Dear Reader:

I am over-saturated.   I need to go to the beach and wring myself out.   The recent world events and work events and personal events and everyone's reactions to all of these events has just caused me to become incapable of processing anything.    I just spent about 20 minutes letting my daughter scratch my back when I should have been reading to her.    What I wish people would do when events occur is remain silent for a while.   I wish this for myself, too.   I wish for my brain to stop talking to itself about events.   Everything needs to quiet down.   BE STILL, WORLD.

So, today is November 15.   I intend to be sitting on the porch of my beach house listening to the waves about 8 days from now.   Actually, I'll probably be asleep in my room with the door cracked open so that I can feel/hear the waves because I'll just have driven 9 hours or so to get there.   With two seven year olds.   And, an old CRV packed up with puzzles and books and games and clothes and Thanksgiving dinner groceries.    4 full days at the beach.   A few hours of solitude here and there while cousins play with cousins.   I have promised my daughter to work through at least three projects in her origami book.   I have promised my son that I'll teach him UNO.   We will have four freshly delivered "Heroes in Training" books for them to read.   We'll collect shells.   I'll take long walks and wear my yoga pants and my sweatshirt and get up slowly and savour my morning cup of joe.   I'll take a new novel to read.   I'll cue up Aziz Ansari's "Master of None" in Netflix.   And, that is the extent of my plans.   No other agenda.   Just push the rest of the semester's business to the dark recesses of my mind.

When I return from this respite, I will have 8 more days of class. One more concert from the music department.   One day of music juries.   Another day of piano proficiency exams and aural skills exams.  Innumerable meetings.   A weekend of grading research papers and final exam essays from my Beethoven class.  A Sunday afternoon pre-college studio recital.   A Monday morning theory exam.   All of the things graded and turned in by Monday afternoon at 4.   Then, I'm DONE.  Stick a fork in it.  After this, I plan to do all of the yoga, all of the cleaning and tidying, all of the reading, etc.   I am staying home for virtually every part of Christmas vacation.   No traveling.    I'll just break out my Reader's Digest Family Songbook and make my kids sing along, like I did when I was a kid.  Talk about memories:

Many an hour spent listening to my Mom play out of this book.  When I got good enough at piano, I'd always crack this one open:

That and "Tea for Two" and "Mack the Knife" and "I'm Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover".....   Those are some childhood memories, folks.

I feel incapable of anything other than hanging on to these future pleasures at the moment.   I don't know why everything is hitting me so hard lately, but it just is.   I find myself crying in the car (the only private place in my life, sometimes) at least twice a day.   There have been a couple of days when I came home and just curled up in bed for an hour or so before I began to function like a human being again.   Luckily, my kids understand and have, so far, let me have the space.   I am too tired to have a sense of humour anymore.   I have got to wean myself off of the ADHD-inducing properties of social media.   It is not bringing me much of a sense of connection lately, only irritation and anger, actually.

There are a few things that bring me solace.   Did you know that Diwali, the Hindu Celebration of the New Year, happened a few days ago (November 11, to be exact.  The day after my kids' birthday.)?   It celebrates the victory of good over evil and light over darkness.   You may remember, dear reader, that one of the reasons I named my daughter Lucy is because Lucy or Lucia means "light"... Such a powerful concept.  Here are some images that make my heart happy:

I think that last image is from Thailand.   I would love to see that in person.  Love, love, love.  All of those lanterns floating up into the sky...  

I will make it through the end of this semester, then take some comfort and joy in the season, and begin the new year with, I hope(!), some fresh optimism and plans to take care of myself and my family in the most compassionate way possible.   I will find some space and some room to breathe.  I know I can do this.

I'll just leave you, dear reader, with some images of my spirit animal - The Norwegian Forest Cat.   I'll just let these pictures speak for themselves:

Thanks for reading!