I Finished It

It is finished. Yesterday I made a video of the Debussy and put the finishing touches on the Suzuki Association of the Americas Teacher Trainer application. It took me eighteen months from start to finish. As I got up from the piano after playing a take that I thought was acceptable it was all a little anticlimactic. One phrase after another and then it's over.

Why did I do this? Not sure. Nothing is really missing in my life. I'm not chumping at the bit to go do more summer institutes and I'm highly suspect that I have anything to share with the world at large anyway. Still, someday, when my kids are a little older I can organize some teachers and God willing be a conduit of those whom I have observed several hundred hours of. . . the Doris Harrels and Caroline Frasers of the world, which to be clear, we do not aspire to duplicate, but to find our own authentic voice, through the mixed up experiences and unique perspective, that we hope to bring to the surface, by surrounding ourselves with the most excellent people we can find.

Maybe I did it to prove that I can. Maybe I did it to please Doris.

There is still so much to learn. A dozen hours of private coaching with Kathie Faricy just reminds me of how far there is to go. And there are still so many people I want to learn from--Fay Adams and Chris Liccardo and Marina Obukovsky and Irina Gorin. How do they do it?

I did it because I believe in the mother tongue approach. I believe in the Suzuki triangle. I believe that every child can. I believe in a one point lesson. I believe there is no substitute from starting very young and that it must be done very carefully with great love. I believe that we need a next generation of Suzuki Piano teachers and while I may be grossly unqualified if you wait till you are perfect you will never do anything.

The powers that be have four months to let me know if I passed and if not what areas I need to rework.

Thank you Doris and Chris and Jonelle and Aidan, Alec, Cassy, Kelsey, Calvin, Mary and Matthew. Thank you Ford and Úna and group A and Kathie and everyone else whose fingerprints are on this. Thank you Vickie and Annette for paving the way.

Fair thee well little FedEx package with eighteen months of my life. Yesterday, my friend so sweetly said, I'm praying for the hands that made it and the hands that receive it.

Isn't is good to have friends?

By Our Love

They will know we are Christians by our love, by our love
They will know we are Christians by our love.

Love, love, love.
Forgiveness, forgiveness, forgiveness.

In the wake of these South Carolina church shootings my husband and I go for walks and try to figure out how to save the world. Shall we make make bumper stickers that say "No God/No guns." This from consumate conservatives. We all got rights taken away after 9/11. When a white mother with her nursing baby gets frisked going through airport security you know we are off the rails in more ways than one. A nation without morals may have to be a nation with fewer guns. Please note that my entire extended family are hunters, including my precious dad, two grandpas and all my uncles and in-laws, and yet I've never seen or held a gun--they were that responsible. I felt safe hiking through Montana knowing that no grizzly would get by whatever it was that my dad was packing. Can we just give guns to the good guys? Could we please just legislate some morality here?

How do we pick and choose who gets it? How many times do I have to take my shoes and belt off and be x-rayed to get on an airplane. Why does the whole class have to stay in for recess?

And what about those SC families standing up in court and unanimously offering forgiveness--the next day? That's that kind of faith where your knee jerk reaction is love and forgiveness. It didn't take years of therapy--their faith was right there on the surface--where your first response is to drop to your knees. I know someone who is like that.

Hating in the name of God is religion off the rails. You can see it everywhere. From the dawn of time.

We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord,
We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord,
And we pray that all unity will one day be restored and 
They'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love
They will know we are Christians by our love.

We are gonna learn this song around the campfire.

Lord, help my knee jerk reaction to be love and forgiveness. If they can do it, I can do it. 
Amen

P.S. I promise to return to pleasant musical and family life topics. . . I just had to get this off my chest. 

They Could Have Danced All Night

You probably know the ups and downs of my love affair with dance. This year we did dance again. This is the fourth local studio we've tried. I already told you how much I loved Mary's ballet teacher. Old school. Here is the jazz and tap update.

This isn't our first dance rodeo. Things always seem to go along pretty good right up until the recital at which point I usually get dark and swear on a stack of bibles that we will never do dance again. The $100 costume for the 180 second dance. The girls staring blankly into the audience while they shuffle step and four hours into the recital you are wishing there was a cash bar at intermission.

Last night was completely different. Last night at the dance recital I was enthralled. It was an amazing show--well more like a dance party--but let me back up a little to the at home preparations.

