I saw something on a friend’s facebook page today—it was a wonderfully written post about the Boston attacks…it was very long and both personal and not personal. And ended with this sentence, which I thought was exactly what I’ve been thinking…

“When a major street in a major city in this country is closed for a week, not just because it is a crime scene, but because they have to remove the blood and body parts from the sidewalks, then maybe it is simply time to condemn ALL violence everywhere, unequivocally, and leave it at that.”

I was reading something a few weeks ago (maybe more) and the author was talking about how movies with sex scenes are rated more harshly than movies with extreme violence. And to her that is crazy—that an act of love between two people is considered something children shouldn’t see, but ridiculously graphic acts of violence, not as big of a deal. (Yes, I said “act of love”. Don’t mock me.)

Just more random thoughts! I’ve been feeling really on edge all week. I’d love to come here and post a picture of my oatmeal and coffee and chicken that I ate (and my instagram followers have seen those things!), but it all seems so TRITE and ridiculous.

But I challenge you to take what I said in my last post and really think about it. I don’t ask much of my readers, so this is important.

“What if, though, what if, we all tried our hardest to relate ANYWAY? What if, when something like this happened to people that we felt we had nothing in common with, nothing we could even relate to, except that we are all HUMAN…what if we felt as strongly every time? What if we tried our hardest to want the best for people not only just like us, but utterly unlike us? Just by virtue of them being people?”

Maybe music will save the world. It saves me all the time. I got this just the other day and I’ve been really enjoying it while driving around. Bill Preucil was my teacher for graduate school (and I still consider him my teacher—if I ever refer to my violin teacher, present tense, that’s who I’m talking about) and to me there is nothing more beautiful than hearing him play. We all need more beauty in our lives, I think.

I should probably leave this post with a funny picture. Sunday night we had people over to watch the Master’s. I guess one of our friends put his beer in the freezer to chill it and then forgot. I like the name of the beer. Sunday night was simpler, wasn’t it?

I have so many thoughts about what happened in Boston…it’s hard to wrap my brain around them and write or even think coherently. So I’m not going to do that. I’ll just say some random thoughts, because that’s what I do best, and that’s how I’m feeling.

We all feel more strongly when something like this happens on our soil. It’s different when it happens overseas, because then it’s happening to “someone else.” Here, it’s US citizens, families, runners. And people can relate more. What if, though, what if, we all tried our hardest to relate ANYWAY? What if, when something like this happened to people that we felt we had nothing in common with, nothing we could even relate to, except that we are all HUMAN…what if we felt as strongly every time? What if we tried our hardest to want the best for people not only just like us, but utterly unlike us? Just by virtue of them being people?

I got an email notification of a comment to moderate on a post I wrote in December after the shootings in Newtown, which reminded me of what a wonderful quote from Dr King I found that helped me at that time.

I think it definitely applies here as well. Let’s not add more violence to the violence.

After learning about the explosions the other day, I had to pull myself together and teach violin lessons.

Music brings people together—people from all walks of life and all backgrounds. As Pablo Casals once said, “Maybe it is music that will save the world.”

My thoughts go out to all the people affected. It’s an awful time.

Life is hard.

That’s what they tell you anyway. Life isn’t fair.

The older I get (and I know some of you scoff at me saying I’m old, but HEY it’s all relative…) the more I realize that’s true.

But you know what. As much as you disrespect my profession…and YES most people do–(At a wedding gig once, “can you play, get a real job?” “I guess you must really like the…flexibility…” “I played bassoon in high school so I could do your job.”)—but

As much as you disrespect my profession, I don’t sit around wondering if I’ve made a difference in the world.  I know I have. I’ve had over 100 students over the years.  I’ve made a difference to all those kids…some more than others. Some will probably remember our violin lessons for their entire lives, and that’s amazing. And a lot of those kids are amazing too and I will remember THEM for the rest of my life.

