I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my chest. I know that times are still tough and we have to get through the next few months, and this is bad week for COVID cases, but I feel like maybe we can do something different in our country.

Fall is here, and it’s been a gorgeous month. Having more time to enjoy it on the weekends has been nice too.

The leaves are so gorgeous and the weather this past week has been unseasonably warm and wonderful!

COVID cases are bad here…I keep waiting for another shutdown. I’m already working from home still so hardly anything more can affect me, but Louie has been teaching classes in person. Exponential growth is a scary thing.

I do feel like the days are all the same though…I can’t decide what exactly I miss about my old life, but I miss it. I miss the freedom of it all the most. If everybody wore masks, we would get some of our freedom back, but that’s not the country we live in.

I thought about trying to book some sort of getaway for us over Thanksgiving, but if we are going to go somewhere and just be stuck avoiding people who aren’t taking the virus seriously I’d rather just stay home. I’m hoping the weather will be nice over Thanksgiving (it OFTEN is) as we have a couple of hikes further away that we might try. I also have a little more frozen fruit in the freezer that I want to turn into jam, and there are always baking ideas! There’s no shortage of things to do: my reading list is long, there’s plenty to do around the house, etc, but as far as things that take you away from the everyday…it’s harder. I just have to remind myself that I’m lucky to still be so busy with work, lucky to have a nice home to live in (not everybody would agree, but I like it), and lucky to have so many things to do.

I’m enjoying the semester for the most point: my new teaching position has given a focus to my days, and makes me get started really early in the day (class starts at 7:15 am) which means nights have gotten earlier as well. It works well, but makes some days long. At some point it will be in person rather than in my living room, but not this calendar year. And I had a great time teaching a tiny Improv/CAD class on Saturday, and plan to go to weekly classes in the spring.

This week I’m recording some music for a Christmas Concert, and I’m waiting to hear the final recording of the play I helped create music for last month. I also finally finished all my MMTA judging (so many fantastic student performances!) and I’m still participating in some teaching seminars. I’m getting tired of it all and need a break soon, so Thanksgiving can’t come soon enough. I’m not sure what we are doing, if we are going to just do Thanksgiving the two of us, and cook or order takeout dinner from somewhere, or try to do some sort of dinner with Louie’s parents where we mostly wear masks and stay far apart. We know just the two of us is the safest, but there are inherent risks in other activities, such as driving in a car for a three week road trip, and perhaps having a mostly masked dinner with a few other people who have also been being quite careful is okay? I also like the idea of getting a dinner from a restaurant and supporting them (I don’t want to make Thanksgiving dinner for two). 

What are you doing for Thanksgiving, do you know yet? How are you holding up?

Today I shall dedicate to good stuff happening in my life.

1) One of my high schoolers on Friday asked if I thought she was on track to go into music education with the goal of being a music therapist. She’s a junior, and I was excited to hear this. I hope I gave her a good answer, and I think I expressed that I thought she was on a good track though the more she practiced (more carefully) the better. She’s more of a fiddle player and we’ve been also working on theory and rhythm practice. I am excited about her future.

2) Today is my band’s benefit concert at 4 pm. We are playing a short set with another friend playing a short set to raise money for the Oregon Food Bank, in order to help people misplaced by the fires. Check it out, and even better, please donate if you can.

3) I had rehearsal yesterday (responsibly of course) for an upcoming recorded but “live” concert. It will air Sunday, October 11 at 4 pm CST and I recommend you watch. This is a concert that was supposed to happen in late March. It is nice playing with people again. Visit this link to see the information about the Couts Music Series, which I am thrilled and grateful my friend and colleague, Andy Peters, has  put together (with funding during these times.

4) I am so far quite enjoying my new early morning teaching job. I’ve sort of made two goals for the next few years and one is to improve my teaching and push myself out of my comfort zone in teaching, which I’m doing through this job and also starting an improvisation class.

My other goal is to be a more confident and creative musician, and playing with my band helps that (by creative I mean, not just playing the same old classical music and worrying about what some dot a composer wrote 200 years ago means) as well as a few other things on the docket. One is a potential opportunity I just found out about yesterday, and the other is a longer-term online course working with a teacher who has ten years experience teaching improvisation and Creative Ability Development to children in order to improve my own skills and my teaching skills.

