Some moments of sweet satisfaction

Since the last few posts, I've been on the upswing and had some good moments to cheer me during the last week. After two straight weeks without a day off to recuperate, the small moments of sweet satisfaction were especially welcome.
On Monday, I was scheduled for a shift at the store (school holiday made me available), and actually enjoyed the first half of it because I worked an express lane. That meant shorter lines of stuff, a spot near the doorway where winter sunlight reached me, and a rare chance to work near a kindred spirit -the lady who trained me. She is one of those people who has contagious smiles and an upbeat attitude that are genuine. Her sense of humor and camraderie brought out the same in me, and we found small things to joke about during the brief durations between customers. It was nice; she is one whom I will miss when I move on.

As for school, my worries about what to do with my dysfunctional choir led me to make some changes: beginners meet on one day, intermediates meet another, instead of both together. This will allow the more experienced singers to progress at the speed they are capable of without getting frustrated by the immaturity of the others, and I can help the beginners learn at their pace without the pressure of me expecting more of them than I should. This has also helped to retain the students I wanted to recruit for Honor Choir, who were on the point of dropping out. They are much happier now, and so am I.
On Thursday, a former choir student invited me to their choir concert at the middle school that night, so I went. It was encouraging to see "my girls" as leaders in their group, singing beautifully and looking so grown up in high-heels and styled hair, but still sweet enough to run and hug me, and be delighted that I had come.
Two of the songs were a deja vu of sorts, one of which I had conducted with a highschool choir at their graduation, at the end of my student-teaching days.

I have also been encouraged by more classes that feel like a success, like I was helping the students discover things rather than force-feeding them. Yesterday, the most meaningful moment was not teaching, but just being a source of comfort for a kid who needed a hug. I realized that, after a few careful questions met with a shake of the head, I didn't need to diagnose or even know why she was sad, I just needed to let her stay there with an arm around her shoulders. I couldn't cure the source of sadness, only soothe the wounds, but to be able to do that was enough for the moment and a lesson for me, the fixer.

Something else that made the week nicer was the clear, cold weather all week. It made for bright days with sun coming in the window, birds singing, scarves and gloves, frozen breath and frozen puddles, frosted mountains clearly visible against blue sky, brighter spirits, and crisp evenings with a full moon rising yellow through a pink sunset and turning white amongst the stars, making the frost covered ground sparkle. The thermometer lingered in the twenties, but I walked to get lunch anyway.

Random discoveries:
The difference between a job and a career: a job is work that you do for money and it feels like work (or slavery!); a career is work that you do for a purpose and has more worth/value to you than just the monetary equivalent of your labor.

Two green tea drinks that I am currently addicted to: Enviga sparkling green tea, and Cricket cola (a sushi bar favorite of my past that I joyfully found at a local store that carries it).

A blue day -the good kind

Getting all that stuff out on the last blog DID help a bit, and I think I've moved out of self-pity mode for the time being. I've also changed the song on my homepage to "Salva Me," a different song by Libera (the words to this one are mostly in Latin, but being a music geek I know what they're saying and it's more applicable than the vague poetry of the previous one).
Today was one of the nicer kinds of blue days, where the depressing gray, soggy clouds of yesterday were blown away by the wind and left behind some clear space of blue sky, the cheerful kind that reflects off of windows and puddles and makes the pale sunlight seem to smile. The air was cold and brisk, a welcome thing after teaching some Dance-Dance-Revolution in a dark gym with a double-sized class (team-teaching has its pros and cons!) that smelled of sock feet, and getting all warmed up. It was a pretty good day, with the exception of 5th grade and choir, which often make me feel blue in the negative sense. I'm disappointed because choir used to be what I looked forward to most with the kids, because they wanted to be there and we could really make progress fast on some beautiful/fun music. But last year's 5th graders are gone and I now have an uneven group: some 4th graders who are focused and experienced because they were in choir last year and are ready for a challenge, and then a large group of newbies who need to be babysat, coaxed, and given The Look just in order to make it through a rehearsal. I feel like I am losing the kids who are the best singers, because they have to wait for everyone else to get their act together and follow their example. Progress is also very slow, and I am getting worried about how many songs we will actually be able to do passably for a performance...I hope that once I get practice CDs to them, things will get better.
Well, after kid choir chaos, it was a relief to go to my own choir rehearsal and sing some Mozart, with lots of high notes and fast runs. Singing is a salvation from everyday drudgery for me, a way to bring some energy and beauty back into life even though I am tired, and it is something that is mine and I can excel at. It used to be that gymnastics was the thing that was mine, that I could enjoy being a perfectionist at, then it was organ, now singing is the one thing I have left in my body that I can still use and perfect artistically on a regular basis.
The best part of today was getting home and finding my birthday gift to myself in the mailbox: several CDs I had ordered from Amazon. I got the Libera CD yesterday, a nice meditative and ethereal kind of mood music (still awaiting one more CD of similiar taste), and now I have the contrasting bright and happy music to pick me up: a Bhangra music collection (a real upper!), and two Baroque recorder CDs (Vivaldi concertos and Telemann sonatas/fantasias, in case you were curious). I wish I had an iPod so that I could listen to these during my work break tomorrow, just close my eyes and escape into another, happier place for awhile. But I don't have an iPod, so I guess I'll listen in the car and while I'm at home. Maybe some of this music will get stuck in my head, and it will be my own personal soundtrack while I work. That would be a nice change from having the DDR music stuck in my head!
Finally, here I am in bed with my computer, blogging a bit and getting ready to watch a bit of Law and Order SVU, with, of all things, a blue drink to keep me company and help unwind some of the stress.
Thank goodness for the power of music and blue skies to bring me some hope and happiness in the midst of these gray days!

