Some people say it doesn’t matter what day it is. I guess I should be grateful that my students keep me grounded. I need to know what day it is so I know who to call when.

Normally this would be a very busy week, full of church services. I still have them in my calendar, I guess so I can see what I lost. It’s not only the money, it’s actually quite a lot of fun to play where I’ve been playing the past few years—doing a few nights in a row with some of the same musicians gives a real sense of camaraderie and makes life feel different from the normal day-to-day.

We are doing (I think!) an online Seder with Louie’s family tomorrow night. I guess the advantage of not having as much work is that I am more available for things. The disadvantage is that we are just at home all the time, obviously.

I did end up deciding to do my own grocery shopping yesterday instead of having it delivered. I got to choose my own items that way. There was no toilet paper, but there were paper towels and a large variety of pasta. I wore an old surgical mask we had on hand and I hated it the whole time, which made me hurry home.

I made a video yesterday of myself playing one of my favorite movements of solo Bach. It feels intimidating putting these things out there: it’s the feeling of “I’m not good enough to share with my facebook friends” in particular, but I want to continue to share my music and I want to continue to push myself and do things that are difficult beyond simply going to the grocery store.

Here’s the video. 

I’m also enjoying watching everybody else’s videos and things they share online. It makes us all feel connected more in these difficult times. Every time I start to feel okay something will remind me that I’m not and that we aren’t. All of this most likely could have been avoided, and yet here we are. Struggling at home, struggling to get basic supplies, people refusing to stay at home and putting more at risk, grocery store workers who are typically maligned as unimportant putting themselves on the line to earn their hourly pay which obviously should have been higher this whole time, doctors not being provided with proper protective gear because our government is too busy buying it to sell it to middlemen who then make hospitals and states bid for it at a higher price…the whole thing seems surreal and unreal and all of those things and here we are, just stuck at home for who knows how much longer.

They officially canceled the Paris conference, which wasn’t a surprise. I think how 6 weeks ago we were just looking forward to things this summer…and people in government did nothing to mitigate the threat coming our way, except for those that sold stock and bought other stocks in order to financially capitalize on their knowledge. But other than those people, others did nothing, and others did worse than nothing, such as our loser president, who lied and minimized the threat in order to what, make more money and gain more power? In order to try to get re-elected, or to “stick it to the libs” or what? Someday historians will look back on this time and see what could have been different, but we are living it, and even living it we see what could be different, but instead it is how it is.

This should be a week to be looking forward to summer, to be enjoying the fine spring weather, to enjoy dinner on a patio at a nearby restaurant, to be planning a wonderful summer of travel to various places and to see family members, to be counting down the weeks left in the semester until my schedule frees up, but knowing that this hard work now pads my bank account to make it through the lean summer months and to be able to afford a vacation and the time off that takes since I don’t get paid to not work. All the people who canceled their weddings, all the church services canceled, the concerts, etc, canceled. Nobody pays the freelance musicians for not working.

If you are reading my blog you might think I am angry all the time. I’m not, but I’m angry now. I let it go and go about my day. I’m making baba ghanoush today. I’m going to work out. I have a few hours of teaching (well, that’s even an understatement), and we will eat a nice dinner and watch an episode or two of Ozark afterwards. But that’s not what I want to do every night. To me, that isn’t a life well lived. I don’t want to spend every night, every day, every weekend at home. We are all making sacrifices. I had so many concerts I was looking forward to seeing, to playing…it’s all gone now. I suppose this will pass, but when? We are so looking forward to seeing Hillary Hahn with the SLSO this September—will that be canceled? Likely: how can we have large gatherings of people then, without a vaccine? I think of trump saying “what have you got to lose?” Little did we realize (well, many of us did realize, but we didn’t specifically imagine this) that what we had to lose was more than simply our lives, it was everything about life than made it worth living. That’s what we have lost lately. And yes, I know people are sick, and don’t you worry, I’m angry and worried about that too, more and more. So many have been sick and so many have died and more will and it is just absolutely horrifying and terrible.

I stopped there for a few hours and took a break. I did a video workout. I made baba ghanoush and roasted some tomatoes for a salad for later. I took a short walk around the neighborhood and read a book during lunch. I taught one student and now have a bit of time before the rest of my teaching day continues.

