The Back Story Part 1

The first Atlantic crossing

Many of our friends and colleagues, curious and intrigued about our plan to live part of each year in Paris, asked us to keep them posted about how things were going. Thus was Musings from Mouchotte born. My first idea was to post in the blog section of my professional website, but that didn’t feel like the right platform, so I looked around and found Substack. My friend, Erin, who has been writing her blog, Bank of Erin, for some time, helped tech-challenged me to get started, and I published my first post in November, 2023. Since my readers were initially people who know me, it didn’t occur to me to include information on what instigated the move, why we chose Paris when our son lives in The Netherlands, or the fact that this was not our first intercontinental rodeo. But here we are, a number of months later, and the blog is acquiring new subscribers who barely know me, or, I suspect, don’t know me at all and found Musings from Mouchotte by browsing blogs about Paris.

Pieter and I returned to SF from our first Mouchotte adventure in November, 2023, and, a few months later, I enrolled in a writing workshop. I’d been thinking about doing this for a while, since I didn’t have much writing experience. In 2012, I published an article titled Practicing Vocal Music Efficiently and Effectively in the Journal of Singing, which I sweat blood over, and I’ve written a few blog posts on voice and singing topics on my professional website, www.speakoutskills.com that I doubt anyone has read. Besides that? High school English class, of which I remember absolutely nothing. This blog is what I call “seat of pants writing” — and don’t get me wrong: I am tickled pink that so many of you are enjoying it! But I figured I had plenty to learn about the craft of writing. I lucked out with The Writing Salon: they were offering a course in Creative Nonfiction that fit exactly into the period I’d be in SF and, thank god, it would be in-person rather than via screens. I had had enough of that, thank you very much, during three years of Covid zoom teaching.

I went to the first session of the workshop with no idea of what it would be like, only that I would submit the blog when it was my turn to be workshopped. There were six of us in the class, only one of whom had already taken writing classes. I was in the right spot. When it was my turn to be workshopped, I was gratified to hear that my fellow students enjoyed the blog, had very nice things to say about my writing, and told me that it made them want to visit Paris. But, they added, “What’s the back story here?” Why move to Europe, why choose Paris, why now? So, here goes, way, way back…..

Canal houses in Amsterdam. Photo by Matheo JBT on Unsplash

Nutshell version through rose-colored glasses: In 1975, immediately after getting a BA in music from California Institute of the Arts, I moved to The Netherlands for a graduate degree at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. I found The Hague “dull, but boring”, and moved to Amsterdam within a year. By the time I finished my degree in voice, I spoke Dutch fluently, was performing all over Europe, had made great friends, and had no reason whatsoever to return to the US.

Finding a place to live in The Hague: Reading the above, one would think everything was smooth sailing, but nothing is farther from the truth. I was not yet 21 when I arrived in The Hague in September, 1975. I knew nobody and didn’t speak the language. In fact, arriving by train from Paris, where my flight from LA had arrived, I stood in a phone booth outside The Hague train station, calling the friend of the mother of the girlfriend of a classmate of mine. These kind people put me up for three or four nights even though they had no clue who I was, because the mother of the girlfriend of a classmate of mine had never contacted them. They also helped me find a room to rent, since most institutes of higher education in The Netherlands have no dormitories, and you’re left to your own devices. And rental housing — both then and now — is very, very tight. I was lucky to find what I did, although it was a far cry from what I was used to in the US. Forget about renting an apartment: I rented a room with “use of” the kitchen and bathroom, both of which I shared with the woman renting the other room on that floor. We got along fine, so that was no problem. Unfortunately, the landlady, who didn’t live in the building, dictated how we should use the kitchen. Every Saturday morning, she’d arrive in her floor-length fur coat, and sit in our kitchen gobbling the pastries she’d brought with her. She’d then take everything we had put on the countertop (olive oil, spices, toaster) and stuff them in the cupboards. And then yell at us. The rooms were furnished and my bed frame was awful, causing the mattress to sag and my back to hurt. One day, with the help of a fellow student, I dragged the bed frame into a closet at the end of the hallway. The following Saturday, there was hell to pay. How dare I move furniture around and put things in her closet? Evidently, this closet wasn’t included in the “use of”, although it wasn’t used for anything other than storing junk, as far as I could tell. I started looking for another place to rent.

A Dutch bakery

Vocabulary malfunction! The rest of my life wasn’t going great either. The Netherlands is a very small country: drive 2.5 hours east of Amsterdam and you’re in Germany, the same amount of time south, and you’re in Belgium. Every Friday, the Dutch students would take their bag of dirty laundry and get on the train to spend the weekend with their parents. I did meet a few other foreign students, but I remember that first fall and winter feeling very lonely. And cold, oh, so cold. In fact, if I’d realized how unhappy I was, I’d probably have put my tail between my legs and trotted back to California. But, instead, I put my head down and pushed those feelings away; at that age, insight into my emotions was not my strong point. Gradually, I started to make friends, even Dutch ones, including a percussionist named Wim. He understood that, even though my Dutch was rudimentary, I really wanted to learn the language, and he was very patient. One afternoon, walking around my neighborhood, I mentioned that I needed to buy bread before the bakery shut, so we went to the one that I’d been frequenting a couple of times a week. I proudly asked for my bread in Dutch, paid, and we left. Wim was quiet. After a minute, he said, “Ruth, do you know what you just asked for?” “Yes!” I replied, “Half a loaf of sliced whole wheat bread!” “You’re close,” he answered. “But you actually asked for half a loaf of circumcised whole wheat bread.” 😳 I learned that there’s one letter of difference between the two words: gesneden (sliced) versus besneden (circumcised). It was a good introduction to how literal (and blunt) the Dutch are. I decided to switch bakeries immediately.

