(lighthearted music) - When I hit menopause, I had a crisis with my voice.

I would sing songs exactly like I knew how to sing them, and I would go for a note, and I knew what to do.

Sometimes, I've been singing that song for 25, 30 years and it wouldn't happen.

And at first, I just kind of, I was like, "Oh, I'll get it tomorrow night," but I realized I was gonna have to turn and face this.

♪ One sun ♪ ♪ One sun lighting everyone ♪ - It has been less hard for me to let go of the physical manifestations of aging, but it was hard for me to allow my voice to age.

That's where it got me.

(lighthearted music) A friend of mine travels around the country, and she does workshops, and she was doing a grief workshop, and I thought, "Oh, I don't really have anything to grief, but I just love this person and I'm gonna sign up."

And I thought, "Oh, this will be an adventure."

Well, I get into this and I had just seen some film of myself on the Ken Burns project in my prime.

Suddenly, this voice of me woke up that was like, "I want that voice.

I want that voice back.

I want that voice."

Because I was in this workshop.

There was just all this space and support to just feel all of that.

And I sat there long enough that something woke up in me from that place.

And it was another voice that said, "Well, I don't have that voice, but I have the closest thing to that voice on this planet.

And that's something ♪ One world turning ♪ ♪ One world turning everyone ♪ And from then on, I was just on my way.

I stopped struggling against what my voice wouldn't do and I started a conversation with my voice, like, "Okay, what do you wanna do?"

And everything just came to life again.

I think about aging a lot with curiosity and experimentation, and that's part of what makes me kind of excited about it as opposed to dreading it.

It's sort of like, it's like the last big adventure, you know?

(lighthearted music)