Author: admin

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One of my all-time favorite books is called Synonyms, Antonyms, and Prepositions (you’re welcome, Jeff!) and was written in 1896 by James C. Fernald, although I have the edition that was revised and expanded in 1947. In alphabetical order, Fernald thoroughly explores the shades of meaning embedded within everyday (in 1896) words and their supposed synonyms. To read an entry is to realize things you already knew but never could have said, as well as to learn about bygone usages and lineages of present-day implications. You instantly feel smarter and dumber.

Take, for instance, Fernald’s entry for Abhor. As with each word, he lists the synonyms first: abominate, despise, detest, dislike, displease, hate, loathe, nauseate, scorn, shun. He then works them into such brilliant paragraphs as these, reprinted here without permission. (Please–I would be so lucky to get in trouble for this.)

Abhor is stronger than despise, implying a shuddering recoil, especially a moral recoil. Detest expresses indignation, with something of contempt. Loathe implies disgust, physical or moral. We abhor a traitor, despise a coward, detest a liar. We dislike, or are displeased by, an uncivil person. We abhor cruelty, hate tyranny. We loathe a reptile or a flatterer. We abhor Milton’s heroic Satan, but we cannot despise him. We scorn what we hold in contempt; we shun what we dislike and do not want to meet; we abominate what we intensely loathe. If something disgusts us, makes us feel sick, it nauseates us.

To hate, in its strict sense, is to regard with such extreme aversion as to feel a desire to destroy or injure the object of hatred; properly employed it should be the strongest word for the expression of aversion, but it is often loosely used with no stronger meaning than to dislike, as well as for any other of the above words.

-Funk & Wagnalls Standard Handbook of Synonyms, Antonyms, and Prepositions by James C. Fernald

So yeah, people have been using “hate” incorrectly for at least a century. I don’t know what can be done in these hyperbolic times, but it makes you wonder what would happen if we all just took it down a notch to abhor.

According to the Myers-Briggs test I took when I was seventeen years old, I am equal parts thinking and feeling. This doesn’t mean what I think it means, but let me tell you what I feel it means.

The principal drama of my inner life seems to be the tug-of-war between my desire to burn it all the the ground and my inkling that perhaps I ought to first hear the establishment out. My strong gut feelings are almost constantly kept in check by my sense of responsibility to the amount of information that is available to me. Of course, the amount of information available to me is astronomical, but that’s never stopped me from feeling beholden to it.

On one hand, I recognize that my creative output is a natural outcome of this inner turmoil. Many of my projects (the Mozart Festival, So Hot Right Now, even Backyard Violinist) began with a synthesis of vast amounts of information–limitations, inspirations, conversations, and observations–which eventually led to a single idea that “answered” all of it. On the other hand, I sometimes wonder if my equal opportunity stance towards traditions, conventions, norms, advice, opinions, and suggestions only amounts to a whole lot of fool-suffering.

My gut says (quite often) that it’s time for a new way of doing things. My brain responds by saying that, if I ever want my work to be taken seriously, I need to first understand the system I’m throwing off. My gut counters by kicking and screaming. My brain settles the dispute by agreeing to do nothing. For now. Again.

But the most vehement of all the warring voices in my head is the one that assures me that the way things are done is just the way things have been done. That voice has guided me, however gingerly, throughout my entire life. It tends to win out. It’s just that I can’t seem to shake this little dog who’s trailing behind me and barking, “Hear them out! Learn their best practices! You could be wrong! What do you know, anyway?”

I’ve always thought I needed to either get rid of the dog or let it lead the way, but I’m starting to wonder if the dog might have to come along with me forever. If that’s the case, maybe it wouldn’t be a terrible idea to occasionally glance at whatever the dog is yapping at, perhaps even bending down to scratch its head and say, “thanks, little guy,” as long as I stand all the way back up and continue walking toward the horizon.

When doing the right thing isn’t even all that difficult, just do the right thing.

