In the spirit of 9/11 I am reflecting on how our nation and ourselves have changed since then. I wrote a few more paragraphs about this all, but I deleted it, because everything I wrote sounded angry.

That’s how I feel about my country right now: angry. Gun violence is out of control. We are headed towards a recession. White supremacy terrorism is on the rise. We are locking up immigrants and immigrant children in cages and refusing them basic care. If you’re not angry, as they say, you’re not paying attention.

And maybe that’s the best way to cope. It’s too easy to get overwhelmed by all the bad news. It’s much easier to just focus on our own lives and our much smaller problems, and deal with those. I waffle back and forth…do I spend time calling and contacting my representatives? How much money should I give to this or this other cause? How much should I just focus on my own relationships and family?

I don’t have a ton of free time, as you know. In some ways I’d like to be more involved, but so often that seems to be a weekend thing for various groups and I am either working on the weekends or it’s the only time Louie and I have had all week to hang out. People talk about self-care and such, and it really is an important thing to do.

(cats don’t worry about self-care)

I guess I’m saying, I wish I could do more to change the world. I am settling for what I can do: teach people to play the violin, one person at a time. Sometimes I feel guilty because I’m teaching people of privilege to play: private music lessons are something that people really struggling to pay bills don’t do. (I have a facebook friend with a non-profit who works with kids from less fortunate areas on violin lessons, and I think that’s really cool.) But that doesn’t take away from the importance of music lessons, and how I can impact their lives, and I tell myself that this is important. We musicians always like to overstate our importance to society, but society always likes to understate the importance of teachers to society.

I’m rambling now. I should drink a bit more coffee and go for a run. I am perhaps currently the world’s slowest runner and people might say, just run faster, but you know what, that’s really hard. 

(We have another CD release concert this weekend. Follow this link to hear some of the music. )

I’m getting a flu shot this morning as well. I feel like it’s maybe too early, yet I had a student telling me that she had the flu during the week, and whether or not that’s true (she wasn’t officially diagnosed by a doctor or anything) I don’t want the flu.

And truth be told, sometimes I don’t know if violin lessons matter or anything. But mostly the kids enjoy them, and that’s probably enough!