When my mother died, it was just as the dot com bubble was bursting. I was between jobs. Tech was pivoting to spyware and I felt burned out by Silicon Valley. I decided to move to music full time. I applied for Masters programmes and started playing in a flute-fronted rock band.
My dad died in June and I’ve realised how burned out I feel from my teaching job. Years of Tory cuts are hitting British higher education hard. Kent decided to stop offering music and I decided not to participate in the teach out. My other university Goldsmiths, is also doing major cuts. I haven’t asked if my job there will exist next year, but I’d bet that it won’t. I saw an advert for a band and answered it. They’re a flute-fronted rock band.
(Honestly not sure how I feel about that.)
What’s next? I don’t know. I went back to uni to get better at writing music and instead I threw all my energy at teaching. I want to write music.
A friend of mine, only a few years older than me, just died of cancer. Her funeral is the day after tomorrow.
And I keep thinking of the composer of my favourite string quartet. Ruth Crawford Seeger got diverted into musicology for several years, due to her association with Charles Seeger. And at some point, she had enough of it and decided to return to composing. She felt her best music was still ahead of her. Then she got cancer and died. No music was ahead of her.
I feel like I’m stepping off a cliff into an unknown, with death nipping at my heels. Will I survive this change? Probably. Probably. Probably.
Book me for a gig. I need to stay busy.
