Career Starting Line: Frozen Music

I remember the moment I chose my career. Do you?

"Aggie's" mom looms large in my memory. I remember her as the most exotic creature.  Her thick accent, wild gray hair, brightly colored clothes that seemed to flutter, and crystal ball made her the most fascinating person I'd ever met. A Hungarian immigrant, she identified herself as a proud gypsy and was very intriguing to this Irish-American midwestern Catholic school girl. At the time I was having a little crisis of direction and was trying to select a career path. I was researching options with guidance counselors and at the library, but just couldn't decide. Aggie's mom ended up changing my life.


Aggie and I were both students at an all-girls Catholic school on Cleveland's west side, Magnificat High School. In my junior year, we started a mini business playing violin duets around town, mostly for Hungarian Society of Cleveland events. We'd earn a few bucks, challenge ourselves with new music and have a great time rehearsing and performing. I was a talented amateur and under no illusions, she was on the professional track and followed music into college. Our business was fairly short lived, but it changed the course of my life.

It happened on the way to a gig one day in Aggie's mom's volvo station wagon. Aggie's mom was wearing a brightly colored flowy kaftan with her thick salt and pepper hair wild and gorgeous, while Aggie and I were in the back seat giggling about something or other.

Aggie's mom casually asked me if I'd made any progress on choosing a career path . I told her that I'd been looking into a few different things, "I looked into medical illustration, but it seems too narrow and I'd probably get bored, a graphic designer but it doesn't seem socially engaged or technical enough, and architecture, which might be good because it taps into math, art and physics, my favorite subjects."

Aggie's mom threw on the brakes with a screech and a jolt- just like in a cartoon! "What?", she said, spinning around in the front seat with her hair flying around her face. She looked intensely right into my eyes, "Did you say architecture?" I nodded. "This is it," she said. "This is what you are to do, no question. Did you know that the greek word for architecture is frozen music? Yes. Is perfect. This is what you will do."

I didn't argue. Stunned, I just said OK and set about to become an architect.