Another week gone…the fifth week of quarantine, as such. It’s been a very long time since I’ve spoken in person to anyone other than Louie. I do get to talk to a lot of people nearly everyday online though.

There isn’t a whole lot to write about…I’m keeping busy with teaching and even picking up a few more students (I definitely have some openings right now, especially since college classes are wrapping up). I can’t see how concerts go back to normal any time soon so I’m assuming lessons are the way to go for quite some time. I am hoping I’m wrong and that the timeline people are talking about for concerts (basically, when there’s a vaccine) won’t come to fruition, but since everything else has happened, it’s hard to see how!

I’ve been continuing to make a weekly video of myself performing. I’m having trouble deciding what to do next week but I have a few random ideas. I hope you enjoy this one! It’s by a woman named Grazyna Bacewicz and is a short unaccompanied piece called Polish Capriccio. I had a student play it a few years ago.

There’s been a lot of talk about how musicians and orchestras should reinvent themselves during this time. Naturally there’s been a lot of people berating musicians for not being adequately prepared for the streaming world, but I think they are missing the point. The main reason I am hired is to provide live music. If people just wanted streaming concerts they could probably get by with listening to a half dozen solo violins and two orchestras, but the idea is that you can have live music—at the concert hall, in a smaller space, at your church service, in your home for a party, etc. We are the musicians you hire to personally have in your lives, and that is why we live amongst you and not in New York or Vienna. Yes, having an internet presence is important, and live streaming performances or having good quality videos might also be a good thing, but let’s not pretend that 1) there is anything normal about all of this or 2) that there is room for the number of musicians that exist if we weren’t providing small scale, local events and instead were just doing thing for a greater, international audience. And it’s a GREAT thing that no matter where you are, you can (normally) attend events which feature local musicians and you can go up to them and say hello, and you can hire them for your wedding or see them play at your local church or whatever. They aren’t just some superstar who exists (to you) only on the internet.

Suffice it to say, this will change things, and many good musicians will likely have to jobs in other fields. And I don’t know the future. I just hope that I can continue making my videos, maybe getting a few $$ in tips along the way, and teach lessons on the internet while it goes on.

I’m getting calls for events in the fall though, so who knows. I’m thinking, do I want to play everything I did before…should I focus more on what I truly enjoy? I enjoy serious concerts, I enjoy broadway shows and operas, I enjoy working with a variety of local musicians…I don’t particularly love when I have to reschedule students too often, and I don’t love having every day busy but sometimes it’s unavoidable. Then again, what will really be happening in the fall? Will there be school/college? Will it be canceled or online? When will I see my students in person again?

These are all answer no one knows, and at the rate of testing here in the US, the answer seems to be, not for some time. So we persevere. We persist. We keep at it. We try not to let the naysayers and the negativity get us down, and we just do what we always do: we work hard, we network, we tell people we are looking for more students and more work, and we do the work.

It goes without saying, but in case it doesn’t, I’m going to say it. I am fortunate that I am able to do a lot of my work from home. I am fortunate to have a safe home with an awesome boyfriend (who is also able to work from home) and we enjoy spending time together. I am fortunate to have my health, and that so far my family is also staying healthy. I know many during this time have much greater worries and struggles. But this is my space on the internet, and I’m just sharing my thoughts and concerns.

I haven’t gone anywhere, I haven’t been in a car since last Friday evening, can you believe it? We are planning on takeout again tonight—it’s our quarantine tradition, so we’ll drive somewhere. If the car starts, ha! I didn’t have to go grocery shopping this week at all due to some deliveries, but plan to go next week, probably on Wednesday. We’ve been eating well, tons of veggies and such, and I’ve had more time to cook which really helps (and plan deliveries as well). We’ve taken a few walks this week, but less than we probably should…it’s been cooler and I haven’t felt like going out as much. I hope we don’t go straight to summer without having a bit more of spring.

I’ve got a full day of teaching ahead of me today-about 7 hours worth. I woke up before my alarm this morning and couldn’t get back to sleep, so that’s why I ended up having extra time to blog. I always want to write more often, but get bogged down with other stuff!

Today is the start of week 5 of working and teaching remotely. I’m now at the point that I actually can’t imagine going back to in person teaching…the idea frightens me right now. I suppose it is because I worry about spreading germs, but I suspect that whenever it is that things go back to normal, we are all going to be pretty weird for awhile.

Let’s focus on the positive today though. Okay, we had a lovely Easter. My parents, siblings, and niece and nephew have all being doing a weekly video chat on Zoom (my niece calls it “roll-call”) and we had a nice time catching up and being silly with Zoom backgrounds. My sister Carrie has hurt her knee in the sort of way that if she weren’t in New York City during a pandemic she would have already been into the doctor about it but instead had a video conference with a  friend’s dad who happens to be a doctor and is waiting a few day to see how it goes. I know I said I’d focus on the positive (the positive is I’m sure she’ll be fine either soon or eventually, and she has lots of friends to help out) but this is the sort of trickle down effect from all of this, and still we have politicians pretending things are just fine. People are avoiding going to the doctor for other injuries because they don’t want to get sick and because they don’t want to be a burden on the system.