It’s hard to deal with all the emotions we go through on a daily basis. I know I need to read less news, but I keep thinking, well, I need to be informed…if we are stuck at home indefinitely I owe it to myself to know what’s going on. But the truth is, it’s all very upsetting, and yes, contrary to what many have said in the past, this all does affect our daily lives in a negative way and there’s no avoiding it. But whether this person was fired, or this person knew and sold stock, or this person is abusing the office of the presidency for personal profit and a whole bunch of people are allowing it…at this point it doesn’t affect my day to day life. My day to day life is what it is now, and what can affect it is my attitude. I was reading a bit of a blog post by Gretchen Rubin of the happiness project about writing a letter to yourself to be read after this is over about what you’ve accomplished. I know many are struggling with being laid off or dealing with kids, or of course, are sick or have loved ones who are. But it’s easy to say, oh, we are in a pandemic, I might as well not work out or eat vegetables because this is a stressful time. And the truth is: life is full of stressful times. Yes, nobody will care if you lost or gained five pounds when you are dead. But what if how you treat your body right now means that you might live longer? Or that the life you live is of a better quality because of decisions you make now? So that is keeping me on a good workout regiment (after all, I often postponed things because I didn’t have the time, and I have time for a lot of workouts on most days now) and we are trying to eat a lot of good healthy foods. I keep thinking there might be a time we can’t get good fresh vegetables and fruits and so we keep eating more of them than ever. And then at the end of the night, maybe I’ll have a treat—a piece of chocolate, a glass of wine, and that might be a bit more often than normal, but the day’s activity and diet allows for it. We are eating out less, we are eating healthier than ever (and better tasting), and I am moving a lot more than I often am able. I will come out of this stronger and healthier than ever, and that’s my hope. I also hope that if I catch Covid that I am in a healthy place to fight it off. Yes, I’m anxious and prone to get depressed, but I’m always anxious and prone to get depressed, so I am well equipped to deal with actual adversity in my life.

I am excited about dinner, and I’m excited to see my Tuesday students. I find teaching online to be generally less stressful than teaching in person. I don’t have to worry about people coming to my house before I’m ready, or staying too long. Sometimes students show up really early and it interferes with my ability to get other things done. I ask them not to but often they do anyway. Now I just call them when it’s time! I have to think about how to continue my control over my schedule in the future…it really helps me relax when I know nobody is going to show up early, and while I know sometimes they need to use the bathroom or perhaps they want to unpack so they can be ready to start their lesson on time…maybe I just need to say, yes, you can come in 5 minutes early to unpack and such but absolutely no more than that under any circumstances, even if I’m already teaching and if they do, charge them for the extra time? What would you do? With online teaching, these stressors are gone. I like to have my schedule set and then be able to transition from what I’m doing before I teach (often practicing, but sometimes eating lunch or trying to do household chores, running errands, or commuting) and worrying about being interrupting OR being interrupting ruins this. And yes, I have asked people directly not to come in early, and for the most part, this doesn’t work either. So that’s another reason I find online teaching to be less stressful. The other reasons I am not sure why, I just find it easier. It’s easier to keep the student’s attention, and like I’ve said, it’s likely that the rest of my schedule is much lighter so I’m just not as tired and worn out as usual. It’s an odd combination of feelings: far less work stress yet far more financial stress and worry about the general state of the world, plus the worry about the virus!

Anyway, this post has gone on long enough, I’m sure. I don’t even have any good cat pictures to add, so I’ll just sign off. Thanks for reading my ramblings!

I find my emotions are all over the place. I assume that’s the new normal. I woke up this morning feeling okay…yesterday I woke up really stressed and cranky, but I was nervous about going to the grocery store.

Simple things have changed, haven’t they? One day we will look back and wonder how we made it through. I wanted/needed (it wasn’t a need in that we were literally out of food, but there were a lot of specific things we hoped to get ) to go to the grocery store, so I planned to go around 9 am on Monday hoping it wouldn’t be too busy. I was correct, and the store was even well stocked! The last time I went to the store two weeks earlier I had been taken aback by wide expanses of empty product sections, empty pasta aisles, empty toilet paper aisles, etc. This time there were empty shelves here and there still, but mostly they had everything one might need. They even had some toilet paper at the time, which made me feel more positive.

I bought hopefully enough to avoid the store for another two weeks—we’ve been getting stuff delivered as well from Imperfect Foods, and we did Blue Apron last week, so we have no shortage of anything. I’ve been doing a small amount of what some might call hoarding but others would call preparing for the worst as well, and hopefully we come out the end of this ready to go on a week long camping trip somewhere.

