All posts by hannahviolin

I am a violinist. I also enjoy running, working out, reading, and hanging with my friends and cat.
Hope, Quarantine

One Year Ago

One year ago today, I was visiting my friend April in Atlanta. We knew we were already in an unprecedented pandemic, and we were determined to enjoy our time together nonetheless. Around us, the world was collapsing and people were panic-buying toilet paper, and more importantly, many were sick and dying.

But then I got the call. We were sitting on the porch, and I hadn’t answered my phone because it was an unknown call. But I checked the message, assuming it would be something about my car warranty and I heard a woman say something about my cat Miles. MILES.

They had him! and the next day we picked him up and brought him back home, and then we all just stayed there. We stayed home, for weeks and weeks.

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We didn’t stay at home as much as everybody, and yet we stayed at home so much. I can’t remember the last time I did something social, not just hanging out with Louie. Yet we did do a few things over the summer.

And now things are looking up. We have both gotten a shot, thankfully, and I fully recognize how lucky we are to have managed when so many haven’t been able to yet.  It’s so much less stressful when we go into teach, now that we are somewhat immune, and soon will be totally immune, or as good as can be. I don’t know what the next steps will be, but I hope that soon I can start teaching in person again (summer?) for those that are ready, maybe still with masks and not allowing extra people in? I just don’t know, but I am feeling more positive and also choosing to feel more positive.

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My parents are fully vaccinated and will likely be visiting in April sometime. And Louie and I are planning a week long trip in early June, just to Arkansas and with flexibility…who knows what will happen, and we are fine wearing masks everywhere. I know people have been traveling this whole time, but we haven’t been. I think once we are both vaccinated maybe we will think about doing patio dining somewhere…that sounds crazy to think of, honestly. I know we aren’t there yet, but it also seems crazy to be trying to claim vaccination is the answer and yet telling people once they are vaccinated to continue acting the same way.

Sometimes I just get struck by the awfulness of everything. How many have died…how many who have been sick, how many who have and are suffering. But there is a light at the end of the tunnel, I think. We can’t let our guard down, and I know so many have not been as lucky as we have with getting vaccinated, but I am hopeful that in the few next months we will all really be recovering from this time, and starting to really turn a corner, and hopefully being in a position to help other countries too. I’m not so naive to think that the problems here and the people who refuse the vaccine won’t continue to be problems, but I’m choosing to focus on the positive. We will get there.

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If Miles could come back home after being missing for 11 months, it seems like anything is possible. Having him here has been a little bit of a miracle every day, and I am so thankful. He has gone from being a little bitey creature to a very sweet bitey creature. He loves baskets, hammocks, beds, and cuddling. He also loves attacking Muriel and running all around after her.

I’ve got to get back to do more teaching in a few minutes, so I’ll leave you there. Life is hard still, but it’s getting a little less hard.

Hope

What a week

These weeks really fly by, don’t they?

Okay, so I had some good things happen this week. I didn’t post on social media, but posting on my blog is a little bit different somehow. Maybe this will help someone else.

I knew my time to be eligible for the COVID vaccine was coming up soon since I teach in the schools. I actually teach at 3 different elementary schools and see three different groups of children each week! In any case, thanks to a social media post by a friend and a facebook group I below to, I learned that teachers can go to Walmart or Walgreens in Illinois and get their shots already. I asked my friend for advice, as she had an appointment, and I started trying to get one. The whole time, I figured it probably wouldn’t work, but I lucked into an appointment at a Walgreens in East St Louis, which is under 20 minutes away from me (St Louis is right on the border of Missouri and Illinois.)

I asked myself if I was doing the right thing, taking this appointment, and I decided yes I was, because I was teaching those three groups of kids, plus another small class in person, with no employer provided health care or sick days. Additionally, I knew many other teachers were doing the same thing, and I also felt like since I was driving less far to get the shot than I actually drive to work, I wasn’t even going out of my jurisidiction. These shots are paid by my tax dollars, and just because the idiot governor I didn’t vote for won’t let teachers get them didn’t mean I didn’t deserve one. Me not spreading COVID will help all the kids at that school, and the people I come into contact with. And it’ll help Louie lower his risk, since college teachers aren’t eligible yet in either state. Sure, I’m rationalizing, but aren’t we all?

