meandering thoughts on a friday afternoon

I've already passed the quarter of a century mark and yet since I've left home I've never lived in one place for more than 2 years. I've been running back and forth between college and home, graduate school and bartending, and now Korea and Europe. As I've set my eyes on the next path I've never considered that destination as anything more than a year or two stopover on my way to the next thing.

It's weird to think that many of my friends are becoming married, having children, moving in with their significant others, planting roots. Not weird in any sort of a judgmental sense, just different from what I've been doing. What I am doing. What I will be doing.

There's nothing novel about this. I'm not trying to romanticize the feeling either. It's not some sort of dramatic, adventurous, and enticing life style. I'm not privileged enough to never have concerns about finances, or to be able to go literally anywhere I want. I don't subscribe to the sickening philosophy of wanderlust, romantic solo treks for the sole purpose of self-fulfillment, or some sort of skewed perception of what it actually means to live abroad for a long period of time. I don't cast shade on my friends who have stability, who have bought homes, new cars, and Haustieren. I wish I had a dog. I had just purchased a brand new car before I impulsively decided to leave the country a year and a half ago. There are nights where I want to be home, near my family, with my old friends.

But that's not what I do. Or rather, that's not what I've been doing and what my life has become. This is why even now, as I book a ticket to Europe, I am doing mental acrobatics as I try to wrap my mind around the idea that I will be staying there for a while. For the foreseeable future. For an extended period of time. This is why these thoughts are borderline incomprehensible to me. At my undergrad I lived in the dorms for two years, two different rooms, at the house of a friend's uncle, in a worn down old house with three friends that was condemned and torn down the year after I graduated. After this I went to graduate school where I lived in the same apartment for two years, the longest time in one place since high school. I'm finishing a year in Korea about to run away to Stuttgart. I set up countdowns, set my sights on the future, and have internalized the most efficient method of counting down my time while simultaneously enjoying myself and making it fly by extraordinarily fast.

Even 12+ hour flights have lost their dreary drag and lengthy exhaustion. Now I get on the plane and have internalized the process: take off, ten minutes to seatbelt sign off, ten minutes to water or snacks, naptime, movie time, naptime, writing, a meal, naptime, writing, another drink (maybe wine this time), a movie or two, another meal, another movie, seatbelt sign on, landing. I don't look at my watch, I just wait for the flight attendants to signal what stage of the trip we are on - are they giving out drinks or food? have they passed out landing cards, arrival cards, customs declarations? are they waking people up to set their seats at 90 degrees to prepare for the decent? - and I resign myself to a weary half-asleep slumber mixed in with brief moments of clarity, writing, observation.

The skill of making time fly by seems to be coming with age, which makes sense. When you're 8 you've only seen 8 summers come and go, so that three month period between May and September feels like the greatest extended vacation. As we get older we try to grasp onto these brief spans of time that are feeling shorter and shorter in comparison to the months that we have lived. This may be why I could look you in the eye and say that one year isn't a long time to be on different continents from my boyfriend. This might explain my shameless desire to just run away to another side of the world for a little while. 12 months is nothing. 365 days is brief in comparison to the 9,371 that I've lived.

But here I am, landing seasonal positions in a country that I want to call my home. Booking tickets to an area where the language barrier will be more than a temporary annoyance, where I want and need to immerse myself and become fluent because I will be there for more than a year. Here I am trying to find a way to create stability in my life. Here I am, trying to move forward by planting roots somewhere.

And yet here I am, wondering if the moment I get where I want to be going I can't spend more than a year or two in that place before feeling the itch to move on. How do you find a place and stay there, how do you avoid wondering what it would be like somewhere else? Without the finances to travel the world on lengthy vacations?

I suppose it all depends on who I'm with, how I feel, and whether the place that I'm going is indeed where I want to be.

It all depends on my future definition of "me."

On the Feeling of Futility

How do you do it, my fellow Americans? How do you hold yourself back, bite your tongue, stay in your lane? I know you’re out there. I know that these gun crimes which have been increasing with such regularity that the tactless anonymous person on the internet joking that December’s massacre happened early and that maybe there will be another one squeezed in before Christmas holidays begin leads you not to rage at his cruelty but rather to sadly hoping that’s not true. But not doubting that it might be.

