rain

The third day of grey and rain and sixty-degree weather makes me wonder if God is trying to erase all memory of summer from my consciousness. Maybe it's a good thing I forget the carefree feeling of warm air on my legs and sunshine on my eyelids; it will leave me cleansed of frivolity and prepared for another nine months of hard, hard, hard, hard work. Still, dry sidewalks would be nice for my walk to school...

the corrections

I just finished this book by Jonathan Franzen and I can NOT get it out of my head. It is about Americans as they truly are, one of those books that makes you feel certain the author was writing about you and your life and makes you wonder why nobody has written a book like this before. It's distracting and beautiful. It made me sad.

new leaf

I am Summertime Brianna, hear me ROAR.

note to self

No matter what happens, it will be okay.
You love as hard as you can.

i'm not sorry

I have never hated the weather more.

Cincinnati has fallen out of orbit and will from here on out stop experiencing the seasons; instead, we will have perpetual 55 degrees and rainy.

I miss Kansas.
I miss Minnesota.
I miss California.

Take me away from here.

(but I'm studying music so that makes it all okay.)

try harder

I am pretty bad at managing my money, I guess.

Frustrating, because I feel like I am relatively proactive about going after it... maybe not proactive enough, though. Proactive in Collegetown, KS is a lot different from proactive in Cincinnati, OH, and unfortunately my bank account is beginning to reflect my inability to recognize that difference up to this point.

UGH, money... it's always seemed more like a nuisance than a tool to me... my students pay me, sure, but I would do what I do without being paid if there was some way for me to not starve in the process. Being able to support yourself as a musician definitely means constant vigilance and self-promotion... you must keep your website clean and update it often to keep people coming back, you must send out e-mail asking for gigs on a weekly basis, you must advertise yourself as a teacher and always be prepared for someone to quit at a moment's notice, you must practice every single day so that your skills stay in tip-top shape, you must learn your music quickly and accurately, and even after all of that you are always always always expected to perform with passion, reaching out to the hearts of your audience members and allowing them to experience the emotions of the music you are playing...

Yeah, this is hard. But I love it. So I will just have to try harder. That's all there is.

output

I haven't felt like blogging much in the past year or so. Nor have I journaled much, at least, not as much as I used to. I've been sitting here analyzing myself and how I have changed (for better or worse) over the past year, and the only reason I can come up with is this: When I blog, it's because I am searching for something; I feel a sense of longing and I'm not sure what it is I'm longing for so I release all of my anxiety and tension through this... this... output.

The truth is, though, that I am happy. I am exhausted most (all) of the time and I get very stressed out and angry sometimes, and there's the loneliness and the sadness and every other emotion that humans are supposed to experience, it's all mixed into the day-to-day concoction that is my life, but underneath that all runs a current of such pure JOY that I don't mind the bumps in the road. It would be boring to be in a good mood all the time, anyway.

I think that some of that joy is made possible by what I spend my days doing, what I have chosen to immerse myself in... and trust me I realize this may come across as corny or stereotypical but... music acknowledges life as it is, and it has this ability to address with bare-faced truth-telling honesty what it means to exist as a human... and I am so so so so so SO lucky to be a part of all that.

So yes, there's that.