I’m sure others deserve them more, and everybody deserves them and hopefully will all get them soon and I frankly think it’s ridiculous that we said how important grocery store workers were and yet won’t give them vaccines or raise minimum wage. But I digress.

So I drove over the river to East St Louis on Wednesday, all the time assuming there was a good chance I’d be turned away. But NO. They took my ID and my insurance, and I signed something saying I was an essential worker (the employee said that’s what teachers should say, that they had been vaccinating teachers all morning) and then I waited a few more minutes, and the pharmacist came out and gave me my vaccine. I thought I would cry, and I almost did, but I was just so excited. I also felt super guilty  for getting the shot, and I felt like I was doing something that was unfair since Louie couldn’t get his shot yet, but I am glad I did it. I got the Pfizer shot, and I go back at the end of March for my second dose.

I do know my privilege (of internet skills and having a flexible enough schedule to take a weekday morning appointment, and easy access to a car, though this site would have been possible via public transportation as well) helped me get this shot, and the rollout statewide and nationwide is really awful, but if I hadn’t taken it, someone else would have, and this helps all the teachers in the district, all the kids, their parents, etc.

If you are reading this, and you are in Missouri and are either already eligible or will be eligible very soon (or are a teacher), I recommend joining this facebook group for information. There are people on the group helping others get appointments as well and ways to help with transportation. If you know any elderly people in the area still looking, that’s a great resource for them or for you to help them.

Other good things happening: one of my students defended her dissertation yesterday! I watched on Zoom, and it was really amazing. She is a chemistry student (or was!) and will be going to work at Pfizer next month. She did a great job and although I didn’t know really anything that she was talking about, it was really great to watch. I am amazed how much I don’t know and I am so glad that others do work with all of these subjects I don’t understand at all.

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Otherwise, this week seems to have flown by, as usual. The weather has been lovely but I’ve been inside too much. I have a few online seminars I’m attending this weekend and have a gig Sunday, but hope to get some outside time in. It feels like spring is here, and while that might not be entirely true, we are on our way. The weather gives us hope (as well as the hope I feel having gotten vaccinated).

I wasn’t sure this day would ever come.

Quarantine, Random thoughts

Getting to that One Year Mark

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One thing I’ve been thinking about lately is anxiety and worrying. We all know worrying doesn’t help, right? But being worried in order to prepare can. I’ve mentioned my timehop app here before, when I read what I posted or took pictures of 1 year ago on the day, 2 years, etc. 1 year ago yesterday I posted about how I was preparing for the pandemic, buying canned goods, toilet paper, etc. Turned out it was a pretty good idea.

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But not everything I bought was useful. I bought some jugs of water, and I didn’t need them, but I would have in Texas the other week, so I have no regrets about my water purchases. And we’ve done well, we have been fortunate enough to stay well, though at great personal sacrifice. We haven’t seen family inside or my family in person since late summer (and not much before that, but in late summer with most of us being careful it seemed a good risk.) We haven’t eaten inside a restaurant since March. Since my sister and her kids left in late summer, I haven’t been inside unmasked with anyone except Louie. I can’t remember the last time we did something social, because it got too cold to want to be outside and it felt like an unnecessary risk. I don’t quite know how we will reenter the world.

I’m thankful we have stayed well though, and I hope we continue to until we are able to get vaccinated. I don’t know what happens then. I don’t know how to be social anymore, and I don’t know how to have conversations with people that aren’t about teaching or COVID. It’ll be a strange re-entry when it happens.