You see it so often you don’t know what to do. The politicians continue to pray away and react to the problem and save face by showing support and remorse for those involved. You watch them offer their well wishes, hoping the victims will stay strong, the police will do their job, and that they can continue to pretend that they will be an effective president.

How do you do it? How do you keep from divisive political rants? The gun violence, rampant racism, pervasive sexism, and ignorant classism (just to name a few) – how do you keep it off your newsfeed? Off your wall? Out of your conversations?

When one of the few speaks up on your newsfeed they are attacked – they are called extremists, crazy left wing liberals, surely there is something wrong with them, they want to take away our rights, and anyways, why should we punish Honest Hard-working Harry who simply wants to take his gun out and kill some helpless animals?

How do you ignore it? You’re passionate, you’re educated, you’ve anticipated the typical responses and addressed them. You've drafted a lengthy response, you've bared your true feelings, you are prepared to hit “share” “send” or “post.” But then you take a deep breath, delete it, and continue to scroll through your newsfeed.

It's obvious, you see. You don’t want to cause an argument, you don’t want to be pulled into a mindless feud with someone who refuses to see the other side of the argument, someone who refuses to be inconvenienced in anyway, and who is incapable of questioning the necessity of a hobby that perhaps their parents had passed on to them.

How do you hide your truth, your perspective, your beliefs? When did you become a passive observer, when did the futility of change become so embedded in you that you can’t even attempt to sway the opinions of close friends and family?

It happened gradually. Your youthful vigor has been deadened. Your eyes are dulled. You've learned that it’s too easy to avoid confrontation and a messy argument. There’s so much anger and darkness in the world, you rationalize, why bother bringing a heavy cloud over the skies of my friends, my family, my world?

You scroll on through, lurking in the background watching the events that will define your life, your country, and the lives of your children.

Because clearly, there’s nothing else you can do.

On Anxiety - Overcoming Uncertainty

I feel nauseous and have to fight back the tears threatening to burst. The butterflies in my stomach are making me sick and I can’t breathe. My hands are shaking as my eyes dart wildly around the room.

The edges of my consciousness frantically scramble; clawing and tearing at the last sliver of control that is rapidly being blown beyond my reach. My fingertips feel bloody and raw when I am suddenly overwhelmed by the futility of my effort and the grasping becomes half hearted, eventually stopping altogether.

I shudder and fold over, fold inwards, hiding inside of myself.

With no control and half blind with fear I hold my breath as the strange wind continues to rage. It tears around me, propelling me forward, farther into the unknown. But where is it taking me?

A single tear slips out, immediately torn off my face.

There’s no turning back now.

Gritting my teeth I widen my eyes and take a step forward. 

Suddenly the wind stops. 

I can breathe again. 

One step at a time.

one foot in front of the other

When I flew home for my brother’s wedding in September I took the opportunity to replace some of my things. I brought a bunch of clothes from Busan that I never wore and in return I grabbed a huge stack of flute music, some pans and tea balls from my kitchen, some books, a pillow, and a few other miscellaneous items.

I also chose to bring some posters to put up in my new home, even though I knew I would only be here for a few more months. One is a replica of Van Gogh’s starry night – a beautiful blue poster featuring bold brush strokes and an unidentified couple near the river with a city landscape and starry sky on the horizon. It’s a poster I bought at a tumultuous personal time and it has always had a soothing effect on me. Continuing with this blue theme I brought back a piece of spray paint art that I bought on my first trip to New York. It is old and battered and may soon be thrown away, but it reminds me of the sense of excitement and energy I had for traveling, for being somewhere new and different. It reminds me of the first time I forsook a grim practicality with finances and chose to go out on a limb and buy a ticket for the experience, rather than pass it up for the financial stability.

The third poster is the most important one for me, as of late.

It's an image of an androgynous shadowy figure running through the woods at twilight with a quote from Carlos Castaneda stating: "We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same."

