Decisions, decisions

Hey there Bloggers...

I've had a sore throat and runny nose for the past day and a half. In addition to these symptoms, last night I was also woozy, dizzy and very fatigued. I'm hoping that it's just overwhelm, and possibly allergies. I'm avoiding medicine and am taking Vitamin C lozenges. I'm trying to get a lot of rest, but today I got up at 6am because I couldn't sleep. I'll try to go to bed early tonight...

Okay. Where to begin? I've been MIA lately, busy decompressing and processing all of the stuff I've been going through...

...like making the commitment to stay here, because I like the city so much and the workload is ideal and I want more of a balanced life. That involves less orchestra work and more time to arrange, compose, and - well, just live. You know?

Of course making a decision of any kind is cutting off some other option that you've opted not to choose. The latin origin of the word "decision" literally means to "cut off". So in making any kind of major life decision, you're in effect cutting off your other options - things you might have set as your goals a long time ago. There's a significant letting go, a catharsis, a grieving. All necessary processes to go through to get to the other side with minimal baggage so you can get on with things and launch into the next chapter of your life with unfettered passion and energy.

So what did I finally realize after several months of painful deliberation, and the ambiguity and confusion that intense self questioning brings? This is it, in a nutshell: Life is short, and we're all going to die - so you'd better make the most of your life and do everything you really want to do. (I've been deeply pondering my own mortality of late, in case you couldn't tell.) That sort of brutally honest reality check really cleared up a lot of things and put priorities into perspective.

What I discovered, in light of this stark reality, is I don't want to play in an orchestra more than 44 weeks out of the year. I know that sounds crazy, but it's really true. I love having my summers completely off, to do with what I like, to remind myself of all of the other aspects of me outside of horn playing. I think it's healthier for me to have time to regroup, to do other things, to stay refreshed and to avoid burnout...to say nothing of lip damage. (Incidentally, the orchestra for whom I decided not to audition recently has one of the highest numbers of players in a single horn section who have injured their lips; something to do with the acoustics and sound not coming back to the players, so they have to blast just to be able to hear themselves at all.)

Of course there are about a million other reasons why I chose not to take that audition, but those are the biggies and the only ones I am choosing to post online for the entire world to see. If you want to know more, you can email me and I'll fill you in privately.

Other than that, things are changing and growing and regenerating. I finally got a burst of energy and motivation a few days ago, and the weather was so nice, that I attacked the accumulated mess in the sun porch room and gutted everything. I carted a whole truckload of stuff that had accumulated on the couch there since we moved in to Goodwill, and I swept, dusted and vacuumed. Without all of the mess in there, it's really quite sunny and very energizing there. I plan to make it into an evening summer reading room (I bought a lamp to have out there) and a summer art studio. That's going to be wonderful, don't you think?

And remember the new flower bed we dug in our front yard last November? We have all kinds of sprouts and buds popping up now, and it's so exciting! I'll take a picture soon. I love our gardens!

That's about all for now. We have had a lot of kiddie shows this week. We're doing Beethoven 5, more Brahms, and a lot of Mozart (which thankfully I don't play). I am getting nine kinds of tired of it all, but that's only because we've played it umpteen zillion times at this point. Anyone would get tired of any piece after that many times.

Hope you're all having a great week so far. We're halfway to the weekend! Which, of course, means nothing to me, since that's when all of my work usually happens. But it's good for most of you, right?

XO Love,
Darcy