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I was thinking about other times I’d been stressed about something that seemed silly. One time was on a hike in Zion a few years ago. We hiked up to Observation Point and it was a beautiful hike, scary in parts. When we got to the top we ate our lunch and took a few pictures, but the sky looked a little scary so we headed down. It seemed silly to be so worried about the weather, but then towards the end of the hike the skies opened up and it poured rain. We got on the shuttle back to our campground and it was a deluge. Rain, hail, thunder and lighting. We got to the campground and made a run for our car. I recall sitting in the car, listening to the clunk, clunk, thump of the hail on the windshield, the roof, the hood.

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The view from Observation Point.

You can read my original blog post about this experience here, but here’s what you should know. I was thinking about this hike yesterday, and remembering being stressed on the way down about the weather, and thinking, oh, that was silly, why do I overreact? And truthfully, I should have just enjoyed the walk anyway, but I was stressed because we were hurrying to get down, and the truth was it was a great idea! It was a terrible storm, and I didn’t hear of anybody getting hurt during it, but it was terrible and dangerous and we were glad to have not been outside in much of it. My anxiety was well-placed!

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Of course, there’s a nice expression about not borrowing tomorrow’s problems or whatever, but it’s really nice sometimes to know that your worrying simply meant you prepared. In the hiking case, we didn’t prepare, but we hurried down. In the case of the lead up to the terrible COVID pandemic it meant we had a lot of groceries and such on hand and didn’t have to make a run to the store.

But how do I balance feeling too worried and stressed with actually just being prepared in life? I worry (ha!) that staying home so much has made me more stressed about going out into the world! Then again, being concerned about getting COVID has done that more.

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In any case! The other one year mark coming up will be the anniversary of my cat Miles returning home. We got him back the same day we got home from our last trip, after our last meals out…how should we celebrate an anniversary of a cat’s homecoming?

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Have you changed much of your life over the past year, or have things stayed the same for you? If (like most people) many things have changed, do you think it will be difficult to get back into the world? Do you think that an appropriate level of anxiety is necessary to be responsible?

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Random thoughts, Teaching

Winter Was Here

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It’s been quite the week of cold and snow, but nothing like many in Texas and other places are going through.

Monday was already off my public school job, but it was snowing all day and my college class also got canceled. Since all my private students are online I taught them as usual, except one who was having internet issues, for about 2 hours of students. I got a lot of other stuff done on this day!

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Tuesday was a snow day from my morning job, but the rest of the day was still on, with the exception of two students who had to cancel for weather related issues. Tuesdays are a busy day this semester, with 3 hours of college teaching on top of an already long private teaching afternoon and evening (6 hours, which is a long time to teach from one chair.) It was nice having the early morning off.

Wednesday was still very cold, but school was on. I took Louie’s Subaru into my morning job and that ended up being a great decision on my drive home, when it was snowing again. Not a lot of accumulation thankfully but the roads were awful for my return home commute. Wednesdays aren’t so bad, and I just had a morning class I’m taking, 1 college student, and about 3 1/2 hours of students.

Thursday wasn’t as cold as the other days, but it’s thankfully the day I don’t have to go into school at all, so I taught my morning class virtually (I wouldn’t mind going in, but I do get a little more sleep not doing so, and I don’t have to go out in the single digit morning temps!). I have one morning student on Thursday but got a workout and shower in beforehand, and then the afternoon had 1 college student and about 4 1/2 hours of private teaching.

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Friday ended up also being fairly easy, with only 3 hours of private teaching and 1 hour of college teaching. One student on Friday I let move to Saturday due to big tuning problems (the problem with virtual teaching is that it is hard to help them and even those that have gotten pretty good at it still have trouble with the extreme temps).

Saturday was my busiest Saturday in months. I had a morning student, my usual improvisation class, and then I had a recording session (I had been oddly stressed about it, but it ended up being easy) and then a quartet rehearsal for an upcoming streaming concert we are playing on.

So that was my week. I had probably a few more cancellations than normal, due to the snow and some serious tuning issues. It was a pretty decent week…I often feel as if I just work and each day is a slog to the end, but there are wonderful moments within. I think it’ll be easier when things get back to “in-person” teaching, hopefully by fall.