I spent the rest of the day teaching, doing a few videos for my students and one to share with the world, and trying to relax.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKtbjR4kJF0

There are a lot of unknowns right now, and it’s very hard to deal with. They say one should just focus on the day ahead, but if that’s the case, each day is just the same and drags on, and I guess that’s really the challenge. There’s nothing necessarily to look forward to: no vacations, no trips, no concerts…I guess I can look forward to the weekend for once, but to do what? They are even talking of closing State Parks since some were too crowded over the weekend, and then what?

As I was writing this, one of my twitter followers did something that has made my day happier. She left a tip in my paypal tip jar, and tweeted one of my videos—the one above, and now I am all warm and fuzzy and feel really grateful. I’m thinking of doing a longer “concert” perhaps streaming somehow. My brother-in-law has done a few cello live performances on facebook and I admire his nerve and the one I saw was quite entertaining, so maybe I can do something like that. I’d love to monetize it a bit, at least with donations requested (seriously, we may not have concerts again this year, who knows?) but I also just want to bring music to people.

In any case, I’d better get on with my day. Time to workout, teach, and practice a bit too. Today will be an okay day.

I can do this. Things are okay. I have a fridge full of fresh fruits and veggies—I have gotten two shipments from a company called Imperfect Foods, and we got a Blue Apron package this week. We keep eating meals full of vegetables under the idea that “down the road” we might not be able to, and honestly, it’s fantastic. We haven’t eaten so well in years, probably, because neither of us has had enough time to cook so much, and suddenly my weekends are just…free.

I’ve often joked that I’d make more money only teaching than playing other gigs. While it’s not true, especially in regards to shows at the Fox Theatre and such, it certainly makes me more relaxed when I’m only teaching and not worried about running off here and there. I’m hoping that Congress passes a stimulus bill that helps people out because then I will be less worried about my students dropping out due to being unable to pay. If people keep getting paid, they’ll keep taking lessons, and things will be okay, even if I’m just sitting all by myself in the room talking to a computer. Not to mention that will help everybody!

If not, I worry that over the next month or two students will start to leave lessons. It’s a hard enough time already without all of us worrying to death about money and health care.

But today I shall stay positive. It’s Wednesdays and things are going to be okay.

We added a new basket to the cat tree. It is popular.

Oh, and I made this video the other day. Enjoy!

How much difference a week or two makes. Two weeks ago (or more) I was commenting on people’s facebook pages that they weren’t thinking realistically that the virus wasn’t going to come here. And here we are, today, with a  shelter in place order going into effect on Monday.

I slept in this morning, then did a long video workout. I made potatoes and eggs for lunch, and the potatoes took much longer than anticipated, so we ate lunch late while chatting on facetime with my sister Leslie and her family. Then we went out for a walk in the neighborhood (social distancing of course, which meant that people were crossing the street to avoid one another) and then I had to record a video for my band: we were planning to meet this weekend to record a video for the Tiny Desk Concert, but instead are doing it piecemeal. Maybe it’ll work, maybe it won’t. It took awhile to figure out set up and then another while to get a take I was reasonably happy with. Music making is difficult in these times.

I feel like since I never leave the house to work, I’m constantly both at work and not at work. I told my students they can send me videos of practice for feedback and some have taken that to heart! I realize I’m lucky that I can continue to work from home and that so far my students seem to be happy to make the switch to online lessons.

I can’t believe it’s already past 6 pm and it’s time to think about dinner. We did get curbside takeout somewhere last night, and so probably I should cook tonight to save money. Then again, we want to support our favorite restaurants that are doing takeout/curbside service. Then again, does that actually spread the disease more? We get conflicting information from different sources…I guess nobody knows for sure? I wish we had some smart people in charge instead of what we have.

But these guys. They are really starting to be besties again. At least there’s that.

Some people are doing a good job keeping up on all the changes from day to day. I’m just struggling to get by—making the transition to online teaching, reading and responding to dozens upon dozens of emails about online teaching, about dealing with the restrictions the virus has thrown upon us…spending too much time reading the news and scrolling (this I need to cut down on)…it’s been a tough time!

I’ve made a document of all the gigs and concerts that I’ve lost so far. It’s been a lot, but I can power through. I’m missing playing though, and I’m debating whether doing a live stream “concert” would be something worth doing?

