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Starting Summer

I have to be busy to get anything done. I think this is not too unusual, but it surprises me every year at about this time.

I've been on break since last weekend. My symphony jobs are off in the summer, the colleges have ended, the demand for reeds is down. I just finished the last recital of my spring series, and took the last audition that I had scheduled.

I now have time to start on the new music I'd been itching to explore, plan my next set of performances, rework my website, learn some new software, clean and purge the house, improve my double-tongue, and write far more thoughtful, detailed blog posts, as I had been intending to do. But what I actually am doing is baking desserts and breads and eating the heck out of them, taking Zoe to the park to swing, napping, watching movies with Steve…there's really no excuse for how completely not busy I'm keeping myself right now, except that it's summer!

Fortunately I do still have the half-marathon that my sister and I have been training for. That happens next week, and I am on track for it. We've put in good solid mileage work, and I'm confident about the distance, and now I just have to make it to the start line without screwing up - overtraining between now and then and injuring myself, for example. This is the stage I like best - coming up on the event with all my ducks in a row. Without this bit of work in progress I might really feel unglued.

It's an unsettling feeling for me to be between projects. Being eager to start new pieces and new plans is not exactly the same as having started them. I love the middle of the project, where the basic structure is in place and I just have to follow it through. This beginning stage, where nothing is firm yet, and I can't really play the new material because all of my practicing before now was on the old stuff, or I haven't really decided which database program to buy and I don't really know how to set it up anyway, or I still don't even know what to practice because I need to brainstorm some program ideas - this is no fun.

Somehow although I have time right now, the fact that I've closed the books on several projects doesn't automatically put me in gear for the next few. I have energy but no momentum, and honestly I'm just enjoying blissing out with my family for a change. There will be plenty of time later - even next week, maybe - but for now it's summer!

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