Falling

[Clematis]

I survived the concert. It was a little dicey because I really didn't know the music very well since I had not been able to practice at all. Just too tired and headachy and overwhelmed. I haven't practiced in so long I can't even remember when, and I'm not even sure where I would practice exactly. Well I guess I know where I would but it hasn't happened yet. The music stand and music shelf are in the little bedroom, where I sleep, and I tried it in there once but the stand light would not cooperate with the plug and kept flickering on and off as I fiddled with it. I finally gave up - it was just too much to figure out why the light wouldn't work since the bulb is good. I guess I need to test it a little more systematically.

I'm going to try harder to practice before the next concert - on Dec 17. Throughout my adult life practicing some instrument or another has always been a big part of the structure of my life. It's been at least a year and a half now, starting when my dad really went downhill. I spent every spare moment with him. At some point I took a cello to his house, thinking I could play some while I was there, but it never happened. Not even once. And now it's been so long. I think for me to not be playing music every day adds to the disorientation I feel in my own life. Who am I if I am not playing music?

[kayc]

Maybe this is what you need in your life right now. Could you try moving the light to a different plugin in your house to see if that is the problem?  Hope you can get back in to this, it'd probably do you some good.

[Clematis]

I think you're right. The stand light is a little iffy and so is something else. The stand light works but doesn't like to be moved around. I need to take a little lamp with a solid connection and test where I plan to plug it in until I find a good spot, and plug the stand light in there. Then I need to de-clutter a chair to practice in and keep it clear of junk so I can sit and play a bit any time I want. I was thinking I would download the sheet music for the next concert and start looking at it, rather than waiting for the next rehearsal, a week from tomorrow. Some if it I've played before, and that will be a help. It would also be good to get the music to listen to as well and burn it onto a CD to listen to. It would probably be good to have something positive to focus on. 

[Clematis]

I did it! Solved the stand light problem; the bulb turned out to be on the fritz and would go on and off whenever touched. Got a new one and all is well. Also cleared out the chair,  which is near the music stand even though I have yet to sit in it. Also downloaded the pdf music files and the sheet music, which is printed out, taped together and ready to play. I am off to a massage appointment, where we will listen to the pieces. Later tonight perhaps it will finally happen - me practicing. 

[kayc]

Oh Laura, I'm glad to hear it, and I hope to hear tonight (or tomorrow morning) how much you enjoyed playing.  I wish I could play a cello, one of my favorite instruments!  I can only imagine the feeling you must get in creating such beautiful music!  I haven't experienced that, although when I was 12 I wanted to play the piano and my mom squashed that so bad I blocked out everything I knew about music, it had a profound effect on me (adversely), how different it could have been if she'd been supportive!  But I do sing, I've been in choir since I was 13, and always enjoyed other's music.

[Clematis]

Thanks Kay, I did it - finally sat down and played a bit. I am extremely rusty; it's been a year since I had a lesson. It was rather rocky at the start, but if I can just make myself sit down with the cello every day it will come back. I met a group of ukulele players when I was in Hawaii and each had the goal of playing for at least one minute every day. Of course, once you sit down with your instrument you are going to play more than a minute, but it keeps you out of that loop where you think it's not even worth it to try if you don't have at least an hour or a half-hour or whatever seems minimal. If a person ended up playing only ten minutes a day they would do so much better than not playing at all. So that's my plan.

You know, Kay - you could always start playing piano now. All you need is a keyboard - make sure it has full-size keys. Everything else you can get online for nothing. Lessons, sheet music, everything! And if you have no teacher you have only the pressure you put on yourself. All those years you sang in choir would really help you! Just a thought...

 

[kayc]

I've thought recently about a keyboard, I can't afford one now, but perhaps someday.  No pressure, I wouldn't have to ever play for anyone else, it'd be fun to see if I could even learn it just for my own pleasure.

I'm so glad you did it!  I hope it brings you much peace and enjoyment.

[MartyT]

Just for fun, Kay, I just Googled "virtual keyboard piano" ~ and you wouldn't believe how many sites came up. It might be a way for you to give it a try! 

[Clematis]

Kay, you also might just look around and let people know. Lots of people buy keyboards, frequently for their kids, and they never really get played, and so eventually end up at yard sales. Someone at your church might have one no one is actually playing is likely to play. It's hard to let go of an instrument you thought you wanted to play but it didn't work out. Sometimes it doesn't take much to push someone over the edge of deciding to cut loose of it - like knowing that someone might actually use it. I am not one to let go on instruments, but some point I fell in love with a beautiful red jazz guitar and the only way I could pay for it was to let go of an electric violin, a bass guitar, and the folk guitar my ex-husband had given me decades ago.