The girls were asked to wear full make-up. I pretty much botched this for the dress rehearsal and Mary looked even worse when she got home, after rubbing her eyes all day. Raccoon at best, rock star the morning after at worst. Stage mom failure number one. So--for the real show I took my time. I thought her makeup looked very pretty and we were all admiring my artistry and especially the bright red lip liner I had painstakingly applied with delicate Monet brushstrokes.

"Okay, Mama I'm gonna brush my teeth now."
WHAT! I yelled.
YOU CAN'T GO BRUSH YOUR TEETH. We'll have to do the lips all over.

I see the bottom lip start to tremor.

YOU
CAN'T
CRY!!!
 I scream at her. (Stage mom failure number two)
The thought of that mascara all running down her face put me over the edge.

I looked up at her and my outburst was so over the top ridiculous that we both burst out laughing. Crisis diverted. I wiped off the lipstick, she brushed her teeth and while you can't paint a starry night again, I did my best to recreate the effect.

Fast forward to the closing awards ceremony. Many trophies were given out--this isn't our main deal so Mary was not expecting an award and she cheered her peers on without reservation. Then it came time for the parent's award. Alas "The Sequin Queen" trophy, given to the most dedicated parent was given to another mother. Calvin leaned over, took my hand, and whispered, "better luck next time, Mama." My total volunteer hours at the dance studio this year? Zero.

Alas the show. The show was three hours but went by so fast because it was so much fun watching these kids. From the high end competitive kids to every recreational group, the kids were having a ball. The Apple Valley High School stage is at the same level as the audience and we were all so close. Everyone called the kids by name in their appreciation calls and it was like we were all one big family there in the hall. It almost made me want to bring a hot dish for the pot luck next year.

What made it have that something that drew me in? It had that underdog edge to it, of kids working to their limits and pushing through and bringing their own personality and artistry to the music and the moment. You don't know how to describe it and it has nothing to do with perfect technique but you know it when you see it. And you can see it on their faces. The expression was in their bodies but it was also on their faces and in their eyes and it crossed over the risers and into our hearts.

The center male tap dancer in the picture above is the son of the owners and he's a graduating senior and they honored him with a solo tap dance to the pop song "Uptown Funk." He had the most awesome grin and never broke eye contact with the audience till the final standing back flip of the night. Congrats Gayle and Robert! You got a great dancer. You got a great kid.

I thought about the famous and local musicians who always look like they are having a great time. Louis Bellson. Bill Henry. Tim Woolsey. Their love of the music shoots like an arrow to the audience.  They are having a great time, so we have a great time watching them.

Maybe to a certain extent this is something that can be trained. Jeepers I take things so seriously most of the time. Maybe we have to be a little more of an actor here and there. We love music--it ought to show. Let it go and enjoy the ride.

In any case--congrats to Mary and Taylor and all the kids from the studio whom I don't know because I never volunteer. It was a great show and I loved every minute of it.

Music, Sweet Music

The boy.

The Studio

This may go down as my all time favorite photo--Dr. Suzuki approved. 

They didn't have a good time--you can see. . . 

More fun. . . 

Mary waits her turn at the Deerwood talent show on the last day of school

This picture's gonna make me cry every time. 

Mary's friend is a beautiful dancer.

Singing in the Rain

Music, sweet music, thy praises we sing. . .

What can I do but describe the musical events of late. . .

Studio recital: twenty-two kids played beautifully and ate 347 cookies and drank four gallons of lemonade. I made almond bars in tribute to the Fox Bugasch family and brownies to honor Linda Erickson. Highlights? Haven lifting her hands at the end of Cuckoo, Preston my blind student playing Chant Arabe hands together if you know what I mean, and Lena's Nocturne and Solomon's Petit Poisson. We unofficially renamed Debussy's piece to honor Solomon's obsession with fishing.

Chamber music: Three groups (I missed the photo of the second group--sadly) played their pieces with Conor and Adrianna, parents of Úna. It was a real treat to say the least and we were all a good team--my role primary as stage manager.  Chamber music is amazing--the kids start out completely deer in the headlights--they can't listen--they don't follow--they can't even hear themselves. Then in a fifteen minute rehearsal they are hearing the inner voices and subdivisions of the string parts and rhythm improves, tone color changes and they are using their body language and breathing with an ensemble. I dream of making this a focus of my studio--figuring out a way to get this to happen more than once a year. Piano is a lonely lonely business. You practice by yourself year after year and sit down with an ensemble and everything changes.

Moving on to the talent show circuit. First the middle school--which I don't have good pictures of--only video of Calvin's grunge band playing Seven Nation Army. I guess this is a classic alternative rock song making me feel about 100 years old because let's face it I'm out of the the classic alternative rock scene. The band was really good--five pieces with Noah as a front man and Calvin as drummer and the other buddies on those instruments with necks and amplifiers--what are they called again?

