I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and bullet journaling lately and really trying to figure out my next steps. I’m not talking about anything drastic (or am I) but more like, how do I keep the good stuff from this pandemic time of life? In other words, do I want to return to the gigging life that I was doing before, or do I want to just focus on my teaching?

So many of my colleagues have expressed their sorrow and dismay at missing playing music together, and maybe I’m just already so jaded and dead inside (half kidding), but I don’t miss it. I miss seeing people, oh for sure, but I don’t miss the supposed joy of music-making.

I have always been a great lover of playing in a large ensemble/orchestra, and I can remember the feeling of being onstage for my first youth orchestra rehearsal, and my first All-State Orchestra rehearsal, which were my earlier orchestral memories. And so many times since then, I loved playing some fantastic pieces for orchestra, and I had so many wonderful opportunities to perform with terrific musicians and loved so much of it!

But the drudgery was also there, and what was supposed to be a dream job, playing in an orchestra full-time, just wasn’t. It was drudgery, it was something I didn’t look forward to and ultimately, something I dreaded. But I continued seeking great experiences and while freelancing in Cleveland I found some of the joy of playing orchestra again, but also so much of the drudgery.

I’d thought when I moved here to St Louis that I would have a similar experience with orchestra, where it was a lot of fun but also not as fun, but it turns out that instead it was too far to drive to play with a group, and the local group wasn’t interested in me because I had the wrong teacher, and then after that because I was divorced from a member of the group, and so then here I just sat. I played a lot of chamber music, which was often rewarding enough, but it has never been my great love. It’s too dependent on personalities, and I often feel like it’s just an extension of what I do with kids all day long…I teach so much that I’d love to just make music instead of having to convince people how to do something or spend too much time figuring out what’s going wrong and having it be so dependent on me.

I think, perhaps for string players, some of the appeal of orchestra is NOT having to figure out the problem, to just being able to show up, do your best, and let somebody else tell you what to do. Granted, the appeals of orchestra are the same things that cause the difficulties and the drudgery, but it is nice, as an adult, to have a time where things are just not your responsibility. Chamber music never has that, and while that’s also a net positive, it’s tiring.

I have spent so much of my adult life pushing myself to work longer, to work harder, to hustle, to network. And then the pandemic hit, after I felt I was really getting somewhere here, and all the playing work disappeared. And then I just waited, and I taught, and then I realized, oh, no, plenty of people are doing outdoor work, but not me. It didn’t matter, absolutely none of the things I’d done over the past years mattered, and I was absolutely alone in my career. There was nobody who had my back or cared if I ever worked again.

That might sound harsh, but it really is true. There are some musicians who recommend me and call me for this or that now, and some excellent church music directors that I am glad to work with, but nobody really cares. Why should they? If I never perform on violin again, I don’t think anybody apart from my mom will miss it.

So where does that leave me? One, it tells me there is no point is trying to take a whole bunch of jobs in order to end up with the ones you enjoy. No job seems to lead to another job, it’s all negated here in St Louis by the fact that I am not from here anyway, so I might as well only take the specific jobs that I want in the moment and say no to any others. I’ve tried taking all the jobs, and that made people angry. I’ve tried being loyal to certain groups, and that didn’t earn me any points, and I’ve tried taking only the jobs that don’t conflict with other jobs…and it all ended up with nothing. So I think I’ll take jobs I want to do, and mostly not take anything that conflicts with my current teaching schedule.

As far as teaching, I have a busy but manageable schedule as it stands. I don’t think I should take any new students at the time as I’m adjusting to my new morning schedule, haven’t lost any students yet going into January, and don’t know how many college students I have. I may be teaching an ensemble in person at one college, and I’ve added two group classes in improvisation/Creative Ability Development per week, which I’m looking forward to. I have enough going on, probably more than enough, and I need to consider getting back into a practice routine again.