I put it on the wall next to my music stand near the door. Every morning I walk by it as I prepare for the day. Every night I glance at it as I begin a practice session. It’s in front of me as I do yoga each day.

It’s my reminder that everyday should be a step forward. It doesn't have to be a huge leap, you can inch forward by choosing to do some small thing with a positive impact on your daily life, or you can charge forward with abandon and redefine who you are. But know that if you choose to do nothing, if you choose to dwell in some sense of stasis and lethargy, you are actively making yourself miserable. Even if it feels to you as if you are simply not actively bettering yourself, you are choosing to be in a way that does not resonate with who you are.

That’s not to say that you can’t take personal days, even from yourself. Sometimes we need time to recharge.

But each day we make a choice, strength or misery, forward or backward, yes or no.

For me, today was a small step. I drafted, edited, and submitted an application to a music school in Zurich. It was only one application. It was for a position that isn’t hiring and might not even look over my information and I had to sacrifice my flute time to do it.

But I can rest easy tonight knowing that there is one more chance for employment, one more opportunity for the future, thanks to that one hour of focused work.

I can approach my yoga mat feeling calm and ready to embrace this strength – a mental fortitude or optimism and effort that will easily transfer into the physical strength required for my yoga practice.

I can sleep with a sense of accomplishment rather than a pervasive sense of unease. For the little things are what make you feel that you have control. I am not a wait-er, I am a do-er and I attribute this fact to any success I’ve had up to this point. When I begin to feel stressed butterflies soaring in my stomach before going to sleep at night I know that something needs to happen.

Even if it’s a little thing. 

Reflections

I have fallen back into a phase where I find myself constantly craving social interaction and wanting to be surrounded by friends. I can’t decide if this is fortunate or unfortunate but it is what it is, I suppose. The only thing that’s really problematic about is would be the fact that, in order to appease my restlessness, I have been going out drinking with friends a lot more. I have always been a people person and this is undeniably a byproduct of growing up on a resort and in a bar with my family back in Minnesota, but sometimes I need to look at where I am taking myself in order to interact with these people. However, a lot of people don't take one element of that statement seriously and that is the fact that I grew up in a bar. Look at that sentence. Take it literally. A bar, being a place where alcohol and food is served, was my home during the time of my life in which I grew. There. 

Every since I was a young kid I was surrounded by the bar atmosphere: the sometimes jolly, sometimes terrifying, often confusing environment of alcohol and bad choices; and it wasn’t until recently that I found myself wanting to join in on the “fun.” I think growing up around a strong drinking culture is the biggest thing that kept me away from the bottle. I started cooking in the kitchen at the bar in my mid-teens and was immediately swayed into bartending when I turned eighteen. At this time I hated everything to do with alcohol, I hated the way men treated women, the way women treated men, and the way everyone treated themselves. I didn’t appreciate the lewd, rude, and crude comments that were often directed my way and frankly I gave no fucks about what I could do to change myself to fit into that environment. I never felt the need to change who I was to make the Saturday night partiers appreciate me more. I just did my thing: I cooked in the kitchen, owned the pool table, and then went home to play my flute.

And yet my mom convinced me to start bartending when I turned eighteen despite the fact that she knew I was not fond of the environment. I think she knew that my dislike of the majority of the people was a brief stage and that I would get over it quickly. Perhaps she didn’t expect it to happen as quickly as it did. My first shift would have been hell for most other people: the woman that was supposed to train me in showed up three, count them, three hours late, the power went out, the bar was packed, and I was not only the bartender but also the cook. The only reason I made it through the shift was because I already had an intimate understanding of the bar set-up, the prices, and the majority of the people. How do you cook in a kitchen with no power, you may ask? A gas stove! Burgers, sandwiches, chicken, and everything like that was still available, and nobody had any qualms about ordering them. Some kind young gentlemen went into his truck to find a light contraption that hooked onto hats (because, imagine this, I wear hats; always have and always will, although lately I’m more of a trucker hat kind of gal), so I snapped that baby onto my baseball hat and went to town. I balanced the cooking, serving, and bartending quite well and managed to keep everyone happy until the “real” bartender arrived.

