Words

Long ago I self-diagnosed as a highly sensitive person. Words make me cry. I’ve hung on words from every teacher and mentor. Every friend and relative. The slightest criticism of my writing, teaching, or parenting sends me into a tailspin of introspection and self-judgment. Does that make me insecure or just thoughtful? Is it a growth mindset or just self-deprecation? The judge is in. The jury is out.

My kids grew up with all kinds of little guidelines about what to say and how to say it. My sister’s mantra is “say what you mean, mean what you say, don’t say it mean.” I like that. It goes a long way.

More than once I’ve thrown out “it’s nice to be right, but it’s more right to be nice.” Yeah. Yeah. Eye rolls all around.

Growing up, the biggest verbal gateway, going all the way back to sixth grade confirmation at Park View Lutheran, was:

Is it kind?

Is it necessary?

Is it true?

Let’s have a moment of silence to take that in. Okay maybe I’m done writing for today. . .maybe there’s not much left to say after that.

Ha! I’m still here. And, I’ve attempted to pass Pastor Bohlman’s wisdom on to the next generation. Calvin and Mary heard it ad nauseam. Is it kind? Is it necessary? Is it true? They each absorbed it in their own way. Calvin champions the truth. And Mary leaned toward kindness. Of course, neither of them is purposefully unkind or a habitual lier. It’s just the way the scales tilted, I think they would agree.

What about me? How do I measure up here?

Because I understand the power of words, especially from parents and teachers, I’ve trained myself to be very careful about the words I say. I’m always honest. And mostly kind. I have unintentionally hurt some feelings along the way. Yes, there have been some tender tissue moments in the studio and at the dinner table, and I’m sorry for that. Yet, I take pride in the fact that I could count on one hand the number of times when I have lost control of my words and said or yelled something I wished I could take back. One instance may have involved a blonde-haired toddler in pigtails hearing profanity about emails. And there was that incident with the mud-room storage baskets after graduation. . . Lord have mercy.

Still, perhaps my biggest verbal downfall, the area in which I fall short, is the is it necessary part. That middle clause. It’s not that I habitually say too much, it’s more sins of omission. The question is, are there are words I should have said, feelings I should have expressed along life’s journey, and I didn’t? At times when I have felt used, disrespected or hurt, was it easier to be non-confrontational than to do the hard work to tell the whole truth? I think that’s a firm yes. Maybe that’s not so good.

But, I suspect I’m not alone. There are many pacifists among us. I married one, and that seems to be working pretty well. It’s not always a bad thing.

Other times it’s not so clear. I’ve made mistakes along the way. That said, my intentions have always been good. Better safe than sorry. There are things you can’t unsay. Feelings you can’t unhurt. Still, I do believe that pain, like grief, is a net sum. Feel it now or feel it later. And no one has promised there will be time to fix the things we have left unsaid. That is a hard lesson.

Still as the Bible says “Above all hold unfailing your love for one another, since love covers a multitude of sins.” 1 Peter 4:8.

As though it’s always clear what is necessary and what is not. And, as if for sure being quiet is even a sin. Maybe sometimes it’s best to be reserved. These are the mysteries. I found this quote from Winston Churchill as well:

We are masters of the unsaid word, but slave of those we let slip out.

As always, there is nothing new under the sun. And as always, I don’t have all the answers. For sure this has been way too many words for one night. Have I said too much? Here’s a little prayer to bring some peace to it all.

Lord, let my words be kind, necessary and true. Help me to discern this, and forgive me when I fail. And help us all sort the grain from the chaff of each other’s words. Amen.

Hawkeye Excellence ~ A Hawkeye Music Mom's Musings on Basketball

I’m a Hawkeye mom, twice over. Y’all probably know that already. Watching Hawkeye women’s basketball these last two years has got my brain spinning. And yes, I’m late to the party. We don’t even have cable TV. Still, I along with 15,000,000 others have become obsessed with following Caitlin Clark and the Iowa team. Then, yesterday, in Caitlin’s last game with Iowa, they lost the NCAA championship to South Carolina. I didn’t cry, but I could have. I didn’t cry because the other team was just so good, and the sportsmanship was so solid, and the coaching was just so inspirational on both sides. That’s the only reason.

If I had cried it would have been as a mom. My kids are college students, ages 22, and 19. I imagined what they would be feeling at that kind of loss. But my kids are musicians, which is of course completely different than basketball. They never narrowly lose competitions after giving blood, sweat and tears. Still, if I had cried I would have cried for the disappointment of those hard working athletes.

I might also have cried as the coach. I’m a coach of sorts, for a host of young musicians, which again, is completely different than basketball. Music teachers never put their heart and soul into the development of students’ talent and character only to have them suffer the ups and downs of musical life. Or even just to see them grow up and move on. If I had cried, I would have also cried to see the season end. To say goodbye.

But basketball is completely different than music.

I watched the post game press conference for Iowa. Then I watched it again and took notes.

Learning how to lose is ever so much more important than learning how to win. Caitlin said, and I paraphrase ~ the emotions would probably hit her over the next couple days, but “I don’t have much time to sit around and sulk, and I don’t think that’s what I’m about either.” Yep, give yourself some time, but then move on. Musicians never have disappointments to reconcile, no fierce audition rejections.

Please don’t take my sarcasm as negative. I’m actually really obsessed with how alike the pursuit of excellence is regardless of the arena. Let me continue.

Next Caitlin talked about how her parents never said no. Oh wait, they said no a lot, but never to basketball, never to who she could be. They never set limitations on her.

My mind wanders. Let’s sail this ship as far as it will go. What are you going to do with a music degree? It doesn’t even matter. You are pursuing excellence and excellence will provide for you. Bill and I never gave it a second thought. For either child.

Back to the press conference. The microphone was turned over to Coach Bluder. Here’s a few of her thoughts, which could have come straight from Every Child Can, the introductory Suzuki education class.

“Caitlin is a star, but there are so many stars.”

“Success breeds success.”

“Many laughed at her for coming to Iowa, but she believed.”

When asked how she coached Caitlin differently, she responded, “quite frankly I hope that I haven’t changed a lot. The values I have now are the same values I’ve always had.” That sounds a lot like character first, Dr. Suzuki’s priority of developing noble human beings. We can learn new piano techniques, but our values never change.

Bluder spoke of the challenge of the line you have to walk between establishing discipline and putting out the athlete’s internal fire. That sounds a lot like every single piano lesson I have ever taught.

I was an hour in, I had to ask my phone for extra YouTube time, but I didn’t stop there. I watched the South Carolina press conference too. Coach Dawn Staley was equally inspiring. It’s obvious that she is a highly demanding second mother to those girls. She credited the teams’ success to the development of trust. “Love is given, trust is earned.” Wait, that’s actually my quote.

I almost choked on my popcorn when the reporter asked Staley about future recruiting. She remarked that along with talent of course, the athlete’s relationship to her parents was a primary factor. If a girl respected her parents Staley could achieve anything. If the girl didn’t respect her own parents she was never gonna respect the coaches. That from the top of the top.

She also said she deals with parents everyday. Intense kids have intense parents. That goes with the job. I resemble that remark.

