Sunday, October 04, 2009

Update

So those first days/weeks of school have passed, and I'm settling. I know what times to catch the elusive "1" bus, so that I can avoid a truly ridiculous hill. I know that it's a waste of money to buy your coffee at Starbucks, when you can walk up the street to the convenience store and buy the same drink for a buck. I know how to spell some major chords, and I'm trying to learn the piano a little bit (it's an arduous process, I'm finding)
Symphony has started up again. We're playing stuff from movies for a Halloween concert we'll be doing in late October. Its' not anything I can really get behind. There's no organic quality to the music, because I know it all, and so I can't really find any way to connect with it. We're playing a Grieg and a Mozart though, for our real concert in November, and I like those. We're also playing a Walton for the same concert- but I can't say I'll ever like it very much.
There a lot of really talented people at my new school. It's daunting. I have a lot of homework, and am up late until ten most nights. But it's okay. The homework feels like I stuff I would be doing on my free time anyway: Brainstorm a character and answer forty-five personal questions about them. Practice the first page of a Martinu Duet. Listen to a contemporary song of your choice and identify the bridge. So even though it's still required it doesn't feel like it so much. I feel like I have a choice. It's really refreshing. But I'm so busy, what with symphony and all this homework, that I can't really look up.
I miss my old friends. My Emma is at her school, meeting new, exciting people without me and trying to figure out if her photography teacher is an impostor or not. I miss her down-to- earthness in the mornings and her quiet, creative brain. I know it can be the hardest thing to be alone in strange place, but I also know that if there is anyone who can handle it, it is her. She is one of the strongest people I know. It still doesn't keep me from missing her and wanting her to be around all the time.
Logan too. I don't have my ever-present human dartboard, and frankly, I'm starting to worry that all the malevolence in my person is going to pile up, and explode one of these days. I haven't kicked anyone in the shins in weeks. Months even.
And all the others. I hope I can see them soon.
My Father and I have been having discussions lately, about career choice. They're serious. I think, going to this art school scares him a little. It scares me. Each day, I fall more and more in love with what I am doing and what I am creating. And I know, that even though my whole heart is in it, and that I love it more than just about anything else, that it will likely never really make me a living, ever. It's a pessimistic outlook, I know. But I have to be realistic about it, or I will ruin that love I have for playing music or writing, or singing, or any artistic endeavor I pursue. To connect it with true failure would make it so much less for me. So I know I have to pick carefully, something that I will be happy to be doing, but not something that will never make me any money at all, or something that is not stable. I won't be miserable, but frankly, I won't probably have my dream job either. I don't need to be hugely successful, with big houses, and nice cars; I don't have expensive or materialistic goals really. But I want children, that I don't have to worry about feeding. I want education outside of school. I want to have time and the resources to play cello forever and write when I want to and draw and sing. I don't really think that can be achieved by choosing a wholly artistic career. I have to pick something that is needed acutely, that only I and a handful of others can achieve. I have to find that perfect fit.
And it's a tough thing to come to terms with. But I am willing. I have to be.