Free me to fly

I don’t like to rant or unleash the griping self-pity monster if I can help it, but this is one of those times when I must let some things out or I will a) blow up b) sink into depression or c) give up the fight. I tend to internalize stress and conceal emotions, a survival skill learned in gymnastics and refined as a teacher. However, if I boil below the surface too long without venting, I am afraid I will say something to someone or do something that I will regret. I prefer to write about beautiful things, but I have nothing to draw on right now to do so. So perhaps if I get this out of my system, there will be room for something better.
I feel like I am trapped in a glass cage of Self, watching as Me who is not really Me slaves away in service to society, working to survive instead of working to share what I am good at in a way that is fulfilling. Life is unfolding and passing me by as I watch from within; I am only happy when I am not working, which tells me that making enough money does not matter if the job is only a job and a thief of my time and intellect.
I have had some bitter experiences lately with the work schedule of my moonlighting job. I have nothing against the powers-that-be, and cannot blame the establishment for being what it is: retail, which encourages consumers to consume and demands that employees be available to meet the need, selling their birthright to any holidays or weekends. So far, all of my holidays have been stolen –Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years- and now it appears that my birthday is not exempt either. Wednesday is my only day off, but because I am available, apparently I may be scheduled to work retail that day every now and then (surprise!) too. I was looking forward to this Wednesday to have a little time for myself to celebrate my birthday, even if it’s as simple as going to a movie, eating Chinese sit-down instead of take-out, having my scheduled massage, and going to choir practice. Irony of ironies, I am scheduled to work THAT Wednesday –during the time of the massage appointment and choir practice, of course. I feel like there is a mocking soundtrack playing “Crappy Birthday to you…” My bad attitude is partially due to having all my other holidays screwed up, generally feeling tired all the time, and not having much time for myself to be myself. I sometimes feel like breaking down in tears, or yelling out my frustrations before the anger fades to hopeless resignation. I want to quit, but I am not a quitter. I also cannot afford to quit yet.
When I am teaching, I feel a bit more genuinely like myself. I can think, share, have a sense of humor, encourage, and rest between classes. I also have to do a lot of crowd control and endure classes that feel like nothing was accomplished because the students were like molecules bouncing off each other and creating chaotic chain reactions, creating fires that I have to put out instead of making the lesson a learning experience. I feel a silent sadness, a plea for respect and a desire to share worthwhile things with people who desire to understand them.

I long to be free of the glass cage, free to fly somewhere that I can be the best of who I am but have hidden deep inside, where I look forward to work because I want to be there doing it. The internalized scream is getting louder, more persistent, and I can only contain it with the hope that if I can hang in there and stick with this through the end of the school year, I will have a chance to break free. I’d rather go into debt going to grad school, than have the “security” of a dead-end job and a mismatched profession that trap me forever in the glass cage.
There is a beautiful song, “Far Away,” sung by the boy’s choir Libera (it’s the one playing on my MySpace page); the words and melodies resonate with what I am feeling right now; the longing to fly away, feeling lost in the dark but following a shining star that is God, who can lead and rescue me. The powers of darkness are glad that I am miserable. Such adversity tells me that something good must be around the corner, if I can withstand the struggles that come before it.
Part of an old hymn comes to mind: “Are ye weary, heavy-laden, burdened with a load of care? In His arms He’ll take and shield thee, thou wilt find a solace there…”

I have thus reached the end of my rant, and hope that the next blog entry I write will be a much nicer, more positive one. Honestly, life is hard right now and could be a lot better, but it could also be a lot worse. It’s not the end of the world if I have to work on my birthday; maybe there’s a great one in store for me next year. Maybe I’ll have the gift of having survived and put this year behind me and moved on to greener pastures, where there are no feelings of glass cages…Maybe I’ll be a free bird!