by a Christian band my father played sometimes, and an album by Amy Grant, a female Christian and pop singer. There was also a Whitney Houston album which I listened to once but just wasn’t into at the time. Sorry, Whitney, and rest in peace!
There was also a fairly recent live album by the non-country female singer who almost instantly became my new favorite singer, Mariah Carey. After just one listen to that album, my musical world expanded and I became way more open and willing to explore other kinds of music. My father later told me while he didn’t have anything at all against country, that was all I listened to and he thought, rightly so, I should be a little more diverse in my music. I will always and forever be beyond thankful to him for broadening my music tastes, because that one act on his part led me to who, how and where I am musically today.
In the Summer of 1998, I went to my first Summer camp for the blind in Napa, California. I tried out for the play which ended up singing songs from, but not acting out the musical “Grease.” Although I have never become a fan of Broadway musicals, being in the play that year widened my musical scope of knowledge even more. Plus, it’s still one of my proudest moments and shining accomplishments that I got to sing “Hopelessly Devoted To You” by the late, great Olivia Newton-John.
During those few days at camp, which felt like so much blissfully longer but also like the blink of an eye all at the same time, I fell in love for the first time ever. He had the perfect announcer voice that melted me, and he was so gentle and tender with me but we also had so much fun together. He brought the poet out of me again as I had started writing poetry long before then. As teenage relationships often don’t last, especially when they’re long-distance like ours, this one didn’t either. But the one thing he doesn’t know to this day that he did was to give me the motivation for my very first song ever, and the next couple after that! Most people’s first songs aren’t all that great and mine was no exception. I’m quite okay with the fact that I no longer have it, however, I remember the chorus and the melody. At the risk of humiliating myself, I’ll share those lyrics, but keep in mind they’re REALLY bad!
It went,
anytime you call my name, I think about us, anytime you hold me near, I realize I’m loved, anytime when we’re alone, my heart tells me this is where I belong, anytime.
Yes, I know, really not great! Thank goodness I got better at songwriting, but that whole experience started me on something I hope to be doing for a lot longer.
On the first day of that camp in 1998, one of the girls in my cabin was playing on her stereo and remarkably, phenomenally, powerfully singing a woman I’d only once heard of before. It had been a morning in 1995 at the breakfast table and Mom had one of those morning shows on when a woman I thought talked weird named Céline Dion sang. People who really know me today will have a very hard time believing this next part because I still do. I both laugh and cringe, but mostly cringe, at what I said to my mother when Céline finished singing. I looked up at her and very matter-of-factly stated, “Mom, I don’t like her.” My mother calmly said, “well, a lot of people do, dear.” And that Summer day in 1998, not only was I extremely envious of my cabinmate’s belting skills, I realized why all those people my mother had been talking about liked the singer.
Once I got home from camp, I sadly forgot about Céline until a little over a year later, a couple weeks before my sixteenth birthday in 1999. I was listening to a radio countdown hosted by the late, great Casey Kasem when a mother whose daughter had been killed in the horrific shooting at Columbine High School the year before asked Casey to play “My Heart Will Go On.” I wasn’t into movies and television at the time, so yes, I missed that movie entirely!
I thought Céline had a pretty voice that was unlike any I’d heard thus far. But once the second verse hit and she really came into her vocal peak, my mind was blown. And after the key-change when her voice reached its height in that song, I was hooked! I asked for her most recent album for my sixteenth birthday and got it, which began not only my collection, but my humongous, massive fandom of who I consider the greatest singer on the planet at this time. As my online fan friend Ashley so eloquently put it once, “it was the voice that captured my attention, but it was the person behind the voice that ultimately kept it.”
In the early 2000s at a dinner party at a friend’s house, one of the guests played another Canadian I became a fan of named Loreena McKennitt. A lot of people think she’s a Celtic singer, and she does use a lot of instruments that make her music sound Celtic. But I’m not sure what genre music stores put her in when those existed. She’s a self-taught harpist in addition to being a very prolific songwriter and singer as well as a pianist. I also got into Enya shortly after that, so as I had done with Céline’s music, I began collecting the music of both Enya and Loreena McKennitt. I even got to see Loreena live in Oakland in 2006.