Life is full of gray areas and conundrums, and each of us is endowed with our own charming cocktail of weaknesses, failings, and blind spots, and sometimes doing the right thing requires heroic strength, courage, and sacrifice. But there are other times when it is obvious what we should do, and all it requires is that we briefly wiggle one toe outside of our comfort zone.

For all those times, just do it. She said to herself.

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I’ve decided that my sabbatical begins this week, but I’m still going to work, which seems to be confusing people. To me, it makes sense: if it’s possible to go on vacation and never truly leave work behind, I imagine it’s possible spend an entire sabbatical year scurrying around in the same mental ruts I’d hoped to exit. I can easily see myself remaining calendar-obsessed, task-oriented, ambiguously pressured to produce, and in near-constant mental rehearsal for future events.

Taking a year away from paid employment does not equal the cessation of necessity. There will always be tasks and appointments associated with the work I choose to do, owning a car and a house, having pets, being in relationship with family, friends, and community, and having a physical body. Taking a year away from my job gives me the opportunity to change the way I relate to these tasks, but it doesn’t guarantee that I will, which is why I’ve decided to take the training wheels off early and get used to thinking in a new way. Namely, to be more like the Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs and less like Pac-Man.

My m.o. is to chomp through tasks like Pac-Man. It is like a fun game for me. But I’ve heard about the importance of resting, so sometimes I stop chomping and just sit on the couch, jaw ajar, not chomping but ready to chomp, thinking thoughts like, “Whatever you do, don’t chomp!” This is not what they call deep resting.

I would like to be more like the fabled Goose. I’ve always thought of that story as a warning against greed and general human folly, specifically the exploitation of a precious resource, but perhaps it could just as easily be about exploiting ourselves. While we wouldn’t do anything so dramatic as cutting ourselves wide open, we are prone to frequent over-extraction of our own energy to the point of depletion.

I am realizing that I am both the slave master and the slave, the greedy men and the gold-laying goose. But I could never fault the goose for taking a rest, for taking her time, because I know that there are mysterious processes at work inside of her that I can’t see. I could never fault the goose for stepping out into the open air, maybe even taking a swim, after years of being cooped up in a stuffy barn with artificial light, formulated foods, and steroid injections. (Note: if you’re just tuning into this metaphor, I am the evil factory owner, not my employer.) I could never fault her for preening her feathers, blinking at the setting sun, and taking a nap. I understand that what she is doing while not doing anything is magical.

By the way, these golden eggs I plan to lay? I’m not talking about my magnum opus here. I’m talking about scooping the litter box. I’m talking about composing an email. I’m talking about making dinner. All of these tasks live inside of me already, right alongside my magnum opus, ready or not ready to come into the world. They are not an endless army of dots to chomp through on my way to nowhere.

“No one could fault the goose,” I say to myself as I take a deep breath and look up at the clouds; as I decide that a certain task can wait until tomorrow; as I peek out the factory door at the natural world that awaits me. It might not be as safe, but it is surely my home.

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You can support my writing, along with my other creative endeavors, by signing up for monthly donations of $5 or more. Thank you!

I’m at a point in my life. That much is obvious. Anyone who knows that I am taking a sabbatical from my job next year probably gathered as much. But what point am I at, exactly, and how did I get here?

Well, I’ll tell you. I am at a point in my life where I just want to see if it’s possible for me to live truly and honestly every day. To live fully, even. To live simply and generously, and at a human’s pace. To feel alive to my work, and to feel greater than it. To put 100% in and get as much out. To sink deeply into my contentment without fearing complacency. To shine as brightly as I want, to stand as tall as I am, and to take up as much space as I deserve.

I’m not saying I’m gonna do it. I just want to see if it’s possible.

As for how I got here, I suppose that would be a long story, one I’d rather write once I come out the other side of my little experiment, assuming I am victorious. But the short version is that I’ve tasted this life so many times over the years that I can no longer dismiss it as wishful thinking. That, and the curiosity is killing me.

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You can support my writing, along with my other creative endeavors, by signing up for monthly donations of $5 or more. Thank you!

