Special Feature: Cellist Marcia Bookstein on Retirement from the San Diego Symphony

"If I could have been transported to my seat in the orchestra magically, without schlepping a twenty-pound cello (includes the case, I finally weighed it a couple of months ago), I'd still be playing.  I just got tired. I also wanted to spend more time with my dogs and husband. Dogs are important in my life. Also I wanted to be more involved with my local library which has a program where kids can choose a book to read to dogs–it's utterly adorable.

I'm also keeping busy at home doing things like pulling weeds, as they've piled up, and soon I'll start writing a grant for Mockingbird Improv Theater.  My daughter started the theater, at Liberty Station, with some of her improv colleagues, and I'm taking classes there.  My colleagues are great, and my teachers are amazing.  I'll be performing every other month there. And I'm in three book clubs and a movie club. I have two children who light up my life with theirs.  I hope to spend a bit more time with them. And I'm politically active, having made thousands of calls to people to walk in their precinct to get out the vote, and now making phone calls to get candidates elected around the country.  I was able to take a course, The Consequences of Capitalism, with Noam Chomsky and Marv Waterstone, through the University of Arizona on zoom a few years ago.  That was enlightening!  And what an honor!

That's what I've got for now.  It's a life, no?"