For the record-I asked Calvin what he was going to wear--he had a classical piano performance later in the talent show--and I suggested a black polo shirt. No, he said, I'm going to wear what I always wear. Cue the bright aqua polo shirt. We've made progress, he did unbutton the top button and the other four band members in their black Death Metal tee-shirts did not bat an eye. Is the mom supposed to micro manage the wardrobe of the rock drummer son? Jeepers. . . too many gigs under my belt with my roper boots in a sacred shoe box in my closet even though after two babies they would never fit on my feet again.

These talent shows mess me up. The kids get up there and do their thing--whether it's grunge metal or reciting the countries by memory or playing the melody to We are the Champions on alto sax and these adolescent kids--notorious for cruelty and ambivalence scream and cheer and pay attention to every single act. I don't know where this benevolence comes from. The black kids doing that bendy dance where the arms jerk and it looks like the bones bend--I'm sure there is a name for this genre--clapping for the white girls singing Rip Tide with the ukulele ensemble. I'm just saying--it crosses boundaries--not racial and gender only--but talent/no talent, which may be even wider. Since I am a grownup and I know myself, grounded in who I am, I brought two packs of kleenex.

Ditto on the grade school show. You got Mary's friend Juju who dances only thirty hours a week at the studio and you got the fifth grader playing his favorite Faber and Faber Book One Selection. Cheers and thunderous applause for all. Of course I should be giving the faculty more kudos here. Whenever the girl gets up to sing a solo song in front of the microphone with Taylor Swift right there with her on vocals from the CD. . . Mr. T at the soundboard knows exactly how much of Suzie to actually put in the mix. This is not his first rodeo. Also--whoever the teacher was, who made the wave signs for the stage hands to hold up for these solo vocal artists, has a special place in heaven. Whatever musical momentum Suzie may be growing into--is bolstered by the entire school waving their imaginary cells phones back and forth in harmony. God bless us everyone. I can't even write about it without the kleenex. Humanity at it's finest.

All glory laud and honor to District 196 for it's ability development from age zero philosophy. There ain't no high school musical without the singing and dancing chicklets in the fourth and fifth grade.  Albeit occasionally painful. And if you can get that eighth grade kid with the high tops and hoodie up there dancing the bendy dance in front of 250 peers you done something right. He was amazing by the way--I'm not being facetious.

My one suggestion--since nobody asked--we've got to teach these kids how to bow. Mary bowed because she bows in her sleep and the front man from Calvin's band collected all the dancers at the end of the middle school show and grabbed hands for an audience acknowledgment. Very classy. Frames the performance. Now I'll shut up.  Well, one more suggestion-BHMS needs a boom mic stand. The poor gal playing piano and singing with the mic stand between her legs and having to move her hands around the stand to play lower or higher--yeah--she didn't need that. I'm gonna pick one up at the music store next time I'm there. It's the little things sometimes.

Happy summer. I'm practicing like crazy and getting coached to finish off this teacher trainer application. I've got one more piece to record and the application is in the mail. Well--I still need a video of a student's book four piece in a format that actually has audio. Then. . . I'm set.

Thanks for reading the music, sweet music Kotrba journal.
Sara

The Old Normal

Okay, so I've been in a little bit of a grouchy funk the last couple weeks.  It's probably the normal end of year burnout but yet it seemed a little deeper. Last night I actually got eight hours sleep and this morning, without that fog, I was able to think things through. I know what is bothering me.

Yesterday I was moved to tears by a stranger who stopped traffic on Blackhawk to move a six inch turtle. I had swerved around him on the way to the high school for drum line practice. Also, thank God for those who are not late everywhere they go--who can actually stop and do the thing that was in other's minds to do. One small step for turtle-kind.

You know you are sleep deprived and a little sensitive when you get choked up because you can't find your way out of the high school parking lot. Why are there no pass through areas? I'm so embarrassed, again. It's like I'm dropping him off around the block.

This morning, I got the call--the middle school jazz ensemble concert at the zoo: rained out. Not that I wouldn't have trucked over there and paid the admission and troopered around the park looking for the pavilion to hear my son play keyboard bass on two numbers. . . but the truth is. . . I was actually okay with the rain. Recall that we had the Calvin Kotrba show at the band concert ten days ago--how many middle school lasts can we survive?

