And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.
So I had an orchestra concert to go to. During the spring, as the school year runs out, it seems like concerts and award events and communions and weddings and pretty much everything that has to do with a gathering pop up all over like daffodils. When Olivia was in middle and high school, I would hear that a concert was coming and I’d quietly groan. Other than a handful of times, during those seven years, her orchestra concerts inevitably fell on a night that I worked.
Of course, it didn’t help that I work every night. Hence the inevitability.
For the first few years of college, the concert circuit went silent as Olivia’s school, Mount Mary University, doesn’t have an orchestra. She continued with her private lessons and then, last year, she joined the Wisconsin Intergenerational Orchestra. And it’s been amazing. She is thrilled to be back in a group, and I am thrilled she is thrilled.
So far, there have been two concerts. And counting the one that was this week, I made it to both. This one, amazingly, fell on my day off.
Yes, I said a day off.
AllWriters’ is 17 years old, and for 17 years now, I’ve worked 85-hour work weeks. Anyone who thinks owning your own business means setting your own hours needs to rethink – your business sets you. But the most wonderful plus – those 85 hours are magical hours. If I was working 85 hours a week at a job that I hated, well, I wouldn’t be here now, I don’t think.
But still, 85 hours a week, even of a good thing, a magical thing, can be a problem. So a year ago, I put a new routine in place (this is one thing you can do when you own your own business!). I began to take one day off a week, and I stagger the days. One week, it’s Monday, the next, Tuesday, and so on. This means that all students and clients have started counting on their fingers to the next day off and that’s when they set their doctor appointments, dentist appointments, dinner appointments, and on and on, and they no longer have to miss a session or a class. And I get one day a week to sleep in, catch up if I’ve fallen behind, and do things like go to my daughter’s orchestra concert.
Sleep in, catch up, see my daughter. Huh. Sounds like that self-care thing, doesn’t it. I’ve heard about that. Maybe an almost 62-year old can learn new tricks.
So, amazingly, Olivia’s concert fell on a day off. I couldn’t have been more delighted. The first concert was a joy, and this one was set to be a spring concert of Irish music, complete with a visit from Irish dancers and musicians carrying special Irish instruments.
It wasn’t until we were on the way to the concert that Olivia said, “Oh, by the way, I’m in a group that will be performing a solo.”
Oh, by the way??????
The doors weren’t open yet for the audience when we arrived, so I sat in the lobby and read the ever-present book I carry with me for such emergencies. Stolen moments with words are the best. Then, as soon as a program became available, I snatched one. There was Olivia’s name, under first violins. And then…there it was again, under a song, with a “featuring” in front of her name.
And I didn’t have to miss it.
But before the concert began, there was a special Moment. Also on the way there, Olivia told me she has a stand partner who really enjoys talking to her. “She’s about your age, Mom,” she said. Soon after I sat down in the theatre, Olivia came over. “My stand partner wants to meet you,” she said.
And along came this bouncing, energetic Asian woman, “about your age, Mom,” who amazingly squatted down on the stage in front of me (I would have been stuck there in that position for the rest of my life), and who said, “It is an honor to meet you, and it is an honor to be your daughter’s stand partner.” She then proceeded to tell me how wonderful my daughter is, and I told her the same thing, and Livvy blushed a red that may still be causing a glow in the darkened theatre. Then her partner said, “You are a wonderful parent. She is a wonderful girl.”
My smile is probably still causing a glow too.
They began to play. Because I’d been assigned the first row, I was too low and close to really see Olivia, but I peered through the chairs and music stands and thought I saw her bare legs, her black shoe tapping the beat. Overhead, I thought I saw her bow. Before the song where she and her group would be featured, they were asked to wave their bows. I definitely saw her bow then.
But I heard her. There was no question of when I heard her. You know how they say a mother can detect the sound of her own baby’s cry in a room full of wailing children? A music mother can detect the sound of her baby’s instrument over all others, even in the middle of an orchestra.
There she was. Her violin sang. She sang. This girl who was never supposed to speak, never supposed to acknowledge me, never, well…never.
I am still in amazement of this child, even 21 years into it.
I’m sure I was the only parent in the theatre with tears running down her face. The music was just so beautiful.
And I was there to see it. On my day off.
I can’t waste the energy on regretting all that I missed. But I can throw everything I have into relishing what I am here for now.
Self-care, huh? I think I might like it.
And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.