I’m trying this new thing where I write some thoughts here every Thursday. This may be the first and last time it actually happens. For the last thirteen years, this blog has felt like the one place in the world where I can truly do whatever I want. I don’t have to conform to any particular expectations, don’t have to write about music, don’t have to write something that makes sense to everybody. It doesn’t have to be serious. It doesn’t have to be funny. It can be very long or very short. I can write once a year or once a week.

This is my happiest place, and I’m rarely here. That’s dumb.

My favorite thought today, the one I would most like to believe, is that everything is working out just exactly as it should, even when I make a stupid mistake, or someone lets me down, or I’m having a frustratingly unproductive day or week, or I can’t see a way out. This is been true before. The best example is a story that I guess I can’t really tell with all the pertinent details (ok so I guess I can’t do whatever I want), but the gist is that I found myself in a situation several years ago in which I needed to buy a violin, which, as a professional musician, is basically impossible. It’s one of the most ludicrous things in the industry; an instrument fine enough for the concert stage is unaffordable for those expected to buy them.

Even though I didn’t have the money, nor could I secure a loan large enough, I still went violin shopping up and down the east coast, hoping for a miracle. No miracles occurred, and what was even more discouraging, I didn’t like any of the instruments I tried. I spent my free time in those days shaking my fist at the universe and crying into my pillow.

Then, while in Albuquerque for a friend’s wedding, I visited the famed Robertson & Sons Violin Shop and instantly fell in love with a German fiddle from the late 1700s. But I still couldn’t buy it, so I had to leave my beloved violin behind in New Mexico. Less than a month later, a miracle did happen and I was able to bring my baby home.

Now here’s the thing: if the miracle had occurred a year earlier than it did and I’d had adequate funds available to me, there is a very good chance I would have settled for one of the east coast instruments that I didn’t really even like. And yet, if you’d come along during that year when I felt hopeless and ragey and told me not to worry because everything was working out exactly as it should…I probably would have literally growled at you.

I’m not espousing a philosophy of “everything eventually works out for everybody” because it obviously doesn’t, and I’ve long since unsubscribed to the idea that there is a Being behind it all who is consciously pulling the strings according to a master plan, but I do find it helpful–on days when I can’t find my foot pedal, or I can’t seem to get my act together, or my plans go up in smoke–to think that, perhaps, everything is working out just exactly as it should.

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You can support my writing, along with my other creative endeavors, by signing up for monthly donations of $5 or more. Thank you!

There have been a thousand moments, conversations, serendipities, and realizations that have led me to this point, this precipice where known meets unknown, but perhaps the most crucial one came about a month ago when it dawned on me that, as good as it feels to have someone else recognize your potential, and as alluring as the dream was of having such a person descend to the earth and give me a hot blast of confidence and/or a hundred grand to bring forth whatever it is that’s inside me, no one actually knows my potential nearly as well as I do because no one else can see to the far reaches of my inner landscape, and that therefore I am the most likely and qualified candidate to become that angel in disguise. It’s a pretty good disguise, you have to admit. Certainly fooled me.

Liberation is not always a pleasant experience; I felt my share of sadness when I laid this dream to rest, but doing so set me free because I was no longer waiting around like a goddamn damsel in distress.

A few dozen moments, conversations, serendipities, and realizations later, I found myself applying for a fiscal sponsorship through Fractured Atlas for all of my future creative work, in whatever form it takes. That means that Fractured Atlas will vouch for the fact that my work is bound to have some public benefit and that its purpose is not to make money, thereby allowing me to accept tax-deductible donations and apply for grants that are normally reserved for non-profit organizations. I am calling the work First Creatures. (Perhaps I will say more about the name another time.)