So here is the deal--I spent the better part of my fifth through eight grade days pre-mourning my sister going off to college. Our little family unit would never be the same. Never be the same. Never be the same. You can see how hopeless I am.

The rekindling of that haunting mantra. Only this time it's my son. I can't stand the thought of it. Never be the same. Only four more "normal" years.

But even normal is elusive. I'm losing control. The routine is dissolving. For 11 years we've been practicing from 6:10-7:10.  Next year we will have to leave at 7:10. We will require a new routine and the truth is I'm not happy about that.

I like the old normal. Never the same. . . 

Remember how your sister actually moved to Texas and lived with you. . . after college
Remember how even after Casey moved years later you ended up roommates. . . 
Remember how much fun it is to be with your mother now that she is not waiting at a barstool at the kitchen window watching you kiss your boyfriend goodnight when you should have been home two hours ago. . . 

It's hard. Okay I don't really need to go back to toddlerhood. Baby times were taxing too.
But this is a good place. I'm not ready to move on.

Recall that I have also spent many a graduation party hiding in the bathroom with tissues. For other people's kids. I guess it's in my DNA. Now I'm pre-mourning my own kids going off. . .

So--there is nothing really to do.  Hope that my child starts acting like a little shit so I'll be more ready for him to leave?

Beyond that I guess you just have to be there--even if you are blogging when you would have been at the zoo concert. I think this same thing happened last year.

So--here's another prayer. . .

Lord, help me to be present
to enjoy every stage of my children's lives
help me to spread the message about how fast time goes 
and how we shouldn't sweat the small stuff,
in piano, and in life. 
Help me to remember that there are good times ahead-they're just different, 
and while you are at it. . . help me find a really good book two video of my piano kids so I can turn in this dang teacher trainer application. 
Amen. 

The Water is Wide

Penultimate Trip to Landfill with Junk. . . 

Grandpa Loves a Fixer-upper

Okay. . . I couldn't help myself. 

My boat motor. . . 

What can I say? I'm helpless. 

Watching the Loons

Lucy is back. 

That's a keeper. 

All at once we became those people who have friends over at the lake. 

It's just a tap tap tap. 

Bill is now more careful about the whole gas thing.  

And at least for one moment in time. . . she runs. 

It's almost the Titanic. 

Mama. Mama. Mama. Mama. They are almost as talkative as my children. 

I heard James Taylor's The Water is Wide this morning. I love this song. Here is a link: "The Water is Wide."  I'm not sure it goes with this blog entry--but you can listen while you read.

Thursday afternoon it occurred to me that I hadn't had a full day off--without performing or the kids performing or teaching or volunteer duties--since spring break.

When I get tired I get dark. Thursday even before the jug of blueberry kefir exploded all over my kitchen, up to the ceiling and running down the windows and all the way to the fridge and stove and my wool rug. . . even before that. . . I was hitting the wall. The darkest hour is always before dawn. The bell rang at 6:00 and as the last student left I was facing a four day weekend!

The chill swept over me almost immediately. By 9:00 p.m. my temp was 101.5. Nothing to do but crawl in bed. Who will pack for the cabin weekend? Who will figure out the food? Who will water the plants and change the cat litter and God knows what all else is on our lists.

Had I not been hit by this Mack truck. . . I would have assuredly stayed up past midnight packing and running about in a flurry of list checking off-ness. It was as if. . . my body said. . . the only way we are gonna get her to bed is to push the fever button. And it worked.

I woke up nine hours later after and as I laid in bed I asked that question we ask. . . how am I? I realized I was actually at about 70%. That will do. I can work the list at 70%.

I don't write this to prove how crazy our life is. Everyone's lives are crazy now and then. But why does it take a fever. . . or worst case scenario something worse or a sick loved one to slow us down?

Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy. It might also read--remember the sabbath to keep YOU WHOLE.

Resting is God's commandment and we suffer when we don't obey it. Guilty as charged. So--dear readers--you must rest and take care of yourself. My friend calls it "radical self care." My sister reminded me of a devotion which ends with "I must do what's mine to do." Again and again we--well many of us--get so swept up it takes a Mack truck mystery fever to shut us down.

What does it actually mean to rest? I'm not exactly sure.

So--I planted flowers at the cabin. That was restful. And Grandpa and Calvin putzed with the antique boat motor. And Bill got into his Bill zone doing his Bill things around the cabin and Mary fed the duck and wondered around singing and reading. Calvin serenaded us with hymns on the 1906 Mason and Hamlin at sunset.