These are just my musings, so you are not expecting a profound paragraph to wrap this all up, are you? Well, okay, I owe it even to myself to sum this up, even if it’s obvious. Studying any students and teachers of excellence you find it’s all the same. I’m talking about my definition of excellence. Character. Community. Parenting. Trust. Belief. Culture. Love. Discipline. Fire. That’s the short list we are responsible for. I felt the weight of the responsibility of both coaches yesterday. Winner and loser. The responsibility they feel for every girl on the team ~ the star, the next star, the girl on the bench. Every athlete deserves to meet her potential. Every child deserves that.

Okay I actually did cry, just a little. I was so moved by those coaches and their love for those girls. I wanted everybody to win. But mostly Iowa. I’m a Hawkeye mom after all.

You know, excellence at Iowa doesn’t stop with basketball. I wish we had the money to put every concerto competition winner on a mural. Every lawyer. Every medical student. Every kid working his tail off in the pursuit of excellence. It’s all the same. They all deserve it. In the meantime, my heart goes out that the whole Iowa basketball team. I fell in love with every girl. Thank you for this ride, the joy, the sorrow, and these beautiful life lessons.

Grown Up Christmas Train

It’s that time of year. . . when we do the things we did last Christmas and the year before and the year before, that is if we are blessed enough, which it turns out, we mostly are. I have often called it the Christmas train. We get onboard, sometimes as early as Halloween, and we don’t get off until after my birthday in January. There’s a lot of stops along the way. Here’s a link to the 2011 Christmas Train Blog, just in case you aren't taking me seriously enough.

It’s mostly a journalistic entry here, I can’t guarantee your interest, but back in 2010 when I started blog writing, it was only for myself and it was therapy. I’ve become a lot more private since then, but there might be something of value left in my pen. You will have to sort the grain from the chaff yourself. If nothing else, I can, God willing, read back on this in ten years and laugh.

I’m hopelessly nostalgic. I listen to the same Christmas albums on the same days between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. There is an order to the playlist, it starts with the first part of Handel’s Messiah and ends with Sarah Vaughan. It’s not exactly chronological. Wait, good grief Charlie Brown, it might actually be. Come to think of it, the Carpenters and Fred Waring definitely come before Frank Sinatra. But I’m not rigid about it. Just don’t listen to Elvis before December 16th, please. Note: the National Lutheran Choir can sing whenever they want.

Thanksgiving was the kick-off, friends and family made our way to Nisswa. The cabin was toasty enough and we added our culinary artistry to that off the good folks from Kowalski’s and pulled off a fairly glamorous dinner. I do keep notes year over year, and this year it was noted that we cut the meat off of the precooked turkey (when I said we, I meant Bill) and put it on a platter before we heated it. All the other sides, some of our own and some from the gourmet grocer, went into 9 x 13 glass Pyrex dishes, and they all heated consistently for a well-timed feast, using every oven on the property. We did everything the northern town had to offer, including Friday night snowy fireworks with Santa on a firetruck. Minnesota is its own state, that’s for sure. Sunday morning Calvin flew back to Boston and Janel and Mary carpooled back to Iowa City. Bill and I sat and stared at each other again with no lights or ornaments yet on the Christmas tree.

Thanksgiving Sunday afternoon after everyone goes home used to be my nemesis. The honking of the car horn pulling out the driveway would send me into a three day funk, illogical—knowing that it was a short time until we would all be back together—but Mama birds don’t always follow logic, sometimes the heart just wants something it can’t have.

But I’m getting better each year. I only listened to the sad goodbye gloomy songs a few times and then I got busy. The short weeks between Thanksgiving and the Christmas recitals are calendar blocked by the hour. We started the great Christmas light wrangle. Oliver resigned himself to Mary’s empty bed.

The next three weeks were busy with baking five kinds of cookies, caramels, and spaghetti sauce, and decorating the house vignette by vignette. This too has an order. There is a short period of time when all the trees are up and lit, but hold no wool felt angels or Norwegian folk. The snowy village on the landing is dark, awaiting replacement 3.5 watt bulbs from the Amazon man. I like this time too, with the simple greenery and white incandescent lights everywhere. It’s calm and pure. But life doesn’t stay chaos-free and neither do Christmas decorations. Soon enough there were Christmas pillows on every surface and Hearts and Pines Norwegian dishes on the shelf mix with the tea set that my sister bought me when we were in Austin and didn’t have a dime. The Isabel Bloom, Kathy Kruse, and Playmobil nativities all found their stables. I strung lights in every possible corner.

Meanwhile, the piano kids were putting last minute touches on their classical and holiday pieces. There’s always highlights. This year two small brothers simultaneously played Up on the Housetop. At their last lesson I would have called it a duet, they were perfectly together ten times in a row. But in something resembling Sally’s “Hockey Stick” moment from Charlie Brown’s show, they completely lost track of each other at the recital. Judging from their smiles after their bow, I don’t think they noticed. It was 30 seconds of cuteness. Preston rocked his Gigue. The O Holy Night quartet was lovely. My studio kids are amazing. I continue to be blessed with committed families and the Christmas recitals are always my favorite performances. Warm fuzzies all round.

In a while-you’re-at-it-moment, Bill and I had a Christmas open house the next day, for folks we don’t get to see that often. It was a good old-fashioned Farmer Grey kind of event just without the chestnuts pop thing. Mary, her friends, and about 25 dish towels came through with the cleanup duty. Thank you girls. It was the perfect ending to a perfect day.

Then, the next week, as per bullet journal calendar tradition, I wrap. I wrap. I wrap. I also had a lot of help. Ribbons, tags, boxes. Pretty paper. I love Christmas presents. Years ago I researched cutting back and going minimalist but that didn’t work out for me. Gifts are my love language and lets face it, I just have a lot of love to give.

Then my mom arrived and we baked and baked and baked. Baking is her love language. Batches and batches of tea rings. Frosting. Toffee. More toffee squares, which are different than toffee. And caramel popcorn, because, while sugar might be the work of the devil, it’s very important to have enough treats for the birth of Christ.

Then finally, Calvin flew home on the 22nd and refreshments were finally served on the Polar Express. The train stopped at Kyndred Hearth for a holiday dinner out, a Brianno’s lasagna with friends and a carol sing, homemade waffles for brunch with champagne, gift opening with a lot of help from the cats, a Christmas Eve candlelit church service and Christmas Day with Bill’s family and his mom’s spaghetti sauce. There’s still a few more stops, but now we are in Iowa with my mom, my sister and Ray and Sam. We have more of the same old traditions, time for presents and hamballs, and puzzles and movies. The cookie tray is refreshed almost hourly as well as the candy dish with caramels and fudge, peanut brittle and toffee. Today. . . it finally snowed. Magical. Just like last year. And many years before that.

