Dropping the Boy at College

Last walk of summer with sunset over Sky Hill Park. 

Never too old for trains.

Dorm Life.

Sibling Rivalry.

Home away from home.

Rain from the sky, rain from my eyes.

Leaving the nest.

Coincidental symbolic situation.

Rosie finds a quiet (and clean) spot

How many cameras do normal people take to the fair?

Mary toward the front with the white scrunchie and blond ponytail.

Calvin collects fifty cent pieces and we got this one for change at the French fry stand--they are never really too far away. . .

It's more than true.

The great Minnesota get together.

Iconic.

From right to left we have Big Dog and Bungie Dog, Cowie and . . . just kidding. 

Books and animals. A new TV, a vintage apple computer. Treasures of the boy. 

Mary made Calvin a whole stack of letters from home.

My recurring dream is that I'm moving back into the dorms and I have to fit two grand pianos and thirty houseplants and antique dishes. . .

It's been an epic week. It actually feels like a month since Monday. I can't keep my head on straight. I don't know what day it is or when the next marching band rehearsal is. The printout of my calendar ended on Wednesday. I haven't looked at a list or my bullet journal. We have no groceries.

I'm letting myself mope a little. Don't worry, I won't stay here too long. I promised Bill on his way out the door that I would only listen to Dixie Chicks Godspeed five times this morning and then I would turn it off and go dig some hostas at a friends. https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=zOwxRpltEt4

Tristen's mom said she was dropping off her heartbeat at college yesterday too.

Before you go down too deep, we do have a Kotrba Family group chat and FaceTime and this morning Bill is putting Etudes, Preludes and Fugues and two piano cushions in the mail. I guess the U of I piano practice rooms don't have adjustable chairs.  We talked to Calvin three times yesterday.

It's the strangest emotion ever. It's like "joygrief." What do you call that? You are so proud and excited and happy for your kid--and yet you have to take care of your own grief at the passage of time. Let's face it, when you got a good kid you are going to miss them when they leave. It's normal.

I'm uplifted and buoyed by all the ones who've gone before. All the great kids who transitioned to being great friends with their parents. And Bill and I are great friends with our parents. There is great hope to accompany the normal melancholy.

To the parents of littles? Advice? Protect your marriage and other significant relationships. You will need/return to them. I also found myself thinking about the single moms I know who went through this alone. I'm sorry if I didn't get it before. I should have done more for you.

Second advice? Don't give it all to your kids. Keep something for yourself. I'm gonna write my book and get piano coaching and make my house and garden my sanctuary.

I'll still be driving back and forth to marching band. And trying to listen better.

Mary? You can't write much about your teen kids these days but I know she's going through the same thing as me. Missing her best friend but also ready to fly!

It's not a polished blog entry. But I have to go dig some hostas.  Dixie Chicks are all done for today.
Love to you all.

My Love Follows Where You Go

My Love Follows You Where You Go

Alison Krauss

More wishes than a thousand hearts can count for you
More smiles than a merry-go-round
The sweetest ending to a bedtime story told
My love follows you where you go

More laughter than a kindergarten out to play
One Sunday morning song that says it all
More summer than the California beach can hold
My love follows you where you go

Future like a promise
Your city of gold
Stubborn in your bones and
Jesus in your soul
Seeing you stand there
Starin' at the unknown
I won't pretend that it's not killin' me
Watchin' you walk away slow

Take forgiveness, take a prayer, take the deepest breath
And take the answers in your heart
When you wake up and the world is cruel and cold
My love follows you where you go

Future like a promise
Your city of gold
Stubborn in your bones and
Jesus in your soul
Seeing you stand there
Starin' at the unknown
I won't pretend that it's not killin' me
Watchin' you walk away slow

More freedom than a field of flowers in the day
More beauty than a mornin' after rain
Up the steepest hill, a dark and crooked road

My love follows you where you go

Future like a promise
Your city of gold
Stubborn in your bones and
Jesus in your soul
Seeing you stand there
Starin' at the unknown
I won't pretend that it's not killin' me
Watchin' you walk away slow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DeQzeou4lM

Filling the Quiet Spaces

Bill and Sara across Monet's Lily Pond

Some of the legal treats in Amsterdam

Me in a Swanky Paris Hotel

Calvin and my mom are out in Glacier this week. Mary is at band camp. It's just me and Bill here. A small taste of the future.