And friends came over--all at once we became people who have friends who stop by. Friends never stop by at home. Why does it take driving two and half hours to have friends stop by? And we cooked and the kids played and we sat around the fire with Bill's folks and the friends brought hamburgers and marshmallows and we burnt most of the marshmallows and ate a few too. We sang songs with words we can't remember and stayed outside by the fire until the sprinkling turned to drizzle.

Monday morning at the kitchen table in the rain, l got dark again putting the dates on the Fall calendar--it's like a coloring book--and we fill it with crayons until we run out of white.

This is it isn't it? The ebb and flow. The wide water to get across. Work hard. Play hard. Rest hard. How to remember that the boat is on the way when you are almost drowning.

Six more days till the summer schedule. Teachers--hang in there. Single moms--hang in there. We are so close to fine. If you have to. . . pretend you have a 101.5 fever and go to bed. Not that I did this. I have the thermometer to prove it. Things always look better in the morning. Always.

I've been on a prayer kick. . . here is a prayer:

God of all time... 

Help me to remember my sabbath

To praise you,

but also to sustain me.

When I feel overwhelmed,

help me to remember the boat is almost here,

help us face each moment with gratitude,

for the work, for the play, and for the rest.

Be with the teachers and the homeschool teachers 

and the moms and everyone who uses too much crayon 

on their calendars. 

Help us secure our own oxygen masks again and again. 
Teach us what radical self care means. 
Without the fever part. 

Amen. 

What Might Have Been

A panic wells up inside me and once again it is the calendar. When you thought things couldn't get any more filled up you begin your two year term as SAM president and your little toddler graduates middle school and trots off to high school.

Putting the dates on the Fall calendar for marching band and confirmation and the SAM workshop meetings might push me over into the second glass of cab. The spark of joy seems a little volatile, like it might accidentally catch fire and burn the house down.

This morning was the 8th Grade Presidential Academic Honors Breakfast. . . for those students who received a 3.5 or hight GPA throughout all of middle school. Calvin got to play the 20 minute prelude on the piano as the folks were gathering. Ten kids were brought up on stage for a second honor, that of the 4.0 GPA. There were nine girls and Max.

Filing into the breakfast Oliver jabs Calvin on the arm and says--what did you get the A- in?
P.E. in six grade.
What about you Oliver?
Art.

So--the running of the mile and the drawing of a rabbit kept the boys off the platform. C'est la vie. They laughed it off.

This morning's breakfast was for pretty much everyone who didn't flunk. Nonetheless, thank you O'bama for your signature on the dotted line of academia.

The speaker, an Eagan High senior, caught me off guard and choked me up to that embarrassing level. She was so perky and happy and all about the joy of middle school (yeah, right) and then told a story about how she was failing math and Mr. Oase (Calvin's homeroom teacher and math teacher) ate lunch with her every day for a month until she got caught up.

Pretend to check a text while you search frantically for the kleenex.

Her mom added to me in the hall outside that that math month also coincided with the death of her husband, the girls' dad.

Holy cow. Search trench coat pocket for additional kleenex.

Then the perky girl reminded us that two of their classmates who should have been there, weren't, and how the class of 2019 suffered losses inappropriate for their age. Give up on kleenex, use trench coat sleeve.

I thought about Mr. Oase and Mr. Herem and Patricia Bauer and the whole host of heavenly angels who escorted my son through the awkward and potentially dismembering years of middle school. If only for one P.E. teacher we would have had nary a scrape.

As Calvin looked around the cafeteria for his buddies a cute girl hung out a little too long collecting the orange juice at our table and I thought about what might have been. How middle school might have gone. What social horrors we skirted.

Last week I put the ballet bun in Mary's hair in the middle school bathroom between the 7th and 8th grade band concerts. This morning I rushed home and did the "two braided pig tales" required for optimum self confidence in the 4th grade talent show. I can do this in 78.4 seconds if the hair is already brushed.

I restocked the purse kleenex. These kids are FRAGILE. . .

But what I'm really trying to say is about the teachers. They are more than saints. They take these gangly kids trying to look cool but the pants are so very short and pretend they actually care about what they are motor mouthing about for 20 minutes after school and make them feel like they are loved and belong and by virtue of those actions, whether genuine or feigned the kid actually is loved and belongs and finds his way and is caught smiling profusely at the end of year breakfast.

Lord, help me to listen to every child as these teachers have listened to my child and see the best as they have seen the best. And to build up every child because you just never know what might have been if they hadn't had you. And Lord, if the p.e. grade is ever borderline, help me to round it up.  
Amen.