The Christmas Train, not the Lionel electric one from Bill’s childhood, the metaphorical one I’m talking about, has been around for over fifty years. Every since I was a little girl, if we did something one Christmas it became a tradition. It all grew and grew into a season which spilled over its Advent boundaries into November and January. My love of tradition and fear of change has, I fear, been bequeathed to the next generation. We are blessed, but not spoiled. The years come and go with a side helping of resilience. There were Texas years, years with broken hearts. The year my mom was in the hospital and Bill had to bathe her muddy dog all by himself. And alas, the table is set a little differently now. We have lost our fair share, my grandparents, my dad, Bill’s mom. Aunts and uncles along the way and even cousins we lost too soon. The kids have grown up. There are new faces at the table, and God willing someday there will be even more. We are on this train for the long haul no matter where it takes us. As I sit here at my mother’s kitchen table with a fire softly burning in her brick fireplace, it all comes back. My dad’s cowboy boot footsteps waking sleeping babies. Dogs chasing toddlers in the snow. Even years where we all had the flu. It’s all part of the journey.

So. I hope you have your own traditions. If you made it this far, thanks for reading about mine. May you be blessed this season and always. Enjoy the ride and all the stops. Merry Christmas.

All my love,

Sara

Things Will Never Be the Same

Here we are again. We stepped off the tilt-a-whirl of a year of construction followed by a year of having two seniors. Mary graduated from high school and Calvin from college. The list of life events we checked off is dizzying, even for a veteran over-scheduler like myself. We punctuated musicals and Bravo shows and concertos and senior recitals and graduation parties with a family trip to Japan. Then we moved Mary into the dorms at the University of Iowa and drove Calvin out to Boston for grad school at the Longy School of Music. The finale for me was a hiking trip to Austria with Catherine in September. She and I logged eighty-six miles and wrote our names in the book at the top of four mountains.

Then I came down from the mountain.

Bill and I sit and stare at each other. Now, where were we? Oh yeah, that night on the sofa in our brand new Kathy Trimble house on Blackhawk Road, with not much furniture and no rugs. He hooked up the stereo speakers and we listened to Sinatra because I was out-to-here pregnant with Calvin and the two of us just sat there and watched my churning tummy. Is that an elbow? A foot? The next morning Calvin was born. Now. . . where were we? What were we talking about?

Another baby, ten thousand photographs and a few terabytes of video later here we are alone again. Ladybug and Hub-a-dub. That sofa has moved on to its next life with college boys. I can’t imagine why Mary didn’t want it saved for a future apartment.

What to feel? How to be? What to do? Who to be?

You know the list is long: practice more piano, spark-of-joy my entire universe (Marie Kondo style), write a book, join a new church, travel more, stay home more, simplify the garden, expand the garden, go out to eat more, eat healthier at home. Blah, blah and blah.

Also, by the way Sara, you really deserve a rest after raising two kiddos from scratch. And, also by the way, they aren’t exactly gone. They’re still there on the text stream and the phone and the FaceTime and they even came home for a precious fall weekend, short but oh so sweet.

In my darkest moments, I fear that the best times are in the past. The safety of the four of us at home and all the years together in the not-so-new anymore Kathy Trimble house on Blackhawk Road are gone.

But, I tell myself, I’ve felt these things will never be the same feelings before. I felt them at ten years old when my best friend moved away, in 1982 when my sister left for college, in 1986 when my folks moved from my childhood home, in 2009 when my dad died, and in 2010 when my grandma passed away and her and my grandpa’s farm was sold. Life has a way of putting an end to certain eras and. . . things will never be the same.

When daylight comes, I remember that every new era has had its complete joy. We couldn’t stay the Stephens family at 201 West LeClaire Road in Eldridge, Iowa forever, nor in hindsight would I want to. I would have missed Northern Illinois University and Texas dance halls, and my own Minnesota marriage and children, and by the way, my childhood friend is still coming to visit me and calling every week. Things are still turning out okay. They are better than okay. I still miss my dad and Bill’s mom. Things will never be the same, that it still true, but so far I have no reason to believe that the next season won’t be just as good.

Ten thousand photos, all those videos, a closet full of scrapbooks, and boxes of journals don’t lie. Life carries on.

In the daylight these actually are the bests of times, and by these, I mean the present times. Every new present time. Every new day. Even when the little red car pulls out of the driveway, and you hug goodbye at the airport, after the goodbye gloomies pass, (and they always do) life is still at its core very good. Don’t wish it away. Your tears are falling and you feel that ache because you miss people you love. But only one special moment is over. The next one is right around the corner, and it might be even better. In the meantime, when I slow down and listen, I feel a promise from God that even though things will never be the same, all will be well. And the answers to my questions are all good.

What to feel? Grateful. Hopeful.

How to be? Peaceful. Wise.

What to do? Love people. Be in the moment.

Who to be? Keep being Sara.

Happy 18th Birthday Mary! Our Work Here is Done.

Happy birthday May May.

Our little schmoo girl.

Mary Ray.

Baby sunshine.

All the precious names you go by.

When I woke up this morning on your eighteenth birthday I felt a weight lifted off of me. I’m now the mother of two adult children. My work is done here. All those years of tucking you in at night and packing lunches and washing and ironing your little clothes, well, all those years are complete. Yes, our work is done here. No more Daddy singing songs to you before bed. Little after school snacks are replaced with occasional Starbucks iced coffee with your friends. I’m actually thinking I could take on some more students or do more accompanying. I mean, heaven knows Calvin has been completely independent these last three years, we barely talk to him more than twice a day, and we haven’t taken more than a dozen road trips to watch him perform. I think with you being 18 we are GONNA HAVE TIME ON OUR HANDS!!!!

Take September for instance, you only got to sing the national anthem at the Twins game and participate in 437 marching band competitions, plus another national anthem at the football game and the start of play rehearsals, because why wouldn’t you play piano in a fall play as well as the fall musical? It’s the Kotrba way. Congratulations by the way, on your Youth in Music Scholarship, which will be presented the the U.S. Bank Stadium this Saturday at the State Marching Band Competition. I knew somebody’s writing would earn this family some money some day. Certainly not mine. . . I also forgot to mention your September piano masterclass with our guest clinician, pulling a Debussy Pour le Piano Prelude out of your hat.

Congrats too on your national merit commendation. All these tests and awards seem to get squeezed into the cracks of life, but you are one smart cookie behind the curtain of it all.

I think October and November will give us a chance to bask in the glory of being almost empty nesters. We just have college visits and auditions, and the fall play and the fall musical. Wait. . I think the musical actually goes into December and overlaps with the studio recital, yah, that’s right. I had to glance over at the calendar I have tattooed to my right arm to check.

Okay. I don’t mean to be too sarcastic, and know It’s boring to just brag about how busy you are, but it’s my way of saying how amazing you are doing, and how HARD of a worker you are. I can’t believe you can do it all. I’m so proud of you. You said you wanted college to be mostly music with a sidebar of heavy academics. That’s pretty much what you got going this senior year, the Eastview band and choir plus differential equations and a a couple AP classes. And piano with your dear mother on the side.

Well, the year is already going much too fast but I’m sure it will slow down now that you are 18. I took some time out of getting a pedicure and eating some bon bons this morning to write this to you. I hope you have a blessed year full of family, friendship and faith, music and math and writing. And. . . even though you are a legal adult, I’m still gonna make sure you have black clothes clean to wear to every gig. I’m still gonna pack your lunch. Daddy is still gonna tuck you in after you tuck me in. Probably he’ll still sing a song. Tonight I made you a special dinner and I have a cake and all your presents, oh. . . wait. . . it’s the very last marching band rehearsal of eight years of Kotrba marching band commitments. I guess you can heat up some left overs before that and we will see you at 10:00, probably emotionally and physically wiped out.