There are some quiet spaces.
Too quiet.

The MacPhail institute was last week--I got to spend time with the MacPhail piano kids and also my teaching friends. Again, it was a small taste of what it would be like to have a social life. To go to dinner with friends a couple nights a week. It was nice. Piano teachers are nice.

A lot of my projects are complete. Monday morning I woke up with no kids and no colossal obligations. It was like the first day of summer.

I'm dropping Calvin at the University of Iowa three weeks from today.

At the Hotel D'Orsay in Paris there was jazz playing every morning in the glorious Parisian breakfast room with cheeses and honey and croissants. And a silver coffee service. Good cheeses. Good honey. Good butter. Good jazz. Fruit is overrated. If you are trying to be gluten free or dairy free or sugar free I do not recommend France. I did not ask for decaf coffee.

We have come to the close of 5:30 a.m. piano practices, but I'm still waking up at 5:30. Eighteen years of 5:30. It could be that I will wake up at 5:30 for the rest of my life. It's so quiet, I'm gonna put some jazz on for Bill. Never mind that he is not awake yet. I need to fill the too quiet space. We still play CDs on the six CD carousel player. Eighteen years ago on a rainy day in March when the house was being built and I was pregnant out-to-here Bill ran speaker wires through the whole framed house so that we could have music in every room. We didn't know there would be blue tooth. . .and iTunes.

Bill Evans at the Village Vanguard will do. Something with My Foolish Heart. Through the whole house.

There are no speakers on the porch. It's the only room. I can't hear the music very well sitting out here writing.

Never mind, it is filling the space.

Eighteen years. That was a long project. From nighttime feeding to board books to big kid toys to driving.

What if you got to do it all again with what you know now?
I don't think I would have done very much differently.
You do the best you can with what you know at the time.

There are all these things in life that everybody goes through but then when it's you, you wonder how you will do it. Childbirth, death of a parent, teaching someone to drive. Kids going to college.

I'm hopeless. I spent my entire childhood dreading the day my sister would leave for college and fearing losing my grandparents. Those things happened slowly but surely. And, of course,  it turned out there was more joy to come. But it was never the same. A new same. I'm hopeless, but wise enough to not get stuck for too long.

I'm excited for Calvin. He's so ready and it's a whole new glorious world. I loved college. It's just gonna be an explosion for him. I'm also excited for Mary. Calvin got some years as an only child before Baby Sunshine came along, now she will have some years here alone. We all need to be loved alone.

And I'm excited for me and Bill. We love a project and this has been a good one. It's been the best.

My Romance is playing now. Bill Evans has always been my favorite jazz pianist. I can hear it a little.

Filling the quiet spaces.

Dear Lord,
Much of the time there is so much music and conversation and noise. In these quieter times, help fill the space not just with jazz piano CDs but with your presence and reassurance of the joy in change. Thank you for the blessing that family life has been and will continue to be. A new same. The blessings yet to come. Bless Calvin and Janel out in Montana and Mary alone at band camp. Bless Bill and I and our projects. Bless our quiet spaces. Alleluia.
Amen

Eighteen Years of Music and Books and Trains

The kid is eighteen.

Eighteen years ago we headed off to Burnsville Ridges Hospital and came home with a nine pound bundle of conversation joy. At first, Calvin loved music and books and trains....

But then. . . came vacuum cleaners. So many vacuum cleaners.

I didn't know I wanted a boy. I thought I wanted a girl. Then when we had a boy, I thought to myself if I'm gonna have a boy he's going to be a sweet boy.

And he was.

And then I couldn't imagine not having a boy.

And now he will be a sweet man. A good man.

And he still loves music, and books and trains, and he even still loves vacuums a little.

God bless you Calvin!
Happy birthday.

The Happiness Project

Howdy strangers. 

I've been reading Getchen Rubin's The Happiness Project. In the book she feels a subtle discontent and makes it a project to increase her happiness. Reading her words inspired me to think both about happiness and about projects. Fancy that. Being happier was just one of Gretchen's projects. I'm pretty happy but there is always room for growth, and I often have too many projects. Many of us have too many projects. Our next door neighbor has decades of uncompleted automotive, house and garden projects. 

