You're Never Too Old!

Sometimes in life we get to a point where we think we have experienced it all, that we'll never see anything we haven't seen, or hear anything we haven't heard before. Not that that's a bad thing, but it closes us off to possibilities.

I recently had that experience. On December 31, 2009, my husband and I were watching "The Kennedy Center Honors". The honorees and the entertainment to honor them were fantastic. During the middle of the performance, my husband said to me, "Do you mind if I leave the room for a second?" We put the video recorder on "pause" and it went to PBS, which I had been recording. PBS had their usual New Year's Eve special. Apparently, every year the New York Philharmonic puts a show on. This year, they had a special guest who is an artist-in-residence named Thomas Hampson. I'd heard him sing, "In the Still of the Night" and immediately after that, he sang, "Begin the Beguine". I had never heard "Begin the Beguine" sung that way..with such impact.

Now you may think, "Well, she probably never heard 'Begin the Beguine'...big deal!" I'm an artist, and I currently have over 11,000 favorite songs and I have "Begin the Beguine" sung by the best singers in the last 70 years, from Sinatra to Ella Fitzgerald. And they are all wonderful. You simply can't spoil "Begin the Beguine". However, when Thomas Hampson sang it, it was one of the most unforgettable moments I've ever experienced, and it taught me a lesson.

We're never too old. At 60, 70, 80, to experience those peak moments where we feel our life is altered by a performer who has touched our hearts and souls. I thank you Alan Gilbert, the conductor with the New York Philharmonic and I thank you, from the bottom of my heart, Thomas Hampson. You began the Beguine for me!