You are crazy busy and still, we wouldn’t have it any other way. Hang in there. I hope we get to show up for your gigs for many, many years to come.

I hope the blog today is a little bit funny, because if I don’t laugh a little I will cry and never stop. Raising you has been a dream since the moment you were born. We made it through the too much stuff in your room years, and other normal bumps along the way, and here we are with the most beautiful young woman I have ever known, with wit and wisdom beyond your 18 years. God bless you today and always. You are forever my sunshine.

Friends, Glaciers, Bears, Trees, Chipmunks, and Trains

My friend Casey and I had a weekend in Glacier National Park. A couple of days isn’t a very long time. Still we packed it in hiking close to 20 miles.

My flight got in Friday afternoon, a few hours before hers. I rented the car and checked into the Izaak Walton Inn, midway between the West and East Glacier National Park entrances. While I waited for her I took a solo hike, well, I started to take a solo hike. I was going to head from our cabin up to Kelsey’s Cliff, about a half hour trail straight up the mountain where you get a view of the whole Izaak Walton Hotel compound below and the railroad tracks and the BNSF trains which look like little toys. I headed off with only my bear spray, rented an hour before at the airport. Ten minutes in where the brush ends and the trees begin, I saw him. One hundred feet down the trail, on all fours, very big, and very black, just looking at me, was a bear. I gave a little completely un-panicked holler. Woo-hoo, Mr. Bear. Woo-hoo. The same call my grandma used to get my grandpa’s attention from the house to the barn. It can be quite loud. Mr. Bear reacted to my “woo-hoo” by turning and running down the path away from me. I never turned around, but backed myself down the path, while completely un-panickedly figuring out how the heck to get the safety off my measly little can of bear spray, which I had been told has seven seconds of spray. Thirty dollars worth of false confidence. I think that pepper spray makes those bears sneeze. He turned back to look at me two times before disappearing. My occupation with the “woo hoo” and the bear spray safety thingy did not allow me to take a photo. You will have to trust me.

Make new hikes and keep the old, that’s my motto. I met a new one, the hike to Grinnell Glacier, eleven miles round trip with an elevation change of 2000 feet. Casey is from Houston and everything is a little faster there than in the Minnesota suburbs. I mostly kept up until the last .4 miles. I’m learning I could use some oxygen and a sherpa at about 7000 feet altitude, but I’m better than two years ago, slow and steady wins the race. By sixty I should be ready for the big mountains. Grinnell Glacier did not disappoint. I’ve never seen anything like it. The light. The temperature. The colors. The chipmunks.

If Grinnell Glacier was the silver hike, then Avalanche Lake was the gold. Oh, that I could conjure the photo of the Stephens family on the picnic rock in 1974 or so. But, I do have photos from 2011 and 2017.

Avalanche Lake Rock in 2022

Avalanche Lake Rock in 2011

Avalanche Lake Rock in 2017

I often hear wisdom and gain healing among the ancient cedar trees, but, this trip was not about me. Casey spent the summer in Uvalde as the attorney investigator for the Texas House Committee on the Robb Elementary shooting. She gave her heart and her mind. She helped bring some light to the dark facts, some small answers to a hopeless question. I hope that the ice cold glacial water rinsed some of heaviness away. Maybe the rocks that have been there in the lake for God knows how long and those ancient cedars brought some eternal perspective to an inexplicably tragic moment. Maybe the mountain is bigger than all of us, bigger than good and evil, only changeable through the rushing river of time, and very, very slowly at that.

Old Friends

Me? Now, having breathed the mountain air and fought the brave fight against the hungry glacial chipmunks with my trekking pole, (yes I made it through the bear scare only to be attacked by chipmunks which I may or may not have provoked by leaving my sandwich momentarily unattended and letting some gorp slip out of my hand in their direction) AND having finished a summer with ten groups of guests at the cabin, international and domestic travel and piano institutes, I’m ready for my favorite month of September. A time for new beginnings and fresh starts. New pencils and paper. Piano tunings. A baptism of the year. The routine. God bless a routine. Self discipline and growth. Saturday mornings at home. Fall leaves, candles and dish soap. Smiling piano kids. Even marching band. A final year of eight years of marching band.

Calvin and Mary are seniors. The calendar is all colored in. I’ll take you along the Kotrba train this year, it’s already left the station.

Wait for it. . . yes there are four helper engines. I might need all of them to get the Kotrba train over the senior mountain. God Bless.

Bird Brains

The tiny father wren sings his song joyfully, faithfully, each and every morning

The crows only stop by with their maddening cackle, one screech of the eagle drives them away for the day

The wild turkey’s ridiculous gobbling wakes one from the inner caw

The Canadian geese herald the coming of spring and fall with their airborne honking, their bird brains somehow flying in perfect formation

The loon mother make her lonely voice heard mostly in the dark of the night, with only the moonlight to hear, babies on her back, husband floating close behind

To Every Thing There is a Season

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose unto heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; Ecclesiastes 3:1-2

If the end of verse two is true, it actually feels like I spend an exorbitant amount of my time plucking up that which is not actually planted. Weeds. Symbolic of every thing in the world that does not belong, I yank the weeds out, even to the point of tiring my wrist. Determination overrides the pain button. Maybe if I could just have a moment of weedless dominion, sovereignty of the domain of my own kingdom (my yard), things would be right with the whole world, not just my little three-quarters of an acre. Alas, the weeds will always be with us.

It’s an perpetual exercise in optimism, to see the flowers over the weeds. As the title of this whole blog site implies, to me, the garden is a metaphor for life. This summer I have prioritized removing volunteers. For the first time in 21 years, I’m digging out ferns and throwing them in the compost. Order over chaos. I simply don’t have time to replant or give away every misplaced overly enthusiastic youngster, no matter how sacred. I’m setting boundaries. Establishing borders. True compassion sets limits.

I know the first part of verse two is true. We are in a bit of a season of death. This week my cousin Jimmy died. And yesterday my Dad’s brother Jim, my uncle, died. Because Uncle Jim was a Vietnam veteran and a cancer survivor and the only man alive with the same DNA as my father, I guess I thought he was unstoppable. The totals? This year we lost Bill’s mom, cousin Jill, Aunt Kathy (Daddy’s sister), Uncle Jim all on my dad’s side, and cousin Jimmy on my mom’s side.

And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labor, it is the gift of God. Verse 13. . .

Yesterday that meant finishing off the peach crisp all by myself, spending too much at the Nordstrom sale, and drinking a little more than one beer upon arrival to the Little Pines Lodge. We also said goodbye to dear friends moving to Wisconsin yesterday. It was a tough day.

Today is a new day. I’ll write more about the Jims another time. Suffice it to say with cousin Jimmy no one ever said, “I wish I was estranged from more of my relatives, yes, that it how it should be.” Life is a tangled web that carries on from generation to generation.

