AN UNLIKELY JOURNEY
Ms. Virginia Senior America
2018
Ms Virginia Senior America 2018
Guerro Negro at age 25
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In the spring of 2018, I was grieving the loss of my beautiful 36 year old thoroughbred, Guerro Negro. After nearly twenty years as his hands-on daily caregiver, he was greatly missed. Adding to that, his death January 2017 came one week to the day after my mother's burial.
The combined life losses required substantial processing and, one year later, I need some kind of a diversion to shift myself forward. I imagined that a fun occasion which allowed me to wear one of the evening gowns that still hung in my closet after my opera-career-aspirations ended would be a good diversion. The dresses were rarely taken out of the closet, mostly for photo shoots with the horses and I noticed a senior talent show on YouTube. It was a good opportunity for me to get back on stage, think about something besides my beautiful black thoroughbred, and sing without pressure of being opera-perfect! That "senior talent show" turned out to be a pageant for women over sixty and had been going on for nearly forty years. The cool thing about The Ms. Senior America pageant was how it asked women to deliver a short speech on our philosophy of life instead of parading us around partially clothed.
Trusting that my past singing experience and artwork was
enough to garner a respectable presentation worked very
nicely for our small Virginia pageant.
The National Competition required something much more spectacular.
Combining singing, visual artwork, and movement at the Nationals in a performance of the aria,,Evening Prayer from the opera, Hansel and Gretel, was well received and at the conclusion of five days of rehearsals and special events, I was happy to be among the Top 5 and go home to share the success with our mustang, Calypso (right) and with Osiris (left), who are always ready to pose for photographs.
Behind the scenes, pageantry brought insightful and enlightening opportunities to consider the ways women can become more supportive of the challenging experiences faced by other women. Insights from my pageant adventures are the subject of an upcoming non-fiction, Queen For A Day .
As a classically trained soprano, I'd previously performed with a piano accompanist and was not an option when I competed in the Ms. Virginia Senior America Pageant.
At that event in Falls Church, Virginia, I sang with a recorded accompaniment for the first time, wearing a one of my hand-painted silk shawls. For the talent portion of the program, this combination of visual art and vocal presentation served very well. At the end of the day, I was wearing the "Ms. Virginia Senior America 2018" crown on July 7, 2018 when it dawned on me that I would not go back to my quiet life. Instead, I was preparing for the National Competition to be held in November in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Performing at the Senior America National Competition in Atlantic City, NJ.
Click here for the video accompanying the talent performance. Visuals start in 70 seconds.