In 2005, a friend exposed me to another type of music and a few underground artists doing mostly acoustic guitar-driven music. Over the next few years, we went to several concerts in San Francisco by artists you’ve likely never heard of. One of those singers, songwriters, pianists and guitarists, Tony Lucca, went on to place third on season two of “The Voice.”
I went to massage school in 2007 which continued to lead me to more music I’d never heard of before. I particularly came to admire, respect the talent of and be deeply relaxed by Native American music, and I have several albums by people who play the Native American flute.
I also completely and totally fell in love with the harp. During externship one day at a spa, I was bored with the Cd in the player so I looked through different cupboards until I found the pile of CD’s. The first one I put in the player was called “Harp Of The Healing Waters” by an extraordinary, skillful, masterful harpist named Erik Berglund who is sadly no longer with us. ☹
Being that he was also from California, it was relatively easy to find his material, and although he branched out into other instruments and types of music I didn’t care for quite as much, I continued to follow and be inspired by his career until his passing in 2013 at the age of 65.
I first saw Céline live in 2008 when two friends took me to Sacramento to see her a few days before my twenty-fifth birthday. Until then, as much as I loved all the new music I was discovering, Céline and Loreena took turns being my favorite singer and it almost seemed as if there was a battle inside me to see who would win out. Seeing Céline live was the start of her being the clear winner of that long-held contest, but it wasn’t until February of 2010 that the contest finally ended.
Céline released a documentary outlining the world tour she had recently finished. I called all my local movie theaters to see who would play it. The gentleman who answered the phone at the theater I ended up going to said he completely understood my reason for asking if they would show the movie and that he, too had a favorite singer, Patti LaBelle.
I sadly didn’t get to meet him when I got to that theater the next day. I usually got snacks and a soda when I went to the movies, but not that time. I was extremely glad about that because when I left that theater, I felt like I knew Céline, like she had completely and vulnerably exposed herself to us during those three hours.
At the time, I lived in El Cerrito, California which I dearly miss, so I took the train home from the movie theater in Emeryville. When I got off at my stop, a gentleman was playing the violin. I’ve always been fascinated by, interested in and curious about street musicians, so I stopped to listen to him for a minute. He noticed me pretty quickly, told me his name was Steve and asked me my name and who my favorite singer was. For the first time ever, I didn’t have to think about or try to figure out what I would say to him. I KNEW! So I answered him and told him about the movie I had just seen. He said I sounded like a singer and he asked me if I sang. I said I did and he began playing “My Heart Will Go On.” That song is in the key of e and he started playing it higher, in the key of g. I didn’t and still don’t understand why he couldn’t have played it in the key in which it was recorded, but when someone plays or sings Céline and lets me join in, I’m too busy singing and grinning like a dork to complain about it being in the wrong key.
I could tell he was an advanced violinist when the chorus ended and he just launched right into the next verse without stopping, as if we hadn’t just met but had been doing this together for a long time. When the song ended, I heard applause coming from the other side of the train station, and eventually I met his wife.
I tried out for “The Voice” in 2011. I didn’t get in but I’m still quite proud of myself because at around 8:30 AM, I sang a verse and chorus of “The Power Of Love.” I was even able to hold the long note at the end. I also tried out for the USA’s version of the “X-Factor” in the beginning of 2012 and I didn’t get in for that one either.
The worst thing that has ever happened to me so far occurred in 2012 when I woke up one morning seeing considerably less than I had before. I went to a couple different doctors, going all the way to the top in terms of medical care by visiting an eye doctor at UCSF. No one knew why this sudden decline in vision was happening and there was nothing anyone could do, and on June 14, 2012, the thing I had both dreaded but also known in the back of my mind was coming did when I woke up and everything was darker than dark. Years ago I had asked a blind friend since birth, “is all you see darkness?” She had said, “I don’t know. What’s darkness?” At the time I was totally flabbergasted by how she couldn’t know what darkness was, but it quickly made sense. One cannot know what darkness is if that’s all they’ve ever had and they have nothing else with which to contrast it. But I turned on the TV and couldn’t see a thing. I turned on a light, then lit a candle, then opened my window, and still nothing.
I thought that was more than enough to have to deal with, but apparently it wasn’t because I had to move out of the house I had lived in for the last four years less than sixty days later. A friend took me in at her house in San Francisco, and little by little I had to figure out life as a totally blind person.