A time to get, and a time to lose; Verse 6

We got all the God-blessed suitcases back from the debacle in Europe. Perhaps you saw news flashes of the strikes and labor shortages. If you zoomed in, you might have seen Janel’s and Mary’s suitcases in the photos of thousands of lost bags. Last night at 9:00 p.m., in a heroic moment at the Minneapolis International Baggage Claim, Mary snagged Janel’s bag from a mystery cart which had arrived on a unknown flight from Paris. We texted her to take the bag and run. I waited outside door 4 in the getaway car amidst four lanes of backed up airport traffic. Retrieving the two bags, actually three because Mary’s bag was lost on the way to Amsterdam as well, took three of us untold man-hours. I had hours on hold with Delta, and Air France, I am now personal friends with the Air France phone baggage guy despite our language barrier. Bill had trips to the airport and many intimate moments with the Delta phone app. In the end, it was nothing less than divine intervention. We just happened to show up three times at the airport when our actual bags were arriving.

A time to rend, and a time to sew; Verse 7

This is the closest I could get to a metaphor for the repair of our 2007 Chrysler 300. At the end of their road trip. Bill and Calvin hit a porcupine in Wyoming. Not a bison. Not an elk. Not a bear or even a deer. A porcupine, may he rest In peace, or more likely pieces. In a series of unfortunate events this totaled the hemi eight cylinder engine of the stalwart made-of-steel car. As of Friday night, it is fixed, after a journey home from Wyoming involving friends and family and let’s just face it, a heck of a lot of cash. Probably if the car could talk, there would be some very dramatic stories.

A time to break down, a time to build up; Verse 3

We are coming to the close of a year of house repairs. Thursday the painter was here for the last time. I swear, Bill. Time breaks down, and so does the sun and so do the woodpeckers. It takes carpenters to build back up. Our twenty-one year old home is taken care of. This is a good job done, to take care of what we have.

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; Verse 4

I’m starting to plan the studio year, we are going to do another concerto event May 20 at Sundin Hall. I’m going to take care of my seniors, the high-school one, and the college one. And my piano kids. That’s all. Then, as an empty nester I will write my book. To every thing there is a season.

One Grief

I sometimes think there is only one grief. One loss. One death. We all partake of it, sometimes in a drowning flood, sometimes in a million little droplets. Myriad manifestations, yet one grief. A net sum.

Bill’s mother Diane passed on last Saturday, June 11, around 5:00 a.m. You know the ring of that phone call. It wasn’t unexpected. It’s not truly my story to tell, but yet it is.

Entreat me not to leave you or to return from following you; for where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.

I am here, and have made a life in Minnesota, after all. I changed my name with love and a vow.

When I grieve Diane’s life, her specific individual and remarkable contribution to me, to my family and the world, I’m also grieving at large. I’m grieving my own father. I’m grieving Hope and John, Gene and Ethel, my two cousins, my Aunt Kathy, Melva, Ginny, Sandi, Mary Lynn’s son, and even the Uvalde children. I’m grieving future losses I haven’t even experienced.

This is not to say of course that we do not grieve without hope, but to love is to eventually lose. That is just part of the equation. The more we love, the more we have to lose. Even with eternal hope for the future, there is still a hole left here and now, that all the wild turkeys in the world cannot completely fill.

Here is a link to Diane’s obituary written by Ann with my contribution. Diane Mary Kotrba's Obituary

This is the Day

“. . . and when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house, and could not shake it, because it had been well built.” Luke 6:48

Covid is over. I’m calling it. This is the day. The snow melted finally, the longest winter ever is over. The green grass popped yesterday. Live music is back. Workshops are back. The energy is seeping back into our pores. I know this, because well, today is my first day off since March 27. . . Overbooked, just like old times! I’ve taught two full sessions of Every Child Can, hosted a composition workshop with Catherine McMichael, watched Calvin place in the Schubert Club competition, and. . . Bill and I went to eight Bravo shows live and in person at Eastview High School. Mary is prepping for four AP tests and knocked the ball out of the park with her recent ACT scores. She made Minnesota All State on clarinet for her senior year. And, next weekend my studio recital is taking place at Sundin Hall, with a real reception, albeit outdoors. All this while our house has been under remodeling construction since August. Even that is ALMOST over.

I’m proud of the way we made it through Covid. We kept the ball moving down the field and tried to give people as much freedom as they could handle. Still, two years is a big chunk of life for a little kid. Or a high school kid. Or a college kid. You know my feelings about this. Still, we did not waste our days.

This is the day that the Lord has made. I used to sing this to the kids on the drive to school. These last two year were made of this is the days. Our days are numbered, God willing a long number, still they are not endless. Days are precious. How will we spend them? How will we give ourselves away? How will we fill ourselves back up? How to be a conduit of God’s love in the form of our energy? Light. Compassion. Inspiration. Love. That is my wish list. To give it away and fill it back up. Each day. Winter or no winter. Covid or no covid. Sleep or no sleep.

I’ve been giving it away for a few weeks now. Yesterday I gave a pint of blood to the Red Cross, for a cumulative lifetime total of one gallon and one quart of blood given. So, today, this weekend, I’m gonna fill back up.

The wren is singing brightly and moving back into my dad’s wren house. I took the plastic off of the new white screen porch sofa cushions. It’s time to live, and take the risk that they might. . . no they will. . . get dirty. This is the day that the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it. I’m going outside and I might not come back in.

Amen.

The Best Man I Know

Today is the 25th anniversary of the post-marked letter pictured above, and the 24th anniversary of the wedding of Bill and Sara. The letter contained a poem entitled “Boundaries” in which after several months of talking on the phone two to three hours an evening at $.25 a minute, I explore the idea that we could be more than friends. Notice the yellow rose of Texas stamp. No detail was left to chance.

One year later to the day, we were married. We had a small wedding in Austin, 21 friends and family. This did backfire, as then all the other peeps wanted to celebrate with us. We proceeded with the Bill and Sara wedding tour, having receptions in Austin for my students and teacher friends, in Davenport for my folks, in New Brighton for Bill’s folks and in Chicago for extended family. We honeymooned in Rhinelander Wisconsin, at the Holiday Acres resort, where my grandparents had celebrated countless anniversaries. I am hopelessly tethered to tradition and sentimentality.

We had three years in our “Happy Townhouse” before the arrival of John Calvin and the building of the house of stone and light. The next three years brought along Mary Ray. Now I have lived here in this home with Bill longer than anywhere else. It started pretty bare bones. We do love our projects. Right now, I don’t see us leaving here. I do see more empty nest weekends south in the bleak mid-winters to come.

In 2014 we bought the cabin. I never needed a cabin, but this one was special, now the hub of friends and family summertime memories. Bill’s sanctuary.

Mary is investigating colleges little by little. Calvin is in Boston looking at grad schools. Time marches on. I don’t take one moment for granted with our parents and our family time. The kids seem to like spending time with us, and that gives me hope for the future, even if it includes Massachusetts or other far off lands.