My parents always told me I could do anything I set my mind to. I guess the secret of life over 50 is that I might not be able to do everything I set my mind to. At least not all at once. And the corollary is that I believe that the only time I'm not happy, is when I have so much to do that I can't do my best work at anything. Part of my own happiness project will have to entail renewing some time management boundaries. Subtitled: how to be a high achieving productive person without losing your mind and yelling at your kids and your husband. 

On the train from Paris to Amsterdam I decided to sort my life into projects. My idea was that by sorting and labeling my tasks into projects I could stay more aware of my current commitments. I could set a limit to how much I have going on at any given time by project. I decided to limit my projects to six. You can think about these things when you are up at 3:45 a.m. with jet lag. 

I've recently crossed off the following projects:

• a year in the studio
• downstairs floor refinished and walls painted
• graduation and graduation party and all things end of school year for two children
• Red Pines Chamber Music Festival at my house
• two week trip to Europe with family
• spring yard work 
• church choir accompanist obligations 

Right now the following project are on my plate:

• summer family life including cabin food, college dorm stuff procurement. . . daily bread and laundry
• MacPhail Suzuki Institute including lessons plans, teacher talk, and faculty recital prep
• Paul's mini camp at our house in July--hospitality and food prep
• SAA conference piano planning for 2020 and 2022--helping secure clinicians and sessions
• SAM graduation planning for 2020 including web updates, registration tool and delegating the jobs
• studio planning for 2019-2020 including chamber music, recitals, group lessons and guest clinicians 

When one or more of those projects are complete the future projects are:

• updating and pursuing personal performing, reading and writing goals
• more teacher training
• writing my book about teaching, parenting, music and faith--a day book of 365 wise entries to inspire and delight. . .  
• starting a vlog--a video blog about piano pedagogy with other snippets of my life interests 

Some of the projects are long term, like the French repairing Notre Dame. To me, these are family life, studio planning and personal goals. One of my bigger projects, the church accompanying job, has come to a close. I'm taking a break from that. 

Only six projects. Only six projects. Repeat after me. . . 

The next step is to plug the projects into the year at a glance page in my notebook, which current pop culture calls a bullet journal. Some of us were country when country wasn't cool. I have drawers of ancient used up bullet journals. You want to know what I served for Christmas dinner 2012? I can look that up. And it's not in an app. Think of the fame and fortune I could have had if I shared the original bullet journal system.

I digress. . . putting the projects into the year at a glance will help me to plan the year so that I have fewer pinch points. This visual also gives me a clear path to say no, to new projects and requests, when my project quota is already full. 

In a round about way, sorting my life into projects is my happiness project. Thanks Gretchin for the variation on your theme. I'm only half way through your book but already inspired. She also has a blog and a vlog and a podcast--check them out. You might come up with your own happiness project. 

More Lasts. . . . Eastview Wind Symphony

It's raining and fifty degrees again today. The weather is stuck and so is my mood.
Last night's final concert was extremely bittersweet. For everyone, I'm sure. You can tell by the faces. The before and after concert shots. When you have something great it's hard to let go.

The community that this program has cultivated is beyond. These kids are just something else. Here's an aside. . . compare the list of the top ten academic students against the list of band seniors. . . 50% are HEAVILY involved with the band program. That's cool.

The kids got to write bios because there were 70 seniors this year and having the band directors give each of them accolades would have postponed graduation. That was too bad because I know the kids looked forward to hearing the directors share theirs and their friend's accomplishments and future plans. The bios were nice though and therapeutic I might add. There ought to be a plaque for each and every one of these kids. They all have something really special. Some of the them are jazzers, some are rappers, some are gonna do drum line in college. For some of them being in a program like this was something their families never dreamt of.

This morning when I took my robe and coffee into the piano room Mary was sight-reading "Let it Go" from the Disney book. Turns out the cold does kinda bother me. It's hard to let go.

An enormous thank you to the four band directors at Eastview. I know for Calvin they were more than teachers, they were friends and confidants.

God bless these kids and these teachers. May they continue to bless the world with music and love!
                             

Moving On. . . Ready or Not

Mary playing the prelude to the President's Academic Awards Ceremony

Thanks President Trump. . . 

Some pretty awesome kids. . and wicked smart. 

The car is such a safe place to process emotions. Why do I wear eye makeup anymore? 

