Will I Never Learn?

You would think that after 51 years on this planet, I would have learned when to say "No." Haven't I said "yes" and been sorry enough times? Haven't I said "yes," only to say "never again" once I realize what I've gotten myself into? So why, a couple of weeks ago, did I go against my better judgement, and agree to a huge accompanying assignment for someone I don't know, an assignment that keeps growing by leaps and bounds, and is turning out to be nothing less than a nightmare. I've been flagellating myself over this decision ever since the first rehearsal, when I could see what an exercise in frustration this job was going to be. So I was really interested Patti Digh's most recent post over at 37 Days. It's about developing your own set of criteria to help you make decisions, criteria that you can use when someone offers you the opportunity to run a charity event, or enter a marathon, or accompany 20 voice students during a three day competition. Criteria that you establish, based on what is most important to your life, so that you can make intelligent decisions about the way you spend your time.

What a fabulous idea, especially for someone like me, who has real difficulty saying "no." For the past couple of years, my life has often felt completely out of whack, with too much time being spent on activities that keep me away from home, and prevent me from doing things that enrich myself personally. Yet I always seem to fall into the trap of accepting one more gig, or joining one more committee, or taking on one more big project at work. Wouldn't it be great to have a written set of criteria that any new project must meet? And wouldn't it be great it I committed myself to abiding by those criteria when deciding whether or not to accept a project?

Without too much thought, here are some of the questions I'm going to ask myself the next time someone calls me on the telephone with a proposal. Patti advises writing them down on a piece of paper which you carry in your wallet. That way, you're never tempted to say "yes" without first considering what's most important to you.

• My number one criteria would definitely be time...how much time is this project going to consume? time that I could be with my family or doing something healthy for myself...
• Do I care about the people involved, and do they care about me? Will this project help me enhance and strengthen existing relationships or provide an opportunity to create new ones?
• Can I learn and grow in a positive way? Will this project help me enhance my abilities in any of my fields, or help me learn a new skill?
• Is this going to be fun? Is this project going to help me enjoy life while I'm participating in it? Will I get a positive feeling from participating?
• Will this help someone else? Can I impart some lesson, or provide some worthwhile service to someone?
• Is there a monetary reward, and is it commensurate with the time and effort involved? Will it help me provide for some aspect of my future, or make me feel satisfied with the way I've been compensated?

How does my current project stack up to this list?

• It's certainly far too time consuming
• I didn't know any of the people involved, and I don't see any long term relationships emerging from it
• I will likely feel a sense of growth and accomplishment as a muscian, since the musical aspects are quite challenging, but I'm not sure the process to this growth is a positive one
• It is not fun (and it isn't often that I don't have fun playing the piano!)
• I am helping the students, and I always feel good about that
• The money is good, far better than the usual fees, but still not commensurate with the time and effort involved

Hopefully, from now on I'll be able to make more informed decisions based on what's important to my life now. The beauty of this list is that it's your own, and it can change depending on the way life changes.

But for now, I have to go practice...sigh.

They're Home!

if you are a mother you have probably worried about

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~your child taking his first steps, fearful he would stumble and fall

~your child going to school fearful he would fail'

~your child driving a car, fearful he would be in an accident

~your child going to war, fearful he would be injured or killed

~your child facing the dangers of the world, fearful he would be hurt

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this picture illustrates the airplane bringing my son and daughter in law home from their six week journey in Thailand and China, countries more than 10,000 miles away

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as of this moment, they are back on American soil

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and i'm happy :-)

Bookmarked-Nineteen Minutes

I've just emerged from a heartbreaking world created by author Jodi Picoult in her latest book, Nineteen Minutes. I can't remember when I've last been so deeply affected by a novel, but I think it was another of Picoult's books, The Pact. Both novels deal with teenagers in crisis, which, as a mother and high school teacher, is a subject near to my heart. But Nineteen Minutes ~ the story of a boy bullied physically and emotionally by his peers his entire life, a boy who finally takes control in a horrifying shooting spree at his high school~strikes extremely close to home for me, because the more I read about Peter Houghton, the young man at the heart of this compelling story, the more I was reminded of my own son. It's really hard for boys who don't fit the mold, boys who would rather write stories or draw cartoons than play football or soccer, boys who don't think stuffing people into lockers is funny, boys who prefer hanging out at home watching Star Trek reruns to going to gambling and drinking at the casino. My son Brian, like Peter Houghton, was one of those boys who were "different." And like Peter, he became a victim of kids who used emotional and physical abuse as a way to preserve their own misguided sense of superiority.

"Most of Peter's childhood memories involved situations where was victimized by either other children or by adults whom he'd perceived as being able to help him, yet didn't," testified Peter's psychiatrist. "He described everything from physical threats - Get out of my way or I'm going to punch your lights out; to physical actions-doing nothing more than walking down the hallway and being slammed up against the wall because he happened to get too close to someone walking past him; to emotional taunts - like being called homo or queer." For Peter (and for Brian, too) the computer became a "safe haven." It was "the vehicle he used to create a world that was comfortable for him, peopled by characters who appreciated him and whom he had control over, as he didn't in real life," explained Peter's psychiatrist.