Ladybug and Hub-a-dub. The house of stone and light. The Little Pines Lodge. Little Calvin K. Little Mary Schmoo. Family and friends. The fairytale continues.

I’m lucky. I married my best friend. I may be showing some bias, but he is the best man I know.

All-State Orchestra, Resilience, and Aunt Kathy

Last weekend was Mary’s All-State Orchestra. The student musicians got to rehearse on Friday and perform in Orchestra Hall on Saturday. She had a great time, seeing friends from summer camp and playing wonderful music with a wonderful conductor. She filled the hall with her tone on her solos on the Prokofiev. Bill and I got to be there in the hall and afterward the three of us celebrated at a fancy downtown restaurant where I may have had a second glass of champagne. Congrats to Mary, her friend Emily and all the high school musicians. THEY EARNED IT!!!!!

From what I hear, high school kids do not want to hear the word resilient. They don’t want to be called resilient. They want nothing to do with resilience. It’s a four letter word. They didn’t try to be resilient. They just did what they were required to do. They just want their lives back. Covid has robbed them of three of their four years of high school. Mary had one semester of a normal freshmen year. Then it hit the fan. Now she’s a junior. She doesn’t know what the faces of her friends and teachers look like. She hasn’t seen them since February of 2020. It’s my blog so, in tribute to my Aunt Kathy, I’m gonna say what I want. . . . we did this to them. We put the burden of Covid on our youth. Shame on us. Grownups protect kids. Kids don’t protect grownups. Maybe, just maybe we are on the downhill. Maybe, just maybe she can have a normal senior year. Screw resilience. There’s no big lesson to be learned, just let them get on with their lives.

Our Aunt Kathy, my dad’s older sister passed away earlier this week. She was tough as nails. My mom remembers her propensity to say hell no. She and my mom developed a deep relationship after my dad died at 69 in 2009. She stayed with my mom during that time, and then Kathy called her every Sunday night at 7:00 until dementia removed time and space from her. She came to the cabin in August during those years and we got to know her during smoke breaks at the front yard picnic table. I think I have the same Stephens face shape as her. She listened to Calvin play the piano and painted rocks with Mary, whom she called Mary Ray of Sunshine. She dressed like a rock star. Literally. Jeans and white t-shirts and vintage jackets from Goodwill. She was unapologetically herself. She said what was on her mind, always. Never mean. Never cruel. Always honest. She was comfortable to be around. No airs.

Somehow, when someone is so completely honestly themselves, it gives you permission to be your own self. Not that we get to let it all hang out, but that we can be our very best, and most honest selves. God bless you Aunt Kathy. I wrote this blog in honesty, in tribute to you.

The Live-streaming Winter Blues

Half a mile from our home, this intersection is the crossroads of the north and the south. Interstate 35 south goes to Austin, where you are forever twenty-five and the sun is always shining. North, well, it’s even colder, and spring comes even later. Bill’s folks are there. Hibernating. Waiting for cabin season when we bring smiles and food.

We were gifted tickets to the Minnesota Orchestra Friday night. The Firebird Suite. Live music rises from the covid ashes. What a treat to dress up and hear an amazing program.

A musical friend commented yesterday that one good thing that has come out the pandemic is the livestream. Agreed. Today Bill, Mary and I gathered round the kitchen table at 3:00 to watch Calvin perform on the University of Iowa School of Music Beethoven series. Dr. Nosikova’s project, the school is performing all 32 piano sonatas live in a series of Sunday concerts. Lucky for us, they are also live-streamed. We called Bill’s folks during intermission. They were watching on their computer as well. A bald eagle gave us a fly over out the dining room window somewhere in the third movement, representing my dad. And. . . Janel was there in the hall, listening in person, of course she took Calvin out for dinner after the recital. What else are grandmommies for?

With the livestream, you can have a meatloaf in the oven and wear your comfy jeans and eat m&ms during the show. You can have a fire in the fireplace. It’s like water for chocolate though, listening to a nine foot Steinway through the computer speakers—texting good luck and bravo instead of real applause and a post-performance hug. Still, it’s ever so much better than nothing.

Well friends, this is the time of winter in Minnesota when you have to be the most careful. S.A.D. It creeps up gradually. You wonder why you are feeling so blah and crabby. Why you can’t keep your hand out of the m&m jar. Why everything looks a little grey like the color has bled out.

Then you remember. Oh, yah, it’s February in Minnesota, don’t you know. Those of us who are not down hill skiers have not seen the sun in a month of Sundays. We haven’t seen green grass since October.

It’s good to have the seasons. I wouldn’t trade it. But. . . I might pencil in a couple weekends to Austin on the future empty nester’s but not yet snowbird’s calendar.

Next weekend we get to hear Mary on clarinet, live at Orchestra Hall with the Minnesota All-State Orchestra. We have to present our vaccine card, and probably a passport and social security number to get in, but we will be there, live and in person. She has a solo.

I’m thankful for it all. All the music, live and live-streamed. And all the concerts and workshops coming back.

It’s still awhile to spring, but I can’t complain. We do have a spring break trip planned to someplace warm. In between now and then there is a lot of work to do. There is teaching to do, workshops and teacher training classes to prepare for. Clarinet accompaniments to learn.

We have to keep our light bulbs plugged into the source. I couldn’t do it without my morning time. Thirty minutes before anyone else wakes up, my own little livestream, to secure my own oxygen mask with my journal, my Bible, and a pile of miscellaneous hard cover inspiration. It takes a lot of candle light to warm the Minnesota winter mornings. And a fancy cup of coffee.

We have to cut ourselves some slack. Leave the m&m jar lid closed loosely. Spring for the yellow tulips at Kowalski’s. Brew a second cup. As we round the corner of two years of covid, I’m thankful for my family, our home, my studio, dear friends, and yes, even the live-stream. I’m thankful that there is hope of normalcy. Till then, we keep walking in love, giving as much grace as possible to everyone on the path. Keep trying to let our lights shine.

If you are having the winter blues, hang in there. You are not alone. There is light ahead. If you had a peaceful weekend going to some concerts and watching some livestream with a fire in the fireplace, that’s okay too. Thanks for reading and I hope you have a good week. Spring is on the way.

Sara

Those Holiday Feelings

It’s that time of year. . .we get those holiday feelings. They start at Thanksgiving. We had a lovely, lovely Thanksgiving week. We got to see Sam, Janel and Calvin came, and we saw Bill’s folks and friends too! We started the season off strong with Beethoven’s 9th at Orchestra Hall. Listening to that fourth movement, with full orchestra, chorus and soloists, Beethoven’s cry to the universe, well. . . it makes a lot of our frustrations seem pretty petty. To me.

Janel and I had our traditional Christmas shopping day, and this time we got to have lunch in a galleria restaurant instead of covid takeout in the car. It was lovely. Traditions. Traditions. Those holiday feelings.

I pride myself on focusing on love and not fear. Perfect love casts out fear, or so the good book says. I work hard at not dwelling in the past nor worrying about the future. But, if there is a chink in the armor, it’s those holiday feelings.