As far as playing with people again, it was nice to play with the quartet and it was a fun rehearsal. I don’t know what it means though, but I wasn’t that excited. I see my friends on social media and a few in person saying that they are so desperate to play together again, that they are missing their whole life and their whole identity, not playing with others, and I’m sitting here figuring out my studio policies for the fall and working on a slight change going to a flat rate policy and planning to say no to gigs likely until people stop asking, and feeling okay with that. I don’t miss it. I miss having colleagues and seeing people and chatting, and that will never be as nice, working from home and having a private studio, but I do have colleagues at my school jobs and get to chat sometimes, so that’s nice. I miss playing Mahler Symphonies, but I wasn’t doing that pre-pandemic anyway.

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Fun stuff this week:

We got a box from Purple Carrot, a vegan meal kit place. I have enjoyed the Purple Carrot boxes and I find them to be easier to make and slightly less involved than Blue Apron. Blue Apron meals do tend to be delicious though.

We have been watching Dr. Who. I knew we were behind a few seasons, and thought I’d figured out which seasons we hadn’t seen, but it turns out that I was totally wrong and had completely forgotten two entire seasons. We are watching them again and have mostly forgotten things but not entirely. We’ll get back to where we need to be soon.

I spent a good amount of time this week reading. I have been working through a lot of cozy mystery series’ by Dianna Xarissa through an Amazon Kindle Unlimited membership. I’m not sure if I mentioned a few other recent reads, so I’ll just do it again: The Nature of Fragile Things by Susan Meissner and The Book of Lost Names by Kristin Harmel. I think I did mention them, as I type this…but either way both are good, with a preference to the Book of Lost Names. That reminds me of another great book I enjoyed this year by Jodi Picoult, The Book of Two Ways, which I loved, and you should also read the American Royals by Katharine McGee.

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The house across the street from me is for sale, so if you want to be my neighbor that’s an option. Our neighbor said the market is really hot right now so he is selling and plans to rent for awhile and then buy again when things settle down. Sometimes I think I must know nothing about money, because I’m happy to just stay in this little house that needs some work because it’s home and it’s nice enough, and I don’t want to move again…but then again there’s no mortgage on it and the electric bill is only about $75 a month average and that’s being pretty comfortable year-round. I don’t know…it would be nice to have a house that wasn’t kind of weirdly set up and needed some work done (the kitchen here is particularly awful) but I’ve spent so much time here over the past year that I just don’t even know any better! I’m not sure where I was going with that beginning though, except to say that, I would worry if I sold my house and got out of the market that it would just keep going up. I’m not sure why the market is going up, but imagine if you lived in California in the 90’s and figured you’d buy again when the prices dropped.

Nonetheless no one wins the comparison trap, and thankfully I never worry too much about my house: I know I will never win any interior decorating awards, and it is easier just to know that if you invite someone over it is likely their house is nicer, but perhaps my cooking is better. My cats are probably cuter too Smile But really, how better to be a friend that let your friends feel better about their own houses? At least, this is what I tell myself.

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Louie’s office: he set up a place on top of the filing cabinet for the cats to hang out. This is  a room that is very functional and useful but ugly: wood paneling and a mini-blind! The room also doesn’t have good heating and cooling because it was an additional at one time, so he sweats in the summer and runs a space heater in the winter (it gets very toasty and warm!). It overlooks the backyard and gets lots of natural light though, and he has all of his computer equipment set up and works from home many hours a day.

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After Louie finishes his doctorate we have some longer term house goals. This is looking like the end of Summer 2022. It was supposed to be earlier, but COVID and all the online teaching work has pushed it back. But the longer term goal is to remodel the garage in the back yard into a studio/guest house. We’re thinking pull out couch, full bath, and then I can mostly use it for my teaching, but when we have guests they can stay there as well. It seems far away, but I’ll still have a good 20 years left of my teaching career so that seems well worth it, even if it takes a few more years. I think once we start the project, if we really work at it, we can get it done in a summer. So maybe that means 2023 is garage summer, but gosh that seems far away! Maybe we’ll be able to start working on it a bit this summer, at least the big task of clearing it out.

