I mentioned Robin soon after I started this blog. She passed
away in December, 2014.
One of Robin’s amazing gifts was her ability to read people.
She’d ask a question that zeroed in on “where you were.” It was as if she had sifted
through everything and found what was most important to you at the time.
Then she’d add her incredible humor to the questions. If I
talked to Robin today, she’d ask something like: So Julie, how’s life outside
of the SCAD security zone? How is your new-found freedom? Are you actually able
to go out one night a week now? My brother-in-law, Bob, who met Robin when we
were roommates in Cambridge, Mass., would call this kind of comment “spot on.”
(Bob took us out to dinner when he was on a business trip in Boston, and we
ended up at a diner in Providence where he went to college. Robin thought that
was hilarious.)
My vocal performance teacher at SCAD talked about “breathing
in” your ensemble partners to be in their mindset and create a unified
performance. Robin had a way of breathing in her close friends and family.
Although she knew when to take things seriously, Robin
thought that so much was funny. When we’d talk on the phone there would be
brief periods of silence. I thought that we were just pausing in the
conversation until I heard this gasp – Robin was laughing at something I’d said
that I didn’t think was funny! She helped me not take myself so seriously
and see the world in a different way – with more humor, for one thing.
Robin Riggs was a working artist (as well as a mom and wife)
and had a studio in downtown Champaign, IL.
Thinking of her reminds me to breathe in the important
people in my life and laugh more.
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