None of these instruments had any future with me, but I had trouble letting them go. The bass was a black Ovation with black strings and it ended up with my painting teacher's teenage son and he was over the moon about it, which made me very happy. My jazz guitar had belonged to a local musician and his widow had hung onto this one for some time after his death. She died not long after I bought the guitar and I felt badly when I learned that her daughters  were trying to find it. But then I didn't feel so badly when I also learned that they were selling all of their dad's stuff they could get their hands on and they wanted this particular guitar not for sentimental reasons, but because it was a collector's item and could have sold for more than I paid for it. But the man's widow had been pleased that the guitar found its way to someone who was in love with it and would play it. 

I think there are all kinds of instruments that are waiting for a new home somewhere, and their owners are holding out for someone who will value and play them. Your keyboard may well be out there somewhere waiting for you.

 

[Clematis]

What an enormous relief - I have been covering for another school psychologist for three months while she was on maternity leave. I have been hoping that I would continue to back her up when she returned to work, but this has seemed uncertain. Anyway, I learned today that this is definitely the case. So I will have continued income throughout the rest of the school year. This is fantastic news! I will probably have somewhat less work and income than I have had - and more time, but at least I won't have an income of $00 per month until September 2017. I was getting a little worried about that 10 months of zero income.

[MartyT]

I'm so happy for you, Laura! This is very good news!

[Clematis]

Two days in a row of cello practice! I used to practice every day and Lena would come running, sit at my feet and ring the bells that hang from my music stand to get treats. She still rings the bells when she feels like it and gets treats, but the bell-ringing-for-treats became a stand-alone with no musical connection. But tonight, a couple of minutes after I sat down and started, Lena suddenly woke up and ran into the room, sat at my feet and looked at me expectantly. She remembered our little routine from more than a year ago, and suddenly so did I. It seems sometimes like everything is lost, but just then something came back out of the void. It felt like a little miracle...

[kayc]

Thank you both for your suggestions, I hadn't heard of such a thing, Marty!  My son and I were just talking last night about how we both wish we'd had learned an instrument.  He said his daughter will definitely have that, I'm so glad to hear it!

Laura, I am so glad to hear of the job update!  I know what a relief that must be.  Summer seems the time to secure a position for the next school year and hopefully this will tide you over until something full time comes along.

I am so glad to hear you're practicing!  And Lena knows her part in it too!

[Clematis]

52 minutes ago, kayc said:

Laura, I am so glad to hear of the job update!  I know what a relief that must be.  Summer seems the time to secure a position for the next school year and hopefully this will tide you over until something full time comes along.

I am so glad to hear you're practicing!  And Lena knows her part in it too!

Practice is good. The first day was kind of rocky, but it didn't take me long to get back in the groove and remember what I should be working on and thinking about. I need to find my metronome. I really have no idea where so many things are. My brain was in such a fog when I moved. I tried to mitigate the damages of that by having my helpers mark things well and having "priority" boxes and bags that had really important things I didn't want to lose. I also exasperated both of them by hand-moving many things and doing things gradually. Bonita really wanted me to turn her loose on just boxing up everything - because she thought she could do that by herself and is would be easier, but I put as little in boxes as possible in favor of taking armloads, bags and open boxes from one house to the other in small car trips. Even still, I feel like I am lost in a house that doesn't look my house and much of my own stuff is either gone or in a mystery location. It's very disorienting.

You are right on the job situation. This was my hope - that I could piece things together through the school year, get through the summer somehow, and work on next year in April when things start to clarify for the next school year.

Another place to find a keyboard would be Craigslist, but I would start at the church because you might not only get a good deal but also make someone happy (relieved of their guilt at not playing it) that it found a nice home. Even I have a keyboard I don't play. I'm hanging onto it because I use it occasionally to spell out chords when I'm arranging something or play a tune I don't quite have in my ear - it's hard to sight read novel things on an instrument with no frets like a cello. I bought it when I was playing violin but had some fantasy I would really play the keyboard because I played piano as a kid, but this never happened. If I only played fretted instruments, that keyboard would have been long gone. Good luck! It's never too late if you've ever done anything musical - like singing. There a few people who never matched pitch in any way, but anyone who has ever played anything or sung has the rudiments in their ear to learn to play, and later may be better because a person is more motivated when it's their own idea. If you have the ability to cringe when someone hits an off note, you have a ear that is good enough to play. Keyboards/piano is probably the easiest thing to take up later in life. The ukulele is also very easy to take up later. Also, cello is a lot easier to take up later than the violin, but using the keyboard as a way to get going would be an excellent strategy.

