ProneOboe

Sometimes I just like having run. After your shower and your coffee it feels good to have run, earlier in the day, and to feel that gentle ache and tiredness in the muscles that comes from having used your body productively. I don't always enjoy running while it's happening, and I HATE the snow. But running in the snow is such a pleasure.  It's exhilarating.  It's freeing.  It feels like being a kid again, with the icy wind in your face and the triumphant feeling of doing something all by yourself.  Anyone can go out for a jog when it's 65 and sunny, but I was out this morning, in 22 degree weather, with the snow all blowing up in my face, and I met another woman running  - and as we passed each other we both raised our arms like Rocky and cheered for each other, and for ourselves, just filled with the gleefulness of being in the club. The club of crazies. This pleasure, the joy of winter running, is hard to come by.  It's HARD to power through the re...

I am snowed in.  I came up this week to Muskegon to play with the West Michigan Symphony for the first time, and after last night’s rehearsal the blowing blizzard was just too much for me.  I am used to commuting in the Midwest.  I’ve been through my share of white-knuckled drives, and I do not fear them.  I can slow down and take my time, and I can creep patiently from mile marker to mile marker with my hazard lights on, and I have been in a few ditches and waited for help to arrive. I don’t fear this kind of drive, but nor do I welcome it.  On Monday, after my two hour commute to work turned into three and a half, and after the snow continued to fall and blow in throughout our rehearsal, and after I confirmed that Steve was safely at home with Zoe, I chose to spend the night in the local Holiday Inn. I didn’t have a change of clothes with me, or pajamas. I didn’t have workout gear for the lovely indoor fitness center.  Had I planned to stay over I mi...

This week we are putting on a huge concert with the South Bend Symphony.  Strauss, Sibelius, Smetana, and Lalo - great tone poems, huge and complex works that tell deep stories and require serious preparation.  And tonight’s rehearsal was canceled. Tonight’s rehearsal was canceled, and mercifully the orchestra’s management was committed to fixing the problem.  The Force Majeure clause in our contract, as in most contracts, would mean that the canceled service was UNPAID, despite having been on our books for months.  I’ve held this Tuesday night clear of other gigs and scheduled students around the rehearsal.  I might have hired a babysitter or arranged a playdate.  It’s been my job ever since the schedule came out in August to show up at 7:30 tonight ready to play Don Juan.  And just because we have two feet of snow on the ground and wind chills of 25 below, or whatever, suddenly I’m not making any money tonight, and no one is liable.  At nine th...