I have realized I am a bit happier being out of the “rat race” of the freelance world….worrying about who was asking who to play what and how to stay on top of the list for this and that and worrying if you said no that they wouldn’t ask again. It’s exhausting and a bit soul crushing. I do enjoy playing violin, so much, and it’s great to get paid to do it, but I’m just tired of it. And it’s so nice to just finish teaching and then be done, or to have so much more time on the weekends. I enjoy being busy and doing a lot of interesting things, I don’t think I’ll ever be happy just sitting around all weekend or not feeling like I’m making a difference, but taking the ego out of it (freelancing and performing is SO MUCH about ego) is a happier way to be. I will never win the freelance game, because it’s sort of like the Game of Thrones, you don’t win, you just die. And then some weird person ends up on top after you’ve spend years and years practicing, being nice, showing up early, saying yes to things and missing out on so many other opportunities in life. I’m declaring myself officially out, and I will continue to play things if they seem interesting when I’m asked, but I’m not running around, I’m not saying yes for fear of not having another chance, and I’m not going to play things that make me feel bad.

5) We got delivery from Stone Soup Cottage with Louie’s family last night. It was delicious! It’s definitely expensive but delicious.

We have gone over to Louie’s family here in town for dinner a few times, and we eat out on the back porch at a socially distanced table. Otherwise we wear masks if we need to go in the house or move around. I don’t normally eat meat but occasionally make an exception.

I snapped a quick picture of the soup course. I had a small amount of red wine as it was the suggested pairing and it didn’t give me a headache at all today, which was good. I think I had about half a glass.

It was getting quite dark on the porch by the time we ate the pheasant, and then dessert was entirely too dark. It was all very tasty! I would recommend ordering from them for a special occasion. There were some things that needed to be heated up and some other things to be done, so it wasn’t a meal you can just unpack and eat, but it was fairly easy to do I believe, and the advantage is that everything is hot when you eat it as well, which is one of the problems with takeout. And did I mention it was absolutely delicious? They don’t do any dietary adjustments or substitutions to their menu, but if you are okay eating whatever is on offer (the menu is listed online so you’ll know) it is a wonderful meal.

6) I just made social plans with a friend for next weekend, just me and her! I haven’t hung out with anybody without Louie since before the pandemic. I love Louie and we are used to spending a lot of time together, but I do sometimes wish I had more of a social life without him, and I often feel we are too codependent. So yay! We also have dinner plans with another couple this weekend (at least tentative) and then I have a million other things to do work wise this week (all fun stuff, but there is practicing to be done.) All of this is good: it’s good to focus my energy on positive things rather than all the bad in the world.

If I were a superstitious person, I’d say it was a sign that yesterday was raining, but today was bright, sunny, and warm. As much as I enjoy sleeping in on a day off, I got up early and went downtown to march. Today was the Women’s March. To me the March was about equal rights for everybody and solidarity, for starters.

I didn’t make a sign. Maybe next time. I must admit, I have been upset, but I haven’t called my representatives. That will change. I get phone shy sometimes, but that’s no excuse. People were complaining that the March won’t change anything, that people can’t just march and expect change, that women wearing pink hats represents everything that is wrong with women, and that calling it a Women’s March excludes men. I think all of those things are wrong-in fact, the only complaint I heard that I might agree with is that more people of color weren’t represented. I wish I’d seen more people of color at the March, but I think we start here, and we hopefully get better. If women want to wear pink hats, they can. I was surprised by how many of my friends can knit! Louie wanted to go to the Women’s March, and if more women insisted on dating men who were strong enough to handle being around strong women, if more women and men raised men who were strong enough to handle being around strong women, well, then perhaps we wouldn’t be arguing that women’s rights ARE human rights. And I don’t know what will bring about change, but I am pretty sure sitting back and complaining about everything won’t. Plenty of us have already tried that, and look where we are. I think it’s time to try something new.

We marched up Market street for about a mile to near the Arch. Soon the construction will be done and we can march all the way to the Arch. It was a non-violent march, and the police were helpful with directing traffic, leading, and bringing up the rear. People had lots of great signs, and it was just great. I felt lifted up by all the positivity and hopefulness around me, and when the crowd started chanting “Yes, we can” I felt very emotional. Our current leadership won’t stop our message of hope. I know we will have some difficult times ahead, and that we have been through difficult times, and that many people have it much worse and much harder than I do, and part of my job is to help when and how I can. I felt that marching today was the least I could do. We saw one of our senators, Senator Claire McCaskill, marching too. It was a good day for St Louis.

This is where I live. Let’s keep working to make it better. I need to do more. I will do more. Will you join me? Who marched today?