Violation

I haven't had many performances lately, and I'm starting to miss it. My duo has been working on some recordings, but other than that... crickets. It's scary to think how easily I could fall off the face of my life and into a different one, where being a mother is my defining characteristic and all those pesky years of schooling, competing and practicing were for vanity alone. Well, vanity and student debt. It's the one-two punch of less than essential doctoral degrees.

Don't get me wrong, having (almost) 2 kids will most certainly be one of the most important things about my life. But I plan to have a semblance of a music career as well, and believe it's the perfect compliment to J's day job. Once the kids are in school things will be a smidge less complicated, or at least complicated in different ways. I often find myself trying to plan ways to just muddle through the next hunk of years, viola-wise, so when I emerge on the other side of preschooldom I might have retained some artistic viability.

My solitary college student left for London for the semester with promises to work on all sorts of assignments and lug a school instrument across Europe on her back. That seems appropriate penitance for her only recently seeing the light and switching from violin to viola, no? I thought it was nice timing, actually, with my due date being smack in the middle of the semester.

Instead I feel left out. I have schemes and plans to build the viola department at our college, but it takes time when they've had more employee turnover than Dairy Queen for the past few years. Small schools like mine often dally when it comes to getting things in motion, and you may have noticed my atrophied career patience muscles.

So it's not that I'm not doing stuff about my career. And things. It's just a slower season, and I'm trying not to feel neglected by my colleagues and wonder what it will mean after the new baby.