Each Thanksgiving brings with it every Thanksgiving. Childhood trips to cold farmhouses in cold cars with cold feet. I’m singing carols with Susan on the dark drive home, Mama and Grandma waiting for us for leftovers in Eldridge. I’ve written it all before, rushing home from Friday’s Christmas shopping downtown, long before it was black friday, begging to get home in time to watch Rudolph on network television.

Then comes the college Thanksgivings. Epic road trips for 48 hours of family time. Five years of Thanksgiving night Texas dance hall gigs. Then marriage and our own littles— in Nisswa, and New Brighton and Eagle Lake. The Wednesdays of cooking, teaching, practicing for choir, packing and getting to church for the kids to sing. Road trips after choir rehearsals. Exhausted Thursdays, before I knew better. I mean, I kinda know better now.

Since 2019, Thanksgiving is waiting for Calvin. That first year was the hardest.

I was living on the memory go round, stuck in the notion that maybe the past was actually better, the four of us living under one roof. I forgot that while my mind can glorify just about any memory, that’s not a great place to stay for too long. I snapped out of it. Pretty much. . . I accepted the new normal. It actually took some divine intervention, which I already wrote about back then. Sometimes there are real angels in the felted wool decorations I hang on the tree.

Two years later, and now I have two juniors, one in high school and one in college. A new threat! That new normal of Calvin coming home for Thanksgiving with Janel, only has one more year. . . then God knows what he will be doing and Mary will be off as well. Heaven help me. I just got it figured out.

Moving on.

Each Christmas brings every Christmas. Those holiday feelings. Letting my mind take trips down memory lane with a just a little healthy nostalgia. Quelling the projection of future holidays that will be. . . DIFFERENT.

I’m holding the conflicting mindsets of making the holidays special, without making an idol of them. And holding space for that darker place that tells me that things will not stay the same. The people and circumstances in our lives will always be changing. Perhaps our fear of losing the people we love, could actually serve some greater purpose of breaking us out of the spell. We can appreciate this moment. This holiday. These circumstances. Be there now.

For better or for worse, I am a creature of habits and rituals. I probably write the same thing every year, my quest to be in the present moment. It’s just in my DNA to change the decorations on the bulletin board in my childhood room each month, from one holiday to the next. Now the bulletin board is my life, my home, the holiday calendar, the grocery list. Christmas recital pieces.

I’m so thankful for the Thanksgiving week we had. There was so much love and food, family and friends. I’m truly looking forward to advent and Christmas. I’m happy with the way things are RIGHT NOW. . . and when I’m being my best self, that perfect love, that casts out fear, tells me that it’s going to be okay, even when things change. There will always be those holiday feelings.

Lord, thank you for the gift of memories, and thank you for this year’s precious Thanksgiving. And keep us hopeful knowing that you have everything under control, the Alpha and the Omega, the cosmic cry of Beethoven’s universal gift for us. Let the most important holiday feeling we long for, be your peace, now and forever. Amen.

Cats and Construction

It might be too soon to talk about my day yesterday.

Let me start by telling you that Rosie is fine. She is here on the desk complaining that I am typing instead of petting her.

Yesterday was supposed to be the last day of stage two of our home renovation. The floor guys were putting the last coat of polyurethane on the new oak flooring in the upstairs hall, master bedroom and closets. I was leaving to run errands as they arrived. When I returned they were already finished and gone.

I went about my business, unloading groceries and preparing for an afternoon of teaching and an evening of chamber music. An hour and a half later I heard the meowing.

Yes, Rosie, with her long white fur and four furry paws, sweet little Rosie, was locked behind the upstairs hall door, also secured with an extra layer of plastic, zippers and duct tape, in there alone, with the fresh oil based polyurethane on the floor.

You can see two big problems here.

I scooped her up and tried to clean her feet with paper towels, but her paws were all glued tight and all the fur stuck to the pads in a big mat of dried gluey poly. I just held her for awhile, mind racing. . . I prayed, seeing her as God’s perfect white fury kitty. Then, after calling the vet, who referred me to Minnesota Pet Poison Control, whose web sight had nothing like my plight. . . I made what seemed to me like a life or death call.

I soaked eight cotton balls in mineral spirits and worked on each paw as long as she would let me. Then I took her to the kitchen sink and used the strongest non-toxic soap I could think of, Dawn dish soap, which is supposed to take grease out of your way, and washed her feet in the hottest water I thought she could stand. She was of course the devil incarnate, but I stayed the course, continuing to wash her feet until she could take no more. I wrapped her in a towel and continued to pray, hoping I had not made the situation worse, or further toxified her. She gave us a quite a scare all afternoon. At age 11 she is officially down to eight lives.

I don’t know if an ER vet could have done better, or would have taken a different course. I made the decision to keep her home and stuck with it. I do believe that Rosie has angelic characteristics and perhaps her fellow angels helped her out a little.

And then there is the second problem, hundred of kitty prints in the poly, tracing Rosie’s path from Mary’s room where she must have been hiding, to our room, to the master bathroom, back over to Mary’s bathroom and then down the hall to the door. She stopped back in Calvin’s room and rested on the sofa from our room, getting poly all over the arms and cushions. There may be other areas she explored in her confusion. It’s too soon to tell.

So, we will not be moving back into our upstairs Monday as planned. Tra la la, as I like to say.

I happen to think little cats prints all over the floor are a cute decorating idea, but the contractor and Bill? Not so much. I guess there will be some sanding and and another final coat. Did I mention that Bill was out of town?

And, I never really liked that sofa anyway.

I’ve been meaning to write a blog about cats and construction for a couple months, as we are into the fourth month here and the cats have become very friendly with the contractors. This was not what I had in mind.

Well, that’s my story. Thanks for reading it. All is well that ends well, or better yet, all will be well and all will be well and all will be made well.

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His and Hers and a Nice Long Break

Congrats to Mary on her week at Minnesota All-State Orchestra camp. She had a great week. There were like-minded kids, long rehearsals and sore chops. She got to play the first clarinet part on Prokofiev V. There were many exposed solos and she was super excited and challenged. Bill and I had to miss the concert on Saturday, because it was my own studio recital at the cabin. Calvin was able to attend and made a video for us. We will get to see the concert when the orchestra meets again in February and they get to perform at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis. She seemed so high from the whole week. To me it was a reminder that when things are right, it’s easy. I didn’t say it isn’t a lot of work, but it’s the right kind of work and when you are with equally yoked kids, friendship comes naturally. She is definitely more focused on clarinet than on piano these days, and I’m fine with that. She is a lovely pianist and will keep her foot in the studio door, but she plans to continue woodwinds in college and that is where her heart is. I’m thankful that I married a woodwind guy who can help her. Bill keeps her horns tuned up, albeit with extra stops at Tenor Madness in Waterloo, and he keeps her in reeds. I don’t know from reeds. She starts her junior year at Eastview next week. We are hoping for as normal a year as possible. She is the clarinet section leader for the Eastview Marching Band and that’s keeping her busy and outside. I can’t wait to see the show!