Truly clutter is still our biggest issue. Both Louie and I are clutter people, in different ways, and while neither of us wants to be minimalists, we do have too many random things. I’m also realizing we probably just need two or three big bookcases to replace a few shorter ones and that could help a bit as well. (If you are local and getting rid of a large bookcase, let me know, as I’m not quite ready to look in the marketplace yet.)

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In any case, I think that’s enough randomness today! I had grand “week in the life” plans for this blog post, but then I started overanalyzing my house, and feeling bad about it. I think I’ll do a little cleaning and tidying now and then I’ll read Smile

Quarantine, Travel

National Parks

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I read a book last week by a man who visited all of the National Parks in one year. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed reading the book. It wasn’t what I expected though as it was more about him and less about the parks, and I was struck by how different my own travel experiences are. In retrospect, that shouldn’t have surprised me. And of course, his experience as a man traveling is very different than the experience as a woman traveling. Women have to worry about personal safety in a way that no man will ever have to, even when you are traveling with a man, but especially if you aren’t. So reading any travel book by a man, oh, and there are so many, is different than reading a book by a woman, such as Wild by Cheryl Strayed.

However, I was thinking about travel itself, and why I travel, and what traveling has taught me. One of my favorite things to do with Louie is go on a road trip and visit parks and other sites. We love loading up the car and hitting the road, being dirty for a few days, hiking a lot, taking tons of pictures, and finally being grateful to return home. So while visiting National Parks is wonderful, more of our life is spent at home, so how does that affect it?

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Caption: Hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park, going up to the Loch from the Glacier Gorge Trailhead. Summer 2015

The National Parks Service has this “Find Your Park” campaign, and truthfully, my park is Forest Park, which is a huge park near my home in St Louis. I love traveling, and I especially love the mountains. I love seeing wildlife, and getting out into terrain and parts of the country that are very different than where I live, but I don’t want one park. I want them all, and not in a bucket list way, but in the way that I want to experience different places. I have enjoyed returning to places like Yellowstone and Rocky Mountain National Park, but I also have enjoyed seeing new places like Jasper National Park, Colorado National Monument, and Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

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Caption: The Colorado River. I swear there’s a picture somewhere in Louie’s albums of me by the River at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, but I don’t have it. This is a picture I took at the bottom. Spoiler: going down is the easy part. May 2016

The crowds can be an issue. Everybody loves the National Parks! Camping reservations can be hard to get. So another part of the Find Your Park idea can be to find somewhere less popular that may have a more quiet beauty. This summer I am hoping we can travel some, but I’m looking at more off-the-beaten path places that won’t attract the same crowds, but more importantly, don’t require as much advance planning. I just looked at Rocky Mountain NP camping reservations and they are nearly full at my favorite campground for the summer. Not surprising, but we can’t plan a trip until we are vaccinated, and we have no idea when that will be.

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Caption: Great Smoky Mountains, and you can just see how damp it was there. This was walking around an area near Gatlinburg where the fires had burned quite a lot. Our wettest camping trip ever! Summer 2017.

Normally by this time of the year I would have my summer at least mapped out. That may sound crazy to some of you (and it may sound a bit crazy in general) but it was fairly necessary in order to make sure we could fit in various family visits and stuff. It’s all up in the air now, and I hope I get to see my family as well as do a little random traveling.

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Caption: Glacier National Park, our first views after driving all day from Yellowstone. Each place is new and wonderful, even when the one you left may still be your favorite place. Summer 2019.

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Caption: Standing on a rock at Colorado National Monument, Summer 2016.