One thing no one, least of all me, expected to come from losing my sight was that I’d quit singing, but that’s exactly what I did. I felt like, when I still had a little sight, the world would think I must deserve even a little tiny something. But I suck so bad I wasn’t even good enough to keep the sight I had so I clearly wasn’t good enough for anything else. I also felt, and sadly still do, that the world wouldn’t wanna hear a blind lady sing. And that’s all because I can’t look the part someone or a group of people who may not even be alive anymore decided a long time ago that I had to be able to conform to. And for anyone who wants to point out Ray Charles or Stevie Wonder, and no one can deny them their talent or the places they hold in music, but they’re MEN! How many blind WOMAN singers can you name me?
Go ahead, I’ll wait!
None? Yeah, didn’t think so. Sadly, society is SO hung up on looks instead of talent, and I know several blind people who can sing so fantastically well but very few of them will ever be heard or paid any attention to.
I joined Facebook toward the end of 2012 and started requesting and accepting friends who were also Céline fans. At around the same time, a longtime friend began calling her favorite performer her idol, and a fan friend on Facebook was referring to Céline that way, too.
I know the association the word “idol” can have for some people so I have to make it very clear that while it was nice to finally have a word that fit the feelings I had for Céline, there’s nothing possessive or obsessive about my love for her. Those who aren’t comfortable with the concept of having an idol can substitute that with a word like “hero”, “influence”, “icon” or “inspiration” if that works better for them.
In 2014 when fans found out Céline’s husband’s cancer had returned, many of us were shocked and devastated. Although I’m ashamed to say I took it very hard and was incredibly scared, no one was surprised or could fault her when she took a year-long hiatus from her wildly successful Las Vegas residency to care for him fulltime. Like so many people, I was ecstatic, elated and downright euphoric when she announced her long-awaited return in 2015, and thankfully, I was able to go to that. My first Céline concert without being able to see was hard, though during my first concert of hers in 2008 I hadn’t been anywhere near close enough to get to see her. But on August 27, 2015, while I can’t lie and say there wasn’t a very short-lived moment of sadness that the other 4,000 people inside the Colosseum at Caesars Palace could see her and I couldn’t as she came onstage, I also felt slightly sorry for anyone near the venue who was not a fan that night. I made it back to Las Vegas to hear her in 2017 which is the last time I got to do that.
I found out I’m Diabetic in early 2016, so yes, in case you’re wondering, that means I have to do insulin every single stinking day! That certainly took a lot of getting used to and adjusting my dose, and it’s still a constant balancing act.
Toward the end of 2021, someone on a list-serve I’m part of who’s also blind and a fellow user of the same Braille computer I have told me about an online choir for the blind and visually-impaired. I was nervous as heck but I sent an email to inquire about whether there were openings in the choir and if so, what I would have to do to try out. My audition happened on Christmas Eve of 2021, and although it had its share of technological misunderstandings and difficulties, my first rehearsal with the Sing For Serenity Choir was January 9, 2022. I’ve made some awesome friends and am having a total blast. Because of being there, I’ve started singing again though it’s not and likely never will be the way it used to be. Due to a few comments about me not having the right voice for Céline’s songs, I still don’t sing her songs very often unless someone plays her in a car I’m in or on a Paratransit bus or if someone else wants to sing her songs with me. I used to sing her songs a lot at home while accompanying myself on the piano. I haven’t picked that one up again yet and am not sure if or when I ever will.
I listen to many different artists, genres and types of music. Every so often I find new artists whose music I like enough to collect. If I had to put my most often listened-to music into genres, the top three would be pop, which is what I think Céline is seen as, country, but not so much today’s country since I prefer traditional country that actually SOUNDS country, and soothing instrumental music like my current favorite album in that genre, “Morning By The Sea.” As music is supposed to be, there’s no rhyme or reason for the mood I’m in, and I often can’t explain or figure out why I wanna hear whatever I wanna hear at any particular moment.
I’m thankful to have such a wide variety of music to draw from, and I’m hopeful when people hear my material, they won’t be able to put me in any given box but will realize I’m a product of all sorts of different influences. We ALL are, and one point of life, I think, is to find the best ways to show all of what makes us who we are. Music is one of mine and I hope something in my music will wake up or point out something great in you.