I also don’t sit around wondering what the meaning of life is. Beyond being “42”…(Hitchhikers’ Guide reference, of course.)

I mean really. Once you’ve played Mahler 2 and Mahler 3, you don’t ponder the meaning of life anymore. You know. You’ve experienced it. Or late Beethoven quartets. Or the opening of the Brahms violin concerto. I could go on.

Maybe I’ll never be rich. Maybe I’ll never even really be happy (because, I’m an artist…I can’t actually be HAPPY because that would be against my grain…against everything I STAND for…I have to be an overly dramatic, narcissist, tortured soul…)…but I won’t wonder about the meaning of life, or wonder if I’ve made a difference to the world.

I know the world is a better place because I play the violin.  I know that the world is a better place because I teach people to play the violin.

You can look down on musicians. You can pretend we are stupid, or frivolous, or that what we do is irrelevant.

But I know better. I know what I do is one of the most important things in the world. I know that I make the world a better place, and that the world is a better place because people make music.

And don’t tell me about my gifts…and my talents. I worked hard to get to where I am. I sacrificed more than you can ever know (unless you are also a musician), and yes…the violin will never love me back the way I love it.  But that’s okay, because my husband understands too.

It’s not a gift or a talent. It’s just…

The only reason to hang around this world, right? And if you’re not a musician or an artist…don’t you listen to music an awful lot anyway? Most people seem to.

All day today I kept thinking it was Friday. That’s probably because I’m not teaching tomorrow and I just have a noon time gig.  But it was weird, because I kept thinking of emails I wanted to get sent before the end of the day because who checks their email over the weekend, right?

Now, to be fair, I do. I have to, otherwise some people get annoyed if I don’t respond right away. But other people take the weekends off. And let’s not get started on the people who call in the late afternoon and then tell me to call back in the evening and then call again the next morning wondering why I didn’t call.  Gee, I couldn’t have been busy until late the night before.  No way.

Where was I? Oh right. Emails.  Friday. But it’s actually Thursday, in case you weren’t aware (though we are just three short hours away from Friday so there’s that.) Tomorrow is a big deal: Chris’s parents (that would be my parents-in-law) come to visit for approximately six days.  We have dinner reservations at Trattoria Marcella for tomorrow night and I’m really looking forward to it. Other than that I don’t know what we’re doing while they are here.  I’m back to work plus extra gigs starting Saturday so I’ll be counting down the weeks until June now…

This morning I played for a funeral of a man I didn’t know. (This happens when you are a musician. Yes, I can play the violin while crying, thanks for asking.)

I’ve started reading “The Still Point of the Turning World” by Emily Rapp. It’s a fantastic book, written by a woman who lost her baby to Tay-Sachs disease—one of those genetic diseases you learn about in high school biology but statistically figure would absolutely never affect you or somebody you knew.

The other day on NPR Terry Gross was interviewing Emily Rapp and what made me want to get her book was that she said something about how grief and loss are just as much a part of the human experience as happiness and joy—in fact, we are all going to die, and we are all going to lose people we love and people we know, and no one is immune to it. That really spoke to me.

This morning during the funeral I was thinking about that—how the speaker who basically my age, was  eulogizing his dad who died of pancreatic cancer (after a THREE YEAR FIGHT!!!) It could have been me giving the eulogy…this (barring illness or accident) will be me someday (hopefully not for a long time, I’m not wishing anything here of course!)—someday I too will be giving a eulogy for a parent—or sitting in the pew with my siblings watching another sibling do it.

And of course I cried along with the speaker. Nothing makes me cry more than when a guy is crying.

Anyway, the thing Emily Rapp was saying was, people say, oh I’m so blessed or I’m so lucky, and she doesn’t think that’s true. We all experience loss and grief, but that doesn’t mean we don’t also lead full, rich lives that are full of love. No one escapes this.

I know I went from “it feels like Friday, why do people keep calling me?” to “Hey who’s going to die of pancreatic cancer next”…but that’s life isn’t it?