I’m lucky in that so far all of my private students are agreeing to move online, but the longer this goes on…how many of them will have to cut back on violin lessons as an unnecessary expense? Hopefully few and I can keep my hope up! I’m also teaching most of my college students in a similar way and honestly, it is almost as good as an in person lesson. You don’t need a lot of fancy technology, unless you don’t have a computer or a smart phone. People online will make you think you need a $400 microphone and expensive headset to make it work, but so far the biggest difference I’ve seen in my lessons seems to be the internet connection. I joined a few facebook groups for online teaching ideas, and one of the posts yesterday seemed to imply that you should make sure no one else was using the internet for streaming as it would slow down your connection. I thought that was hilarious because at my house I’m using video chat and Louie is streaming video and using video chat for his job as well and we just have to deal.

I sometimes think maybe my students are just different than others…other teachers say, make them use zoom. I feel like if I tell mine to do something specific that will just make everyone give up. I asked mine to do what was easiest for them, and truly, everybody has different technology comfort levels. For instance, I was attempting to use bluetooth headphones yesterday and I couldn’t get them to work and so ended up hanging up on a student. Another student couldn’t get the video on skype to work and ended up having to use a different device. Some tell me they’ve never used video chat before and don’t understand it at all…I think the name of the game right now is making people feel as comfortable as possible so I’m teaching using a variety of platforms, and it seems to be working well enough. I won’t insist that their parents stop working remotely during the lesson even if it slows down the internet because that is (dare I say it) more important than the lesson. Music is important to life, but let’s not overstate the importance of a music lesson. I think it’s important for kids to keep things as normal as possible, and that it’s important to learn music, and if we are going to be stuck inside for awhile, we might as well keep going, plus it’s something to keep occupied with and take your mind off other difficulties. But I don’t care if the sound quality is a bit sketchy and if the student isn’t standing exactly in the right place. Maybe I need to step away from the facebook groups!

So how are we doing? Stressed and anxious…but doing okay. I’ve been eating well (we’ve been cooking up tons of vegetables) and exercising daily since getting back from Atlanta. I miss going out and seeing people—I never even thought of myself as that social but there’s something about feeling like you can’t do something that makes you especially miss it. I suppose our favorite activity to do was to go out to eat, to let someone else serve up the food, and we would eat it surrounded by other people chatting and hanging out. Who knows when we will get to do that again?

I am still holding out a twinge of hope that summer is better but I also know this could go on for a year or more, at least in some form. I have plenty of toilet paper because I stocked up before we went to Atlanta. Louie can do his job remotely, even if he also misses going to work and seeing colleagues and being around people (it’s the being around people, just generally, that really bugs me). I am lucky to have him, and I feel empathy for those that live alone and might feel especially lonely. I worry about the long reaching effects of social distancing. I worry about job losses, especially for the self-employed, and also for those with employers. In my field, most people have lost their work, so many if not most of my friends are affected. I have friends who are already on furlough from their jobs as well. We may not get to go to France, but it’ll be okay: we will go another time. Or we will still go…part of me still has hope that the scientists and doctors will figure this out really quickly!

I call this Day 5 because we drove back from visiting friends in Atlanta last Sunday, so this is Day 5 of teaching from home. The weird thing is that I actually have a weekend in front of me: with proper time off and everything, even though I didn’t ask for it and didn’t want it. We’ve decided to start a garden since I have the time, and bought things we needed earlier in the week. It’s been quite rainy this week but hopefully tomorrow we can at least start the weeding and redo the borders on the garden beds in the backyard (they used to have bricks lining them, but with the plumbing issue last year the backhoe ruined a lot of them).

It’s too bad we don’t have any leadership from the state or federal level in this crisis, but our city leaders have been doing well. We need more testing and we need help for people—I am a firm believer in straight up cash to help out, because what else will really do it? But our federal elected officials are more concerned with making profits and hiding the truth than actually helping people or avoiding a pandemic (horrible conspiracy theories involving the president either causing the pandemic for profit or, at a minimum, allowing it to grow for profit, start to feel more real when you read about senators having intelligence briefings, then selling stock and buying stock in companies that help you telecommute, and then telling the american people that the virus is under control or not an issue at all…it starts to make you think anything is possible with these horrible people in charge, who care only about their own personal profits).

I know I’m ranting, but this is my page to do so . And things are rough right now, for everybody. Don’t you wish we had a president you could trust was doing her (or his, I suppose) best for the nation, for everybody in it?

Anyway, what are your weekend plans? Are you going to work on your yard, if you have one? Binge watch TV? Rearrange your furniture? Watch live-stream concerts?