Other positive. Louie and I finished doing some planting in the garden. I forgot to take a picture (my hands were dirty and I didn’t have my phone with me at the time) but I’ll take one later. We made a small plot and planted a few things. We are planning to make at least one more plot over the next few weekends. I honestly have no idea how big the plots are…6 by 3 foot? That’s a total guess and might be way off. But since I’ve had all my weekends free and will likely continue to do so for some time, a garden seemed like fun. We planted swiss chard, beets, and some sort of green beans. We will see what happens…it seems crazy that you could plant little seeds into the ground and they would grow into vegetables!

We finished watching Ozark and have started something called “The Stranger” on Netflix. Netflix gave me a 98 percent match on it, and so far it’s quite good. I’ve also been reading some Jenn McKinlay mysteries on my kindle (thank goodness for the library during these times!).

I baked a carrot banana bread but might have made too many substitutions and it ended up being more of a bread pudding. I also likely should have baked it longer but it was starting to get too dark on top and I didn’t think of tenting it in foil until later. Nonetheless it was tasty with a bit of ice cream on top.

We ended up just doing the Seder with the two of us. Louie’s mom cooked and picked up things for him and he went by and chatted (from a responsible distance) and then we attempted it on our own. I had only been to his mom’s once for a Seder but Louie has been attending for years of course, so we did our best. I apologize for the white wine, but we’ve determined that red wine is a migraine trigger for me so I can’t drink it anymore.

We’ve been mostly doing a lot of cooking, but we have a quarantine tradition of Friday night takeout. This Friday it was the 58hundred which is a nearby restaurant, and we got fish fry takeout, so some fried cod and fried shrimp tacos. I’m not sure if those things are actually Passover-friendly, so we are mixing up our religions…neither of us are remotely Catholic, but we just like fish and wanted to support a nearby restaurant since we are tired of cooking.

I mention this because Muriel loves bags. Sometimes I worry that Muriel is being neglected or feeling neglected because Miles is taking up a lot of space and attention. But they seem to get along pretty well and hang out near each other on the cat tree. And she always loves getting into bags or boxes.

I made little plate of pickles with dinner last night. The pickled beets are my new favorite thing, though the little dill pickles from Trader Joe’s on the plate were pretty tasty. Those are left from Christmas, and needed to be finished up to make room in the fridge for…more pickles, probably.

Well, those are my random thoughts for the day. I hope you have a decent week. Are you holding up okay?

Time seems to be a bit frozen, doesn’t it?

It’s not that each day seems the same, because for teaching, everyday is different and I always need to know what day it is. But then there are these two days totally off (well, except for the inevitable emailing and such, and perhaps practicing) and the weekend seems like it should be full of fun and relaxing, but you can’t go anywhere, and you have to carefully plan everything that you might need that you don’t have.

So that’s where we all are though, and there’s something in solidarity. I am trying to read a lot of mysteries (cozy mysteries are a solace as usual) and we have been watching some tv every night and taking walks and working out and gardening when the weather is nice (which isn’t enough, I was hoping today would be nicer than it is, as I need to keep working on the garden beds).

I know we aren’t supposed to read the news, but part of me says, well it’s a civic duty to stay up on things, after all, isn’t part of why we are stuck like this because people aren’t informed? Then again, being informed just means you know that the government has done the worst possible job in preparing for this pandemic, and yet knowing that somehow people will forget and likely think the government did a good job, and then 20 years from now some other horrible thing will happen that could have been avoided and then people will once again forget…etc, etc, etc.

I’ve been thinking how it is rather relaxing to be stuck at home. Other violin teachers are saying how teaching online is so much more tiring that teaching in person, and I am not feeling that at all. I find it much easier. Then again, do I? Maybe if I were doing the exact same schedule and teaching in person I would feel even more relaxed…if I didn’t always have another gig to run off to, or a concert to play? But then again, I love playing. I miss playing. I also love going out and doing things, even though it can be tiring. I could spend the rest of my life doing a similar schedule to this, but I would feel that I was wasting my life, and I would feel that I was wasting my violin skills (and also the financial thing).

I suppose I should just focus on the positive here in order to stay sane (obviously there is mostly negative in this situation as people are sick and dying and others are struggling so much financially), and the positive is that Louie and I are having a bit more time to spend together and that I have a bit more time to cook and am having fun with that even if the ingredients are harder to come by, and that I am really getting a lot of relaxing in, to the point that I definitely am getting tired of having so much relaxing time, because it feels very lazy. But not only that, but I don’t want to look back on my life and say, oh it was great how I got to sleep in on the weekends and didn’t anything interesting or productive to society. So that’s why I do what I normally do, but…I suppose this is a time for respite.