Baroque flute or flauto traverso

From flute to voice: In addition to my lodging and language travails, the reason I’d moved 6,000 miles from California wasn’t really panning out either. I mentioned above that I got a Masters degree in voice in The Hague, but, in fact, that wasn’t until years later. My focus during undergrad was flute, which I started playing at age 12, and I played it because I was pretty decent at it, not because I loved it. I was good enough to get accepted to the music department at CalArts, in southern California and, not having any other ideas of what to do after high school besides getting out of my parents' house, I went. I loved CalArts; at the time, it was a wild west of a place, a far cry from more straightlaced conservatories like Juilliard or Eastman. I played in the percussion ensemble, took dance classes, acting classes, seminars on Shakespeare, Brecht, and James Joyce, and did a lot of hanging out. But the flute? Meh. I practiced little and ineffectively, and gravitated towards Baroque music for no particular reason. And yet Baroque music on the baroque flute, which I picked up during my junior year, is why I was accepted to the Conservatory in The Hague. Again, not having anything better to do, I went. I left the bare hills of the Santa Clarita Valley (they're now filled with tract houses) for a European city. I had no idea how to prepare for this huge transition, and nobody to assist me. In fact, during my final semester at CalArts, I enrolled in a German class at the local Community College, thinking that German would help me acclimate in The Netherlands. I was 20 years old and so naive.

In The Hague, I studied both baroque flute and recorder, an instrument I'd played since the age of 6. Again, I puttered along, practicing lackadaisically, following a path that unwound in front of me without having much vision of what might be around the bend. The turning point came during that first winter, when I was accepted into Cappella Amsterdam, a high-level chamber chorus that rehearsed once a week in Amsterdam, performed regularly in The Netherlands, and toured abroad in the summer.

Singing has been part of my life for as long as I can remember; I sang in choirs from grade school through undergrad. But, until my early twenties, my voice was definitely just choir material: I sang in tune, had a clear sound that blended well, plus expressive ability thanks to years of piano and flute lessons. Nobody ever said I should develop my voice. But when I joined Cappella Amsterdam, something started to shift. I loved singing in such a small ensemble (18 voices total), and I started taking voice lessons for the first time. Eventually, I auditioned for entry to the voice department at the Conservatory. What a pleasure it was to have the added layer of text and to learn and perform music from all eras! The acting classes I'd taken at CalArts now bore fruit. My voice filled out and my range increased. A hitherto unknown knack for languages emerged: in addition to Dutch, I was picking up French, Italian, and German. By the time I had my degree in singing, I was finding work as a soloist, often in chamber music or with orchestra. My interest and ability led me to contemporary music, and I was hired to sing newly composed works at festivals around Europe.

Amsterdam! At first, I came to Cappella Amsterdam rehearsals from The Hague — 45 minutes by train, four trains per hour — but, by spring, I had found the first in a series of rooms in Amsterdam, and my life in general started to improve. The first place I rented wasn’t great, but beggars can’t be choosers. For one thing, I had to visit the public baths on the Albert Cuypstraat to take a shower, since Wolf, the flat’s owner, who lived in the back room, had sole access to the bathroom. (Yes, for those who are wondering, the toilet was separate from the bathroom, as is typical in Europe.) Also, Wolf was a hoarder. The narrow hallway between our two rooms was lined with huge piles of old newspapers, which he insisted he was planning to organize. The kitchen cabinets were packed to the gills, and you couldn’t access them anyway because of the shelves set in front, themselves overflowing with precariously placed half-full bottles and jars of oils and condiments. Moreover, Wolf saved used orange peels after juicing the orange halves and removing the pith. He lined up the little domes not only on the kitchen window sill, but on the balcony off of my bedroom. Every so often, when the collection on my balcony threatened to encroach inside my room, I’d throw them away. Wolf never objected, but, after a day or two, the peels would appear again. Wolf had survived Nazi concentration camps as a child, so I cut him a lot of slack. Besides, I was happy to have a place, any place to live in Amsterdam.

Amsterdam isn’t known for its weather, and every beautiful day is much appreciated. By 9am, the cafe terraces are full of people lifting their faces to the sun like so many sunflowers. After four years of southern California exurbs and a year in dull-but-boring The Hague, I was thrilled to live in Amsterdam. I loved the liveliness of the city, the cafes, the beautiful canal houses, and the abundance of concerts, plays, and museums. I lived there for 14 years and would probably be there still had I not met Pieter. To this day, I think we have one of the most unusual How We Met stories: his mother, Marielouise, was my landlady. After a year sharing with Wolf, I’d had enough, and started looking for another place, together with my friend, Jane, who was about to move from Boston to Amsterdam to study harpsichord. She thought that finding a 2-bedroom apartment was as simple as looking in the classified ads in the newspaper. Haha. Nope. Basically, you hoped that your best friend moved in with her boyfriend so that you could take over her place. Sometimes you discovered that you weren’t her best friend after all. How I lucked out in renting the wonderful flat in Marielouise’s house in the nicest part of the city is a tale for another day. I’m still amazed that I found it. And a husband to boot, although that came about much later. During the time that Jane and I lived there, Pieter was still in high school. Fortunately, he and I didn’t get together, as we were both way too young and it never would have lasted. We occasionally exchanged a few words on the common staircase, and one of my few memories of him is from an afternoon when I’d just returned from a run in the Vondelpark. He said, “You should breathe through your nose” and I thought, “ What a wise-ass.” A year later, the building was sold, we all went our separate ways, and Pieter and I didn’t reconnect until eight years later. To be continued….