As much as I’m sure you would like to know what First Creatures is, I guarantee you that I want to know even more. Most of my creative work over the years has come as a complete surprise to me. That’s the nature of it, I guess. I saw a need, I was asked to do something, I put two and two together, I needed money, and I made something. The elements which eventually coalesced into the So Hot Right Now concert series had been floating around in my head for years, but if you had asked me to talk about “the idea” a moment sooner than June of 2021, I would have surely said some nonsense to you. With First Creatures, I am banking on my potential to rise to unforeseen occasions, to see something in a unique way, and to have ideas which are now nothing more than hundreds of different strands of experience blowing around my brain like confetti.

This is not my first rodeo, and by rodeo I mean “passion project”, so I am well aware of the pitfalls. That’s why, to avoid certain death by burnout, I am taking a somewhat radical approach this time: from the outset, I am valuing myself and all the work I do, work that “goes without saying”–all the thinking and writing and developing that happens before an idea can even be communicated to another human–as well as all the behind-the-scenes work that happens before an idea can be communicated to the general public. It’s the kind of work that is essential to any worthwhile endeavor but does not attract big funders who are only interested in helping with “project costs”.

I am tracking my hours and trying to build a support system for this work by developing a patronage, 21st century style: monthly donors receive end-of-month emails detailing what I’ve been up to that month, what I’ve got up my sleeve, and what’s on my mind. A number of people have signed up already, which is pretty amazing, considering that they can’t possibly know what it is yet since I don’t. At a time when I am feeling so vulnerable, I am grateful beyond belief for this heavenly host of visionaries.

That brings me to this very moment, the moment when I am jumping out of the nest, when I am placing a bet on myself, when I am bringing all of that confetti into center, when I am breathless in anticipation and queasy with excitement.

It’s been twelve years since I last told you about all the things I tell myself on a regular basis (henceforth casually referred to as “mantras”), unless you count the time I told you about all the things my mother always told me and which I now tell myself. Mantras come and go approximately at the rate of the lunar cycle, which is surely sheer coincidence, so I can only really tell you what’s running on my mantra marquee for the month of January 2023.

1. There are too many wonderful things to do today.

This immediately 1) lets me off the hook from trying to do it all because that is clearly impossible and 2) reframes all the things I have to do as wonderful. They are wonderful because they mean I am connected to others in some way. Wonderful because they directly involve music. Wonderful because I am physically and mentally able to do them. Wonderful because I am alive to do them.

2. Transformation comes by way of attention, not preoccupation.

I am a solver of problems, real and conceptual. If there is any mental real estate available in my brain (e.g. when I’m walking, driving, or playing offbeats), I’m usually gnawing on some juicy puzzle. This is the definition of preoccupation–being occupied by a problem before it is right in front of you. It’s not the same as worrying–preoccupation can be calm or anxious–so this would all be fine and good if I wanted to be the world’s greatest problem solver and not a poet. And I mean “poet” in the loosest possible sense; I want to see the world as it truly is, not as it appears to be. This is my deepest wish. So when I catch myself obsessively problem-solving like an otherwise scrawny kid doing bicep curls, I remind myself that the world will transform itself before my very eyes if I just look at it rather than past it.

3. Live in music. Find the words.

Actually, this is a throwback to the last lunar cycle, but I want it to be my life mantra. To live inside of music is to forsake the music world, in which there is no music. Music is real; the music world is a construct (see above). By living I mean thinking. Music is what I want to think about, not who’s who and who’s good and where I fit into it all. I find the advice “don’t compare yourself to others” to be altogether unhelpful, but if I start thinking about music itself–about the unspeakable beauty of it–and if I sing music in my head (or out loud in emergency situations), everything else fades away without force.

Finding the words to express what’s in my head and my heart is a rare occurrence because I have an exceptionally slow brain, apparently. It almost never happens in conversation (sorry, guys!). But even in the privacy of my own mind, or when writing in my journal, I don’t always take the time to dig deep. I aspire to take the time to Find the Words. I need to remind myself that there is no greater feeling, and that it will be worth it. I need to have faith in what doesn’t exist yet.

“Live in Music, Find the Words” is actually the abbreviated version. The whole thing, as it stands now, is:

Live in Music–only come out to share, never to compare. Find the Words–email is a leash, social media, a cage.