I’m also continuing playing with my band and we are looking to replace Meghan (who moved to Germany) with somebody else, and fingers crossed that continues to be fun. I don’t always love it, especially  not when I’m tired and overly busy, but I’ve enjoyed the music making and the improvisation that I’ve been pushed to do, so it’s a good thing to keep doing. I’m also happy to play some more serious concerts, and I would love to play some shows at the Fox again if and when traveling shows start traveling again (it makes me crazy busy but the pay is great and I really do enjoy it.)

So there are my thoughts on a Sunday morning. I’ve learned over the years that a career is everchanging, and often I think I’ve got things figured out and it turns out either than I don’t, or maybe I did and then things changed. I also find that things tend to work out well enough if you are willing to work hard, and that has continued to stay true throughout all my career changes.

This isn’t a career change, but a mindset shift. I don’t need to operate my career from a scarcity mindset anymore. I’m not desperate for cash, I just need to maintain a steady income like most people, and want to do that in the most fulfilling way.

The last thing I really started thinking about recently was that I have spent too much of my career worrying about what other people think and letting what they think about my career dictate my choices. Nobody cares, except when they are judging what you do, right?Musicians always think their way is best and that people going a different way are wrong or inferior. I’ll just do my thing.

Things are always changing. Every year things look different, and I’m always adding and subtracting. The title of this post says “figuring it out” but of course I haven’t figured it out, but I’m always trying to

These are stressful times. Here we are, living through this pandemic, over 200,000 Americans have died, and others act like everything is fine and it is all overblown. Every day we are bombarded with more bad news about what our government (though I’m not sure we should use the word “our” anymore, since most of the so-called elected officials act on their own behalf and did not receive as many votes as other officials—I’m talking about the fact that the president didn’t win the popular vote, that most Senators represent a smaller amount of people than they should in a democracy), but every day like I said, more bad news. People being killed by police and shot by vigilantes, people dying of a disease running rampant, women getting hysterectomies in prison camps without knowing they would be r why, a president saying he won’t step down and doesn’t think the ballots should be counted, and the GOP just not caring and being fine with it if it means they can stay in power in order to force their will on us all.

So yeah, I’m a little anxious. I did a “yoga for anxiety” video yesterday but it didn’t really take. I suppose I’ll have to try again, but it seems like, I shouldn’t try to just calm down and act like everything is okay. It’s not okay. I run errands feel like every time I enter a store I’m entering a potential hazardous waste area. Louie goes into work and has to constantly worry about getting too close to the students and how long he is in a room with how many. He can’t just heat up his lunch at the kitchen and eat there, he has to go back to his office and eat alone so he can safely remove his mask. It’s all a whole bunch of little things that add up to constant, never ending stress.

So how are you all doing? I said to an adult student last week, “oh, hanging in there,” and she said, oh you know when a midwestern says “hanging in there” they are on the edge!

But let’s see. Not everything is bad. If I pretend that it is totally normal that you wear a mask everywhere, many of your neighbors think fascism is a-okay and that Black lives don’t actually matter, that it’s okay that we are at what, 10 percent unemployment including my sister being at full unemployment, my other sister being somewhat unemployed…that’s just in my immediate family.

Like I said, nothing everything is bad. My new job is fun. It would be even more fun in person, the way it should be, where I teach kids to play the violin where I can see them and hear them NOT over the internet and NOT at their homes where they are sitting at couches and where they have to be muted most of the time and I can’t really see if they are paying attention and I can’t really see if they are totally disengaged and I can’t really hear if they are playing. I can’t imagine doing this all day long, I teach for 30 minutes and I’m just overcome with WHY was this on the back burner for the US? Why didn’t they keep bars and restaurants and such closed, and prioritize opening the schools, and hire even more teachers and really put money towards the education of our children? Oh, because we don’t care. We don’t care about chidren, we don’t care about the poor, we don’t care about anything or anybody except ourselves. We couldn’t pay people to stay home in order to get kids back out into schools so they could learn and be engaged and be outside of their homes. And yet people are saying, open the schools, and maybe we will open the schools, but it would be the way we opened restaurants. We didn’t open bars and restaurants because it was safe. We didn’t see how many people could actually fit into each one and how many cubic feet of air there was and determine what the airflow would be. They just took the fire safety numbers and divided them up and said, okay, go ahead, who cares if you get sick, you’re on your own. And I fear we will do the same with schools (and I know some are open) and that people will say, oh who cares if teachers get sick, they signed up for this, just like apparently they signed up to get shot and to get denigrated by society and get paid very little while working all summer long to prepare for this fall of having no idea what would happen and working all weekends.

