creative.mother.thinking

explaining my life to strangers

Where’s my "now-you’re-a-real-musician"-badge?

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I think every musician once in a while comes to a point, where he’s not certain of his right to be called a musician. Even „real“ musicians like Amanda of the Dresden Dolls. I have been hoping for my official artist’s badge since being a teenager. – No success.

Maybe I should frame my M.A. in music education … But that’s the same M.A. a friend of mine has, who told me recently „…but I’m not a real musician, not like you.“

Is that the musician’s badge? And how long does it last? When I’m not performing, practicing little, and haven’t written music for half a year? Am I a musician not being very creative or am I a fake?

I asked my husband, how to see the difference, and he said that I’m a musician if I’m making music and a composer if I’m composing. Yeah! How long do the two-and-a-half songs I’ve written so far last? I started too late, but there’s nothing, I can do about this.

If I had one or two own CDs, this would be a little elongated maternity leave. But if you’re starting songwriting right in the middle of your son’s toddler years and then stop for half a year, because you want to improve your piano skills first, so that your songs don’t sound like Bjork’s song for voice and piano on „Medulla“, it’s quite pathetic. I’d say, I’ll only post, when I’ve written something new, but maybe that’s to long a time …

(Addendum: After writing this – a few days ago – I actually started writing a new song! Am really excited.)

work-life balance

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Yesterday I spend an hour reading blogs following a post on work-life balance on BlogHer. I started to write a comment myself, but didn’t post it, because it involved the story of my life during the past twenty years (maybe a little too much for a comment on a post). And I won’t be posting it here right now, but what caught my attention first was the word “work-life balance”. I just love it.

It implies that work is somehow not a part of life. That’s real cute. And that’s part of feeling stressed, too. Because while you’re spending hours and hours at work, you feel like you’re not living. But you are! Right this moment. It might not be the life you’d like to have, but it’s all you’ve got.

You’re even living while doing housework – even while cleaning the toilet. My happiest moment yesterday, for example, was hanging up laundry with my son. We had a lot of fun, and it was a very satisfying task.

In my life the boundaries between work and the rest of my life are not that clear anyway. Of course, teaching is work, because I’m getting paid for it. Transcribing songs or learning new ones is part of work even though I don’t get paid for it. Practicing is work (no pay), songwriting is work (no pay). Housework is – not quite work. If I were not a musician by profession, playing the piano and singing would be leisure.

I had an epiphany some weeks ago, when I was quite depressed because of money issues, and a little fed up with teaching. I thought about the way my life would change if I had enough money to do whatever I wanted.

Because that’s the point of the term “work life balance” that “work” is something you only do to earn the money you need for living. (And living is something you do on weekends and vacation.)

My first thoughts were of the things, money can fix: paying off the mortgage, buy a new kitchen, buy a grand piano … But then I found that even ‘though I’d possibly not teach every student, I’m teaching now, I’d rather not quit teaching. I like it. If I had all the money in the world, my life wouldn’t change in a big way. I think.

Imagine thinking about your life and finding out that you’re almost exactly, where you want to be…

I was a little shocked, but really happy.

quote of the day

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“How did you think of that?

Here’s what you do. You live as ethical and courageous a life as you possibly can for fifteen years, writing songs all the while, and spending a lot of time making sure you work very hard to keep your creative spirit alive as well as your desire to communicate. Then you go over to a relatively comfortable chair and start writing.”

(Harriet Schock: Becoming remarkable, p.61)

inner children and inner parents

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For some years now I’ve been working on nurturing my inner child, letting myself have fun and play. This is a good thing, especially when you want to be creative … (Or organize your life, check out the brat factor).
But lately I found another part of me that needs working on:

my inner parent.