Brian was luckier than Peter in that he was physically forbidding - always tall and stocky, he was perfect quarterback material from a physical standpoint~which made him less vulnerable to physical abuse. But the emotional alienation was very real for him, especially during his high school years, and I watched him become increasingly withdrawn and angry. But, like Peter's mother Lacy, I really had no idea how to help, or really, how dangerous this situation was. And the teacher's at Brian's school (just like at Peter's) were of no help at all, and even insinuated that the kids doing the bullying were just "being normal kids," and Brian needed to "stop being so sensitive."

I'm ashamed to say that I bought into that philosophy for a while, and tried to "toughen him up," as Lacy Houghton admitted to doing with her own son. It took an act of violence to really make me understand just how traumatized my son was ~ a moment when he lashed out in anger and fear, his hand forced through a window, slashing his wrist and severing nerves and tendons in two of his fingers. From that moment, I realized that this was a matter of life and death, and treated it accordingly. We started fighting back as a family, found a wonderful therapist, and Brian began to gain confidence in himself and learn ways to cope.

I can tell Brian's story now because (unlike Peter Houghton's story) it has a happy ending. He's happily married, has a successful career, and functions very well in the world. But he keeps a wariness within him, a fear of people and situations where he might become vulnerable and prone to "attack." That's the legacy left from those years of exposure to mistreatment and ignorance.

If your child were being victimized by an adult, wouldn't you immediately move heaven and earth to stop it, to protect them? Why treat abuse from other children any differently? Why allow children to indulge in behaviors that hurt someone else, and pass it off as childish pranks? If you do (as Jodi Picoult so eloquently yet painfully portrays in her book, and as I have seen firsthand in my own experience) the effects can be more devastating than you could ever imagine.

Food for Thought

After a very long Sunday filled with more hours on the piano bench than I would have chosen, (especially with the sun was shining brightly and the red line of thermometer approaching the number 70!), I finally sat down with a glass of wine and started catching up on my blog roll. I was very pleasantly surprised to find that Vicki (Bibi's Beat) had "tagged" me with this lovely honor:

There's a nifty meme attached to this, and since I was lucky enough to be chosen as a "thinking blogger," I decided to play along. I figured it would be easy, since I have a lengthy roster of blog friends that make me think about everything from photography to food, antiques to art, politics to parenthood. Let me tell you, the hard part was narrowing it down to just five! This list represents just a few of the many people who stimulate my cerebellum every day. If the five of you want to play along, the "rules" are listed at the bottom of the page.

1. Every post she writes is not only creative, it's courageous. Despite a debilitating disease, Tammy (The Daily Warrior), faces life with hope, optimism, and and great sense of humor. She always makes me think about life in a different way, and helps me look on the bright side.
2. From politics to antiques, from poetry to life in Paris, Tara (Paris Parfait) always offers an array of interesting and thought provoking posts, accompanied by lovely photographs.
3. Her vision of life, demonstrated in her writing and her view through the lens of her camera, her forays into new ventures, and her gentle outlook make Star (The Friendliest Flower) a shining light in my galaxy of bloggers.
4. Speaking of a view through the lens, Susan's (soozphotoz) creative photographic eye makes me gasp for breath, which she then helps me recover with her inspirational prompts for haiku writing at One Deep Breath.
5. I love to read about "the writing life," and Bug (Writer Bug) is a young woman living that life, as she works at writing and getting her MFA. Every time I read one of her posts, I'm inspired to get myself in front of a blank page and get to work.

To play along, think of five bloggers that provide you with some flavorful, spicy, comforting, food for thought, and then follow these rules:

1. Write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think.
2. Link to the original post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme. (http://www.thethinkingblog.com/2007/02/thinking-blogger-awards_11.html)
3. Optional: Proudly display your 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote (here is an alternative silver version if gold doesn't fit your blog).

Still Here

There's been little time for writing this week and I'm surprised at how much I've missed all my "regular" writing activities~One Deep Breath, and Write on Wednesday completely passed me by, and now here's it's Poetry Thursday already. The ideas are gnawing away in that little corner of my mind I reserve for writing, a corner that seems to be growing larger all the time. But when I look at my calendar for the next few weeks, my heart sinks a bit, because I see so little "me" time in those squares that are filled with work deadlines, rehearsals, music festivals, and appointments. I've been writing off and on for most of my life, but writing has never been a "consuming passion" ~until now. I feel a deep sense of unease when life crowds in so much that there's no time left to get the words from my mind onto the page. The pen, the keyboard, the blank page beckon me, and it's all the more painful when I sit at my desk at work, typing away on medical reports and billing statements, when my fingers are really itching to tell the stories poking away at my brain.

I'm more than familiar with consuming passions~the piano has been mine since I was a child. Being away from it was like being deprived of basic sustenance~I become irritable, unhappy, and finally painfully miserable. That's one reason I hang on to my job as an accompanist -it allows me to feed that passion on a regular basis.

But the writing passion~that's new, and harder to fulfill within the parameters of my life in general. When life gets busy, like it is now, I feel guilty indulging myself in writing time, when I could be doing something "productive."

So, I'm about to set off on what I call Marathon Thursday~office from 9:30 until 1:00, school from 1:30 to 6:30, then church for bells and choir. Finally, home to Grey's Anatomy, which TiVo is keeping warm for me.

This week's haiku prompt at One Deep Breath was, appropriately, "breath and breathing." Here's mine:

deep inhale for courage shoulders squared i face the day How about you? What are you facing today? Will you have time to indulge your consuming passions?