Random thoughts: (as always)

I can’t believe it’s almost Thanksgiving! The weather has been so warm (hot, almost) that fall still seemed to be somewhere in the distant future. Between that, stress, being overly busy, suddenly I’m two days away from traveling and feel like I’m forgetting a million things.

This fall has been a unique time. I know everybody thinks they are super busy and stressed out (and if not, congrats!) and I’m no exception, but I think I’ve overdone it. I also think the added political stress hasn’t helped. I’m trying to work with that. Humor helps, as always. Alec Baldwin on SNL is a life saver to counteract it all, for instance.

I seem to only be blogging once a week, which isn’t great. It’s fine, but writing is a little bit of an outlet for me and I think I need to make a point to do it more often. I’ve been getting overwhelmed and frankly probably been a little depressed. I haven’t been running due to a variety of factors, including but not limited to hurting my other foot somehow (I came home from the August trip with a hurt right foot from a fall).

We did manage to get a lovely hike in yesterday at Greensfelder State Park though! One commenter asked me to rate my favorite hikes in the area, and I’ll have to think about that further, but I love Castlewood State Park, the Lewis and Clark Trail (must return and do the longer loop!) and we find ourselves at Greensfelder a fair amount too. There’s not a whole lot of gorgeous scenery there, but the fall colors are still nice, and now that the bugs are gone (fingers crossed at least, are they gone?) hiking in the woods is much more pleasant.

I have three more solo/chamber music performances this calendar year, so I’m practicing hard for those. I also have quite a few choral/orchestra performances and various other gigs, of course, as the holidays are here or at least approaching, and that means extra work (!!). I’m looking forward to having a little downtime over the winter holidays, doing some traveling, doing some relaxing, maybe some de-cluttering in the house, check shredding (this is an actual thing I have to do occasionally), who knows what else.

One thought: as a freelance musician and private teacher, I often feel like my fancy conservatory education has gone to waste. I see former classmates doing amazing things, playing around the world, playing with major orchestras, and then there’s me. But when I wipe my eyes, I see other classmates doing what I’m doing…it may not have the glory, but it is still a successful career in music. We are in the trenches so to speak, teaching the kids, playing for the people, and while our paychecks might be small (and many), we are still making the world a better place through music. This is my goal in life. I want to make the world a better place, and I must not let the lack of glory and public acknowledgement stop me from continuing to help kids love the violin, to make a newly married couple happy, to play to a small crowd at a local venue…

Music does bring us together. We attended a very full symphony concert Saturday night. The program was very emotional: a piece by John Adams written after 9/11 and Mozart’s Requiem. One of my students was singing in the choir for the Adams, which was really neat to see. I definitely was very emotional during the concert. It’s been an emotional time.

I am trying to make a dentist appointment but I guess shortly after open on Monday isn’t the best time. I was on hold for over 5 minutes before giving up. I gave up mostly because every few seconds there was a long beep. I can’t believe I made it 5 minutes, but I felt bad hanging up. My insurance is changing at the end of the year so I wanted to get another appointment in since I’ve paid for it! I’ll try again shortly.

Does anybody else keep a to do list on their phone? I put everything on there, and make sure to check it several times a day. I realized I went about a week without doing that (back the other week, post-election blues) but I’m crawling out further now, step by step. Life goes on, the resistance is not futile, and hey, there’s evidently a new Harry Potter movie? Is it good?