Part of Mary's Tribe

Best high school in Minnesota. . . says. . . somebody.

Calvin's Moment (not commencement, just academic awards)

Good job, Mary!

Calvin and his friend Andrea at Eastview Awards night

Emily and Mary reading the morning announcements. 

The last eighteen hours have held a lot.  Last night and this morning Eastview Academics. This morning the last visit to Blackhawk Middle School for academics. Tomorrow night the last band concert with awards. The rain. The fifty degrees. 

I was always ready for the next thing. Nursing baby. Check. Toddler. Check. Early childhood. Check. Middle school. Huge, huge check. 

Now my feelings are dualistic. I'm really so done with middle school. We are starting to recognize the same speeches where the principal and the band directors talk about how this class. . . this 2017 2018 2019 class. . is really unique and special.  God bless. I'm so thankful for those folks. 

Yet with all these acknowledgements . . . there's also some heavy hearts. 

The whole Blackhawk splitting into two high schools has really just about ruined the last third of middle school. It's too much for fourteen-year-olds to process in a healthy way. If I cling tighter to you I'll still have to say goodbye. If I distance you now I'm already lonely. If I'm excited about moving on I feel guilty. If I'm sad then people might not understand why I made this or that choice. It's just too much. Sorry, Mary. 

I could also be done with high school. Except Mary started marching band last Saturday. Four more speeches about the best class. Don't wish it away. 

I've always been ready for it all. But I'm not ready for moving out and I guess I can't really see the day when I will ever be ready for that. I like my kids and I enjoy them living at this house. I spent half own my childhood dreading the day when my sister would go to college. I was a pretty melancholy soul. Of course I'm not like that anymore. 

I know there are a lot of people out there grieving about a lot of things right now, and I just have to repeat: grief is a lump sum. You can divide it up however you want. You can have some in the parking lot of Kowalski's and some in the bathroom of the middle school. Your daughter can draw you a charcoal picture of your dad for Mother's Day and you still miss him, TEN years later. Piano parents are still tender six years after their kids graduated. If you are paying attention and love the people around you, you will be depreciating your grief for a very long time. 

Calvin's friend from grade school Mara, (who went to Eagan when he went to Eastview. . . ) spoke at the Blackhawk thing this morning. Calvin saw her last week at the AP music theory test. Did I mention there have been five AP tests in the last ten days, including this morning before the awards? Anyway. . thanks Mara, for ruining the eye makeup already at 7:05 a.m. She spoke so well. I should have taken notes. Guess what. . . high school is not the whole deal. Middle school is not the whole deal. Everybody feels out of place. (I'll add that you might feel out of place your whole life. . . and that's okay.) Be kind. 

Calvin was about .001 points away from the biggest music and academic awards. The mom sitting next to me said her daughter was .001 away from graduating with highest honors. Can I primal scream WHATEVER!!!!

Can we give credit where credit is due to these kids who have sold their souls to Eastview High School and may or may not be valedictorian or student of any particular year? Can we shout it from the mountains that these things are not always fair. There are no brownie points for the nuances of the choices these kids make. And they are all great kids. 

Calvin chose a crazy hard senior year and took two AP tests that he prepared for independently and didn't even take the class. While practicing piano. Mary is plotting her own course with math and clarinet and piano and tenor sax and cooking and sewing and collecting pens. There's no plaque on the wall for all that. And they are not alone. 

What I'm trying to say is that if you don't have a growth mindset, a love of lifetime learning, and the ability to make new friends and keep the old, you will never be happy. You will always be .001 points away from the best. And that is not to diminish ANYTHING from those students who ended up number one. This story doesn't end with middle school. Or high school. Or college. Look at the grandparents in our life and Beatriz. They are still always learning something new. 

Yes, both my kids are excited to move on. Mary will go to Eastview and Calvin to the University of Iowa. Yes, Mary got the Blackhawk 4.0 she dreamt of. Yes, Calvin was the only National Merit Finalist from Eastview. And yes, they've each had their own heartaches. 

What am I most proud of? What do I hope the teachers will remember about them? I hope they will remember my kids' love of music, their love of learning and the special relationships they had.  

You can't move on from those things. They follow you through your whole life. Ready or not. 

A couple of the life time learners I know. . .