But I’ve gotten off topic from my thoughts on the National Parks. Everybody has their own travel style: some like to rough it, others prefer middle-of-the-road comfort, others high end luxury. Some people like to go for a long weekend or a week, others have more time off in a row and can get away longer. Some love flying, others love hitting the open road. Some people like to picnic and cook, others prefer to buy all their food ready-made. Everybody has their own travel style, and of course each trip might be different. I love planning trips almost as much as I love taking them so for me the advance planning is half the fun. Other people hate planning and prefer just to show up. Where am I going with this? Nowhere, it’s my blog Smile But maybe just to say, I want to read the book about somebody who didn’t just hit the road. I want to read the book by somebody who spent as much time planning their trip as doing it! I’m sure that book exists (and I’d like it to be by a woman so I can relate more) or I guess I should write it, ha. If I wrote a book I’d have to edit though, rather than with my blog. (I’m aware people DO edit their blogs, it’s just not something I want to spend a lot of time doing. Yes, I’d probably have more followers.)

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Caption: On top of Mt. Washburn. Summer 2019.

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Caption: Louie in Bryce Canyon, Summer 2016.

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I went down a bit of a memory lane the past hour here, looking at old photos, remembering where we had been, remembering how it felt, remembering arguments we had and remembering wonderful experiences we shared. I recall my wonderment and amazement on the hike in Bryce Canyon. I recall feeling scared on a hike in Zion National Park, and feeling like I’d never be dry again in the Great Smokies. I recall being blown away by Colorado National Monument’s beauty, and also feeling incredibly dirty from not showering for days and being relieved we were out of bear country. I remember enjoying taking the bus out to Athabasca Glacier and feeling sick to my stomach now knowing that there was a horrible accident there last summer in which many people lost their lives. I remember hard work putting up our tent, putting away our tent, and everything that goes with camping, and each night I get into bed here I am grateful for how easy my regular life is.

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Caption: Canyonlands National Park, Moab, Utah, Summer 2016

I suppose traveling is never actually about where you go. I mean, it IS, but it’s really about leaving your everyday life to do something special, and try to bring a bit of it back. It’s about finding the special in the mundane as well, and being grateful for the conveniences you have at home, and being more aware of all that you have to feel grateful for.

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Caption: Canary Springs, Mammoth, Yellowstone Summer 2019

As we hope to see the beginning of the end of COVID, we will see how travel has changed, and how COVID has changed us. I don’t see trying to make a big plan for this summer, but there will be a summer soon when Louie has finished his doctorate as well, and I would love for us to hit the road for 3 weeks or so. The cats miss us while we are gone of course, and we miss them, but it’s just so nice to be immersed in not being at home, and so worth it. It does change you, though nobody stays the same anyway, travel or not.

Random thoughts

MORE SNOW

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We have been having quite the week of winter weather! Nothing deep, but lots of little bits of snow and ice. Sadly, there have been no snow days for me. I would have thought the best part of being a public school teacher (I’m doing a part time class) would be not driving in the bad weather, but NO they keep making us come!

It’s been an exhausting week, but I slept great last night and feel terrific today. It’s only Wednesday, but as I’ve finished my “driving to school” classes for the week, Wednesdays feel like the week is nearly behind me. That’s a fallacy though, there are many many more students left to teach.

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Boring stuff: I did a lot of paperwork before this in order to get my students signed up for festival. I’m catching up on some of my online observing (I observe recorded classes for the improvisation course I’m taken) and I planned my own improv classes for the week. I will likely finish what I’m doing and take a short reading break before lunch.

I finished two good books over the weekend: The Nature of Fragile Things by Susan Meissner and The Book of Lost Names by Kristin Harmel. Both are historical fiction, the first during the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906, and the second during World War 2. I recommend both, but the second I liked better.

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Miles doesn’t always pose well, but he does enjoy attention. We are getting closer and closer to the one year anniversary of having him home, which oddly coincidences with the one year anniversary of being “safer at home.” It will be an odd thing to celebrate, or not to celebrate. I will celebrate my parents having gotten their second vaccine shot, but it’s hard to celebrate much, when so many have lost so much.

I am trying to focus on positive things, and be more in the moment. In the moment, my house is warm, I am currently safe at home, and Miles probably has no memory of being anywhere other than here.

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