And I loved it.

You see, growing up in a bar and on a resort gives you the strange desire to see people happy. Cooking food for paying customers doesn’t just force you to do a good job because they are paying you and will have no worries about complaining; but it also instills a sense of pride that grows each time you step out of the kitchen and people applaud the meal you just served. There’s just something about making something yourself, with your own two hands, and seeing someone enjoy it.

That’s what bartending is to me. It is not a scene where I can be objectified and flirt with every man (or woman) in the hopes of getting more tips, it really is just a space where I can make something for someone and make sure they enjoy it. It's a socially acceptable position for me to talk to strangers about their lives, their days, and how they are doing. It's a place where I can turn on my sense of humor, my serious and contemplative side, and my happy-go-lucky nature in an attempt to interact with a wide variety of people. When you’re serving you want to make damn sure the people that you are helping have a good experience, you want to be prompt, you want to be kind, and you want them to leave happier than when they came in. I think this is a human instinct that everyone has, but that many are capable of ignoring. Even on the days when I have already worked six days in a row, where I’m nine hours into my thirteen hour shift because I picked up a double and my feet feel like they’re going to fall off, I find myself smiling when someone walks in that door.

But where did my drinking come in? Despite my love of people and my desire to see people happy I never partook in the after-hours shenanigans at bonfires where young men tried to pick up young women and feed them alcohol and good times. Instead I always went home to either finish up homework or go to bed. Why, I always asked myself (and still do, to be honest) would I want to join these drunk guys at their bonfire to drink with them when I’m stone cold sober and have no desire to become inebriated? This is what kept me away from drinking to begin with.

But like everybody I hit a phase in college, my junior year (what can I say, I’m a late bloomer), where I found myself in with the drinking crowd. And man did my genetics not fail me. I found myself out every weekend getting completely sloshed for about three months. But eventually I realized that the hangover just wasn’t worth it, why drink so hard on Saturday that you can’t function on Sunday and then are behind all of Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, just too speed through Thursday and Friday to do it again ghd next week? As a student of philosophy and logic I found that this train of thought was headed nowhere, so I stopped. Not to say that I went sober, I still drank occasionally, but not with such frequency as before.

Drinking is a family pastime for me. When I go home on breaks I often find myself shooting pool all night long with my mom, dad, and brothers (my sister does not live in the same town and rarely drives the three hours to come hang out at the bar with us, boxing is her passion). We play each game for a beer and if you’re shooting good you play for free and drink for free all night. So of course I get in on that action. Family, pool, and social drinking: boom, happiness. 

But over the last few weeks I have found myself going out on Friday with the desire to hang out with friends and meet new people, then waking up on Saturday morning and thinking that the previous night wasn’t as much fun as it should have been and trying again Saturday night. More often than not my short attention span kicks in while out at the bar or at the "club" where my friends want to dance, and I want to get out of that bar after a few hours of being there. But I have been sticking around simply because I think it might get more fun later on. I ignore the fact that if I was in a place with a pool table I would be way happier and having much more fun that was actually relatable to what I want to do with my life and just sit around with some buddies and get bored while they dance with random guys. 

What’s the point of that?

Sure, I have always felt more comfortable in the bar and in the pool hall than I have on the concert stage or in the classroom. But that doesn’t mean I should spend all of my money acquiring beverages that fuck with my body and leave me feeling sluggish and slow the next day. I would so much rather hit up the gym on a Friday night with friends and then go to someone’s house to listen to music and watch movies. This way I am getting out of the house, a place that, for me, is really just meant for baking, eating, and sleeping, and am also getting my gym time and friend time in.  But this blog post is not meant to be some sore of manifesto of sobriety, I just needed to write this down to remind myself of what it is that I do. 

Who it is that I am.