We got the boy back to school. I actually had two trips to Iowa in four days. One for a family funeral. I was reminded of the bittersweet Lyle Lovett lyrics, ”I went to a funeral, and lord it made me happy.” It was good to be with family. I hadn’t seen some of these folks since my dad died in 2009. Why does someone have to die to really get us all together? We lost my cousin Jill way too soon. The impact crater on the Stephens’ clan will be enormous. The Stephens folks? They are just good people. Nice people. I love them. Aunts and uncles and cousins and cousins kids. All of them.

Back to the kid. . . Bill and I had to take him back to Iowa City without Mary. She had already missed too much EVMB time while she was at camp. We did what we call the strategic hit. Down to Iowa, have lovely dinner with my mom, my sister, her fiancé Ray, and his daughter Sarah. Toast to their engagement. Go to bed and wake up and get the U-haul and move the stuff from my dad’s shop to Calvin’s rental house. One of Calvin’s roommates helped, so I didn’t even have to carry a sofa up the stairs. As Jonah and Calvin were carrying the IKEA desk down the narrow stairs to Calvin’s basement room, I heard the roommate tell Calvin to move his hands to the inside of the desk to carry it, to protect his fingers. Having the roommate concerned about Calvin not crushing his hand between the desk and the brick wall completely moved me to tears. Sniff. Sniff. Choke. That’s all you need sometimes. Just a little. There was time for lunch downtown Iowa City at the Dandy Lion. Then Bill and I were on the road. We dropped the U-Haul and stopped in Waterloo to tweak the clarinet and it was all too fast for me to even really cry. Until, we got the Minnesota border, where I pulled out my bullet journal to plan meals for the week. I realized there was no food to buy or cook for Calvin. Whaaaa. But, it does get easier. A lot easier. And it helps that he has great roommates and a great house and he’s looking forward to a great year of piano and math. He is in the right place at the right time.

Me? I’ve been on a break the last two weeks. There were some end of the summer graduation recitals and the two trips to Iowa. Now? I’m just here. Our house is having it’s twenty year face lift. There will be a lot of little and big projects happening in the next few months. I’m pretty excited. Taking care of my home and studio is important to me. Now is the time to take care of this home, so that it can continue to bless us and our guests. I’ll keep you posted on the progress. I still have some time off. I’ll plan my studio year, and take care of Mary’s back to school tasks and do what I can in the garden. Breaks are important. Really important. I’m thankful I can take this time to renew my energy and do some creative endeavors to prepare for the new school year. See you soon!

The Real Thing

This last week I taught at the MacPhail Suzuki Institute. It was a hybrid format, part live and part Zoom. The kids were amazing as always, and it was all very well-orchestrated. Still, I confess to feeling slightly empty on the drive home Friday, while not dropping Fay at the airport. Also, I missed packing a huge lunch for myself, Calvin and Mary and the chaos of getting everyone packed up and practiced and downtown. I missed having my own piano kids there to eat lunch on the giant steps and have picnics outside. I missed chatting with colleagues in the hallways. I missed walking to Izzie’s ice cream Thursday after class. Our faculty dinner was delicious and lovely, but there were empty seats at the table since Fay and David were zooming.

I feel like until we are completely past covid, and all the teachers and families are back in full glory, things just aren‘t really real. We make the best of it. We keep trying to make the best of it, but it’s not the real thing.

Even aside from summer institutes, which again, are doing the best they can. . . there is something missing in our new Zoom culture.

It’s not the real thing.

I feel like we are asking our kids to do all the work, put all the time in, and expecting them to just be satisfied with their own personal growth. To be satisfied to play their Zoom recital and click the red “leave meeting” button, change clothes and go back to whatever they were doing before the recital. Well, here is the bottom line, it’s not really that satisfying. In fact, it’s a recipe for burnout. I know the kids are feeling it because I’m feeling it. It’s not the real thing.

I’m not going to Zoom anymore recitals this fall. If families want to make a video and post it and send to relatives afar, that’s fine. I’m putting all my eggs in the live music basket. We are gonna play a real piano in a real room with a real audience. Real applause. Then we are going to have real treats and real conversation. And give real hugs. I’m gonna sit in a chair with no screen between me and performer and listen. Just listen. No beeps, and no someone’s beloved grandma making commentary unmuted. I’m just going to watch and listen.

I’ve got six studio graduations in the next ten days. I’m looking forward to each one. These piano kids have worked hard. They did the real work, let’s give them the real celebration. Let’s get back to the real thing.

The Circle Game

Happy birthday Calvin. You are twenty. The boy is twenty.

Here is a song for you by Joni Mitchell. . .

Yesterday a child came out to wander
Caught a dragonfly inside a jar
Fearful when the sky was full of thunder
And tearful at the falling of a star

And the seasons, they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return, we can only look
Behind, from where we came
And go round and round and round, in the circle game

Then the child moved ten times round the seasons
Skated over ten clear frozen streams
Words like, "When you're older" must appease him
And promises of someday make his dreams

And the seasons, they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return, we can only look
Behind, from where we came
And go round and round and round, in the circle game

16 springs and 16 summers gone now
Cartwheels turn to car wheels through the town
And they tell him, "Take your time, it won't be long now
'Til you drag your feet to slow the circles down"

And the seasons, they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return, we can only look
Behind, from where we came
And go round and round and round, in the circle game

So the years spin by and now the boy is 20
Though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true
There'll be new dreams, maybe better dreams and plenty
Before the last revolving year is through

And the seasons, they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return, we can only look
Behind, from where we came
And go round and round and round, in the circle game
And go round and round and round, in the circle game

Listen here: The Circle Game

It’s so cliche, but I can’t believe it. Twenty is so much more grown up than eighteen. You are our adult child, my travel companion and duet partner. You are an amazing man. A musician, a scholar, a traveler, a creator, and a listener. I pray that your dreams continue to come true, that you always meet the right people at the right time, that you always shine your light and that your heartbreaks, although necessary, are few.

Love Grows Here in the Overgrown Garden

Welcome to my new blog! I’ve been blogging for over ten years. Lately, it hasn’t been so easy to write. My kids are older and their news is their news. Maybe covid and current events have closed me off a little as well. Yet, that’s not how I want to be. I started writing because it was therapeutic. It still is.

I titled this new site, “Notes From An Overgrown Garden Of Life” because that’s how I often think about the largeness of family life, being a serious piano teacher, and taking care of a whole lot of flora and fauna. It is a lot like working in the garden. We want to plant new plants and try new ideas but the old plants still need water and love and meanwhile they are propagating all over the property and also meanwhile the weeds are growing like weeds. It’s time sensitive and it can be overwhelming, and depending upon the eyes you look through, at any given moment it’s either beautiful or complete chaos.

A wise man, in the form of my husband, once said, if you are only going to be happy when things are perfect, you are probably not going to be very happy. True in the garden, and true in life. So I get down on my knees and pull some weeds and try to maintain some semblance of order and beauty. While I’m there I say a little prayer that God would use me to some small service through it all.

Every day we make moment by moment decisions to place our focus on the weeds or on the flowers. As Jesus said, the weeds will always be with you. Wait. . .that wasn’t quite right. Anyway, the weeds are always there, still, we must try to shine the light towards the flowers of gratitude.

My hope is to make this blog a place where love grows. An alumni parent gave me the idea for the title, “Love Grows Here.” That is my goal.