[Clematis]

I played last night with the Jerome Ukulele Orchestra, and it was really nice. I didn't realize how much I'd missed it. I haven't seen them much in a long time. At first I was too verklempt from grief, and then I couldn't drive after the car accident, and then i was just too exhausted from struggling to recover and reclaim my life - whatever that is now... But now I think I can go back to this. It was hard - I'd already had a long day and however fun it was noisy and I had to carry my cello on my back and schlep my amp down a very unevenly surfaced hill (and back up after) on a luggage cart. By the time I was in my car at the end of the day I felt like my head was going to explode and I had already taken Ibuprofen. Nevertheless, it got better as soon as I got the cello off my back, I slept well, and today I am ready to go test a squirmy student for three or four hours - with aqua aerobics in the middle of that, and then drive over the mountain and back so I can go to Trader Joe's and Costco. Prescott has been a big trigger since my dad died there - just thinking about it makes me overcome. But there are some things I really want from there and my friend Greg has been in New Mexico filming for almost two months. We have a two person Trader Joe's buying club - whoever gets there first brings stuff back for the other one. So, I'll have to go myself...

 

 

[Clematis]

What a long day! I wasn't able to squeeze in the swim class, which was too bad. I had a horrible headache by the end of the day and came home to the wall thumping with the beat of the neighbor's bass beat on her stereo. It is almost 10:00 and it has been thumping for hours. Not the way to get rid of a headache...

[kayc]

  I'm sorry.  Aren't there noise ordinances there prohibiting it after certain hours?  I hope she quits soon...

[Clematis]

The noise ordinance is from 10:00pm until 6:00am. There are also association rules, which these neighbors have ignored. They rent their unit, and a condition of their lease is that they follow the HOA rules. Naturally, the frequent rule breaking is a repeating violation of their lease, but they don't seem to be able to find a way to do anything about it. Maureen, the property manager of the HOA would like to get rid of them altogether, but that's up to the property management company the neighbors lease from. The best Maureen can do, as far as I can tell is to bug them, and I in turn can bug Maureen, which I do - with several emails a week with pictures of violations. Hopefully they both get tired of the frequent emailed complaints.

[Clematis]

I went down to my dad's house to pick up something and chatted with a neighbor I've recently met on the way. It got rather cold while we were standing there, so I went rummaged through his hall closet when I got to his house. Mostly filled with my coats, but in there with them was a lovely light-weight periwinkle coat that was one of my dad's favorites. I wrapped myself up in it and wore it home. On the way I realized it still smelled like him. A friend had urged me to give away all of his clothing since they were men's clothes. I'm so glad I didn't. Not only was it warm and cozy - it was like snatching a hug from him out of the void...

[kayc]

I still have George's bathrobe, among other things, and I like to wear it sometimes, even though it's too big, it feels like a hug to me too.

[Clematis]

6 minutes ago, kayc said:

...it feels like a hug to me too.

That's really nice...

[Clematis]

I remember my dad telling me when I was a teenager and there had been some kind of argument and I was upset with him, "I know you may not believe this now but no one will ever love you more than your parents do". I remember hoping that wasn't true because I wasn't sure about either of them. They both had their issues and my mother was just mean. Looking back at it later I think he was really speaking for himself when he said this. We certainly had a long time when things were difficult with my entire family, but after my mother died everything changed. I was able to see him as who he really was and as I've been told, the two of us were like two peas in a pod. My mother was like that with her father - they were very much alike, but I didn't see that with my dad and me for a long time. I'm not sure why, because he was my hero and role model throughout my adult life as a developed my career and struggled to find my way in the world.

So he moved out west, telling my sisters that they each had their own family and he was going to "be family for Laura". He told me that everyone needs a support system and that we were going to be that for each other. As his health declined he used to comment, "you never guessed what you were getting yourself into when you asked me to move out here" and "I'm sorry to be such a burden on you". I felt like coaxing him to move west was the best thing I ever did and the ten years we had together was the best chunk of my life. I wouldn't have traded any of it for anything. I told him all of that every time in response to any of those remarks and he would always say, "Oh, you've been wonderful". I always felt grateful to have the chance to befriend and care for him when he needed me because he had done the same for me when I was little. It's hard to believe after all those years that all that's gone. I sure miss him...

[Clematis]

My dad was really looking out for me tonight. I had a bad headache from listening to my neighbor's boom boom boom bass through the wall before I went to orchestra rehearsal in Flagstaff, which didn't really help it any. I decided on the way up that I would buy gas on the way back home, but didn't really feel like it. So I heard him telling me telling me several times, "You really need to stop and get gas. Then you can go get a snack for the drive home." So I bought the gas, got the snack, and was having a nice time driving and munching when I heard him say, "Look". I took my foot off the gas, looked and quickly braked because there were at least five elk in the road. Two of them were right in front of my car. A little later, I heard him start to say something and braked right away. There were some deer on the side of the road. I really wanted to just get home, but when this was followed by him saying, "You really should slow down" at the top of the switchbacks, I did slow down and not much later saw a skunk walking down the side of the road and then a raccoon running as fast as he could down the center line. So nice of him to look after me. But I still miss him. It's just not the same.

[Clematis]

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[Clematis]

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