I know I am all over the map here. It’s a tough time for us all, isn’t it? The constant anxiety and stress is really tiring as well, which might be why so many teachers feel more tired than usual. I’m generally pretty anxious and stressed, so that might be why teaching online is affecting me slightly less, but there is still a low-level anxiety present at all times. I worry about getting sick but I worry more about my loved ones getting sick. I worry about how long this will go on, and if large scale concerts will happen again this year or even next. I am accepting jobs for the late summer and fall, while thinking there’s a low likelihood that they will even happen. People talk of “going back to work” but I haven’t seen anyone really laying out a way to have large scale events while the virus is still a threat at all. And that means that musicians can’t go back to work any time soon…

So while things are stressful, a few fun things:

CATS!

Earlier in the week it was nice enough outside to have the window open.

A bird was sitting on top of the house.

The cats have been doing some parkour/MMA style fighting lately, but I think it’s all in good fun.

We’ve been doing takeout once a week (we figure yes, it is riskier behavior but we are doing our best to take precautions and feel it helps our mental health) and this was Friday night. Chile relleno from our favorite Mexican restaurant, Lily’s Mexican.

They even do takeout margaritas, with little bottles to all the alcohol later.

Oh, and in case you want to know which Cozy Mysteries I’ve been reading, I just finished the Hat Shop series by Jenn McKinlay, and am starting her Library Lovers series. I do a combination of library kindle with some purchases for my reading, always checking the library first. Lately Amazon has been offering $3 in digital credit for slower shipping so that helps out (normally it’s $1) and they often run other specials. (I share a prime account with Louie already.)

I’ll probably put out another video tomorrow, or do a facebook live soon. I’ve got a couple of pieces in mind, and I hope people are enjoying the videos. Comments are appreciated!

I’m getting my first grocery delivery from Schnucks tomorrow morning, if all goes well. I am conflicted on getting delivery, but I thought I’d give it a shot..if I don’t get some of the more important things I need (milk!)I’ll have to go in search of them later, but I feel fairly confident there will be options for the shopper tomorrow morning. Our imperfect foods delivery last Tuesday had some mixups and I’m still waiting to hear back from customer service about that (they’ve sent some automatic responses telling me they are swamped, which is understandable), but the produce part of the delivery was still good so I’ve got another order coming Tuesday for that (if they mess up the rest of the delivery again that will be telling). I feel like thinking about food and supplies is all consuming for me, but I also think I’m using this as a way to control my anxiety, so I’m just going with it. I don’t know if food supplies will get better or worse so I’m just trying to do my best.

In any case, how are you all doing? Are you staying well? Having trouble getting basic supplies or doing just fine with that?

I’ve been reading some stuff lately about how the feelings many of us are going through is actually grief. I haven’t felt like I am allowed to feel upset by everything going on…after all, many have it worse! First off, the sick, and those around them. Then, the people who have lost their jobs entirely…and so on. Never mind that I’ve lost approximately 1/3 of my income, my favorite part of my career is completely gone for who knows how long, and all the fun things we were looking forward to over the summer, including a pretty remarkable trip to France…likely gone. And yes, others have it worse, and I know how lucky we are in my house to still have no issues paying the bills, to have a nice backyard, to live in a neighborhood where we can take a little walk around, and to have two adorable cats (well, this I’m not even working hard to boost up, I am thrilled.)

But the numbness I have been feeling the past two weeks or so…I find it moving into anger more often than I care to. Anger at our country’s leadership, or perhaps lack thereof. Anger, or perhaps jealously that I am somehow still working so hard during the week while so many seem to have oodles of free time. Anger that I’ve absolutely lost every gig and event and so has every single FREELANCE musician, but I only read about orchestral musicians in the news, or successful artists who are having to give free online concerts to sell their CD’s rather than a national tour.

I try to focus on the positive (weekends off! more time to cook! I’m only working 35 hours a week instead of my usual 50!) but then I take up all my extra time with worry and reading news. I realize those things aren’t necessarily productive but they happen anyway. I’ve also been spending more time exercising and reading, and those are good things. And we’ve had more online family chats than ever before because ordinarily it would be extraordinary to have a time that all of us were at home and available, and now it is commonplace.

How are you dealing? Do you also suffer from guilt of feeling down about how things are yet knowing that you are actually doing just fine and shouldn’t be upset?

Oh, and this extra cat hammock is just from Amazon. It was fairly easy to put on the tree…if you are handy.

We did get takeout from our favorite Mexican place on Friday night, went hiking Sunday morning at Greensfelder Park (it wasn’t too busy, but we did make an effort to get there by mid-morning to avoid potential crowds and planned to go elsewhere if it seemed too busy), and did some gardening as well. For the garden I’m working on getting our garden beds back into order—they go along the edge of the yard and there is a brick border but it was pretty buried so we had to dig it out first. Next weekend we will likely finish weeding and start preparing the ground for planting.

Today, as every day this week, is full of online lessons. I’ve been using Zoom, Skype, and Facetime with varied success. Sometimes I wear headphones and other times I don’t. Sometimes it works really well and other times it doesn’t. That’s just about how things are going right now. I do find online teaching so far to be a little bit easier.  The kids stay focused more on the computer than they do in real life.  I think having a smaller area to look at for their lessons keeps them focused more, and of course they love screens! Thank goodness for technology in these difficult times.