The part of me that says: “I know, you really want to eat more chocolate right now, but since you’re only wanting it, because you’re tired, you’d better go to bed. The chocolate will still be there tomorrow.” And for years I had told myself to shut up, ate the chocolate and didn’t go to bed on time. Afterwards I’d complain: “I don’t know what to do, I really shoud have gone to bed earlier.” (And not have eaten so much chocolate). Lame. Pathetic.

Then I found a whole website dedicated to diet journals. Dozens of women complaining that they were not able to resist the cake/chocolate/potato chip/whatever. As if it attacked them and forcefed them. Or me.

So my inner mommy made up a couple of rules for myself (actually I copied the ones I made for my son – only his rule for drinking alcohol is different from mine), and I stuck to them. Amazing. Why didn’t I think of this before? And after being quite stern with myself, once in a while I can say “Okay, but only this one time.” and break a rule.

And since every single journal entry I did for the last weeks started with “I’m so tired.”, I’ll pull out the extra motivational tools. From today on I’ll get a sticker on my calendar for every day that I go to bed on time.

For my inner 3 year old.

temper tantrums

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Somewhere I read that parenting is the hardest work in the world. Well, it is in a way, but so is living. And like living you just do it, whether it’s hard or not, because what else can you do?
And like living your life you can either rely on instinct and just do it or strive to do it mindfully, in beauty and truth.

I’m not really comfortable with the “instinct-approach”; maybe I would if it were working. So I’m one of these parents who are constantly reading parenting books. I’m excusing this with being a teacher, so knowing more about education and children is a good thing, and I really love to read as well.

Everytime, I read a parenting book that contains more than merely receipts of “how to put your baby to sleep” (haha, I could put him any way I wanted, he just didn’t), I feel elated. (I’m referring to books like Everyday Blessings as opposed to the Ferber method, for example).

Everytime, I try to carry this feeling of elation and purity with me, and to be super-mom to my precious son. Until it turns out he’s wanting something again, like watching TV because he’s to tired to go to bed (which he’s never allowed at all, no TV in the evenings for him), and we end up with a shouting match and a full blown temper tantrum. Sometimes tantrums for both of us. Because nobody can trigger you like your own kid. (My husband at least shows some restraint, when getting angry.)
Afterwards, both of us sit there, mother and child cuddling, feeling ultimately exhausted, and don’t quite know, what we did wrong. Since I’m the grown-up, I should have been able to contain my anger; to see were this has been leading and not to let it happen.

But lately I’m not so sure anymore, whether I did something wrong. Not that I’m thinking “This is only a phase, tantrums happen, he will grow out of it.” (All of life is “just a phase” and, eventually, we will grow out of it.) But this “phase” – as every “phase” – is about learning something new. And in a way it never leaves you, even when you’re almost forty years old and never would be kicking, hitting and screaming in public.

You see, last week my son and I had a major fight over something small – and it’s almost always something small. It lasted about an hour, both of us alternately screaming and trying to make up, him crying, and crying. – It was horrible. And we both vowed, not to fight like this again. I announced some new rules to minimize further conflict, and promised myself to put him to bed earlier.

We were both so shaken; and this little 3year old as weel as me, or maybe even more so. So he was really nice the next day, and the next, and tried to do everything asked of him. He tried so hard not to become angry, to restrain himself and to act like a grown-up. And then – of course – he blew up – in kindergarten.

His kindergarten-teacher was stunned. He had been exploding because he didn’t want to drink anything, and – he didn’t want to have a water-bottle with him. Very logical. So I finally figured it out: these tantrums were about venting frustration. About adjusting to the new situation of being in kindergarten, and of growing bigger and bigger but not real big. His life just is a little to exciting for him. Even ‘though he loves going to kindergarten, it’s a big change. And he isn’t a grown-up, he’s three.

So my task is to find a way for him to cope with his anger and frustration, and the feeling of life being a little overwhelming. How can he release all this tension wthout having to fight with the people he loves. And before being able to show him this, I might have to learn a little more on it myself.

Maybe he needs something physical; time to pull out the bike again …