That’s where I am. This week has been very hard, mentally. I have gotten used to getting up earlier. I’m enjoying teaching the kids, though I feel like it isn’t real. I’m enjoying learning from some more online seminars I’m doing, and I’m working on some pieces to record for an upcoming concert.

Oh, and Sunday afternoon I’m playing a benefit concert with my band, to benefit the Oregon Food Bank (Michael is from Portland and we wanted to help out people affected by the fires). It’s in person (socially distanced, please) outdoors but we will also livestream it. It is always good to do things to help other people, and I hope you can attend virtually and donate as well.

I’m pretty tired, I guess, for being used to getting up early. I am feeling pretty burned out already, and maybe that’s because not having very much true human interaction other than Louie is a bit difficult. I see people all day long online but it’s all very superfluous and tricks my brain! I also just need a nice weekend to relax but I keep having commitments as always…I suppose you can’t teach old dogs new tricks (I’m the dog in this analogy). But this weekend is mostly free, except for Saturday morning and the benefit concert, so it should be relatively relaxing.

I’m sorry but not sorry to be so cranky and political. I should try to avoid the news I think, but it’s hard to do so. It’s also hard to pretend everything is fine when my life is so different because of COVID and the horrible lack of response by the government (and our governor and his wife have it now…the unelected governor who refuses to even encourage people to wear masks…has COVID. Not shocking in anyway.)

Okay, a few positives: the cats! How cute are they? They are enjoying this open window weather (as I am) and since I’m home all day I can just leave the windows open and let the house air out. The cats enjoy me being here too, though I suspect they take it for granted. I still can’t believe Miles was lost for 11 months!

Suddenly everybody is saying this, and it’s great and terrible. It’s terrible it has taken us so long to do so, and it’s terrible we have to. I have been afraid, and then I was reading something about if white people are afraid to speak because they are afraid to say the wrong thing, then imagine being a Black person, the fear they live with. But it’s great that we are talking now, and that more and more people are realizing that things aren’t equal.

So I’m sorry. I support the protests: I think they are wonderful, though I’m scared for the people. I think that the police need to stop murdering Black men and women. Police brutality is a terrible problem, and I see so much of it on twitter these days in the protests, and I realize it’s been going on this whole time, but now I am really seeing it clearly. I’m scared for our country (especially since the president is going full fascist calling in the military and nonviolent protestors are being gassed for photo ops), but I’m hopeful. I am thinking about my own life and how I treat people, and things that I’ve learned in the past and things that I know now, and thinking about how I can do better to fight against systemic racism and to be part of the solution.

So if I’m saying the wrong thing, so be it. Others have said things far more eloquently than me, and that’s great. I’ve been reading and trying to learn. I’ve been contacting my congressmen and I’ve been donating. This article gives some great places to donate, if you are able to do so, but there are many. Look around. Support Black-owned businesses (I read that you should capitalize Black which is why I’m doing so, I hope that’s correct) in your local town or city. Protest if you feel you can and do what you can.

I have to consider other things too…how do I perform more music by Black composers and how do I work with more Black people and how do I deal with the fact that I work in a predominantly white field with concerts primarily attended by white people and play for organizations that are run by people who make racist statements? How do I reconcile all of this for myself, and what do I do to change things from my position? This is all stuff I’m pondering, and I don’t want to just move on when things die down and then get bogged down with life again, as has happened over and over again.