Can I include recorded music on a podcast, or is there a copyright issue with that? How much would I have to pay for health insurance if I didn’t have my job? Am I saving enough for retirement? How does book publishing work, and would anyone actually be interested in my “essays”? What does music do in us? What does music do for a community? For an individual? When can I learn how to read poetry? Could I learn to sing? To conduct? To dance? To compose? How long can I really expect to be able to play the violin? What will happen to me once my body and mind become feeble? Once I don’t have parents or a husband or even a brother to help me? Once I lose my youthful verve? Where will I fit into this world when I am old? Can I still help people when I become weak? Does our house require a lot more maintenance than we are providing? Do we need to paint? What do we do with our old electronics? What exactly am I trying to prove/achieve/accomplish with everything I do? Am I capable of sitting still? Does doing stuff make me happy or sad? Does it make me happy and then sad, and is that cycle inevitable? Is it healthy? Is it natural? Am I a “good” person, or am I actually pretty bad? What is underneath my ability to be what society values? Am I doing way too much or not nearly enough, and according to whom? Is it possible to live a life inside of music but outside the music world?

A few days ago I had the radical impulse to write nothing but my honest thoughts and feelings in my private journal. I obeyed and was surprised by how many pages I was able to fill in no time at all, how easily the words flowed out of my pen. I was surprised by some of the words themselves.

“I just filled five pages of my journal with nothing but honest thoughts and feelings,” I announced to my husband afterwards, with the air of someone who has just run ten miles or asked their boss for a raise or cleaned their bathtub. Hours later, I heard what I said and added, “I realize that’s what most people use their journals for, but that’s not how I use mine.”

“Uh-huh,” he replied, his level of concern going in the wrong direction.

What can I say, I’m a practical gal. I wouldn’t even buy chips and salsa in college because I didn’t feel their nutritional value was worthy of such a big chunk of my grocery budget. Apparently, I ruled my own private diary entries with the same iron fist.

If, while journaling, a thought or a feeling related to something beyond my control–the behavior of a family member, the artistic choices of my employer, the behavior of a family member–rose to the surface, it was tossed aside in favor of things I can control–my behavior, my artistic choices, my self. Healthy, right?

Useful, perhaps. People like me acknowledge that feelings are unavoidable (and that they are neither good nor bad), but they tend to think of them as obstacles to getting stuff done. And there you have my dirty little secret.

The danger with people like me (see Siobhan from Succession for a chilling portrayal of the worst version of this type of person) is that we become so alienated from what it is we actually want that we couldn’t tell you honestly if we tried. Our lives become hollow charades in which we seek to impress others in hopes of proving our worth. Surely, if it takes all kinds to make the world go ’round, Achievers are among the kinds needed. But when our own desires are so divorced from our ambitions, we’re like some sort of mutant beanstalk. Impressive? Maybe. Obnoxious? Uh-huh.

Ever since my radical impulse I have consistently filled eight pages a day with honest thoughts and feelings. Compare that with my usual daily goal of three and my average of one (which was often heavily peppered with my favorite phrase, “I don’t know”). Now, I can barely turn the pages fast enough–my pen just will not stop. No word is off-limits, no thought unspeakable, no opinion too unenlightened. I even use all caps sometimes.

Whereas I used to dole out my words and sentences like individual lentils, screening them for stones and unfair generalizations, I now pour the entire sack onto the page. (And, if you don’t already know, few things feel better in this world than running your hand through a giant sack of dried lentils.) It feels like I’m taking a swim in Truth, not caring if my hair gets wet, or if I stay in too long, or if I sound like a jerk.

This is not a story yet. It’s either the beginning of something, the end of something, or a wide spot in the road that no one’s even going to stop to take a selfie with. I don’t know myself well enough (there’s that phrase again!) to predict which direction this is going to go, or if you will still like me (assuming you like me) while this new update is in progress. All I know is that, while my Logic Machete has gotten me this far, it’s time to get to work on my Wisdom Canoe.