I am a musician and a pool player, an athlete and a scholar. I am a graduate student pursuing a Masters degree and also a member of team str8-shots. Being strong and healthy is just as important to me as being social and outgoing. Having the ability to let myself relax with a drink, a snack, or a lazy day is just as important as having the dedication to health, exercise, and meditation. My skills on the pool table and my skills on the concert stage are of the upmost importance to me, both equally so; and therefore my time needs to be spent focusing on the things that will enable me to progress in both of these fields.

If I go out every night of the week that is totally fine. If I only go out on weekends that is fine. If one night I decide to let it all loose and indulge a bit much, that is fine as long as I am conscious about it. And lately I haven’t been, I’ve just been mindlessly partaking in these adventures without really thinking about them. Sometimes sleep is more important than the possibility of meeting new friends and going new places. Sometimes it’s just not. Who knows.

But from now on I’m going to be more aware of my choices and more honest with myself about why I am making them. If I’m only going out because I’m hoping to see some boy that I have a crush on, that’s a stupid reason and I’m going to hit the gym or the practice room instead. If I’m going out because I haven’t seen my friends in a while and I want to spend time with them, then that is totally legitimate.

I'm not fond of the New Years Resolution tradition; instead, I think one should always work towards self improvement, not just once a year. This is one of those moments for me: a moment of honesty and self-criticism.

Come at me, world.

a day in the life

“Expectations are resentments waiting to happen…”

I can’t stop listening to Macklemore. The more music by Ben Haggerty that I find, the more I fall in love with him as a lyricist, artist, and musician. Otherside, Vipassana, Fallin, they are all just great songs that have depth and real meaning. They are especially fitting for the low moods that I sometimes stumble into here at the festival when I start thinking about the amount of money I was scammed out of to come here. It never makes sense to me but when I’m down or mad or upset about something I often just need to listen to some loud/angry rap, or some deep/thought provoking hip hop. Macklemore has come in at the perfect time and I can’t put my headphones down. It’s a great feeling when you hit up a new song that just resonates with you, and that has happened a lot lately.

Stepping outside of my hotel room and away from my headphones and I’m still in Rome. This morning I stopped by Campo dei Fiori for some delicious freshly ripened fruit and decided to take that breakfast over to Castel de Saint Angelo to take in some more of the city while I ate. This was my first lone excursion around for an extended period of time (not out of fear of being alone but simply because there is usually someone bumming around the hotel that wants to join me) and it was excellent. The weather has finally cooled down and today it was cloudy with a nice breeze. Granted it is still 30 degrees Celsius out there, which is pretty hot, it feels nice compared to where it was my first week here. After eating and relaxing in the shade for a while I decided to swing by the Trevi Fountain again so that I could make a wish and throw some money into the fountain. I heard that doing that guarantees that you will be back in Rome at some point in your life, which is something I would love to do. While at Trevi I heard an amazing violinist playing through some repertoire in the streets and I was surprised at the lack of people watching/enjoying his music because it was legitimately quite good. But then I suppose I didn’t stick around for very long either. I felt like walking and I was feeling too claustrophobic to stay immersed in the tourists at the major touristy areas so I found myself moving on quickly away from the violin player.

I love being surrounded by the history, the architecture, and the art in this place. When taking back alleys and different routes I always, without fail, find myself stumbling into a small Piazza or Villa with beautiful depictions of Jesus (you find Jesus everywhere here), picturesque statues, or even bountiful gardens and fountains. It’s overwhelming at times. America turned 233 today and that seems like a long time until you realize that Rome was founded somewhere around 625 BC. Which would make Rome what, 2638 years old? Damn. No wonder it’s overwhelming coming here, where the mold in some of these buildings is probably older then the country that I come from. That mold has some history, but that doesn’t make it any easier to breathe.

I’m glad that I will get the chance to go to Prague and then come back to Rome again before coming home to the states. I feel like leaving Rome and then coming back shortly thereafter will be a good way for me to re-appreciate the city in a fresh new way. Especially since I will be coming back alone. Travelling alone is always a more insightful and revealing experience then traveling with friends, whether they are new or old friends. When I’m alone I get to decide what it is that I’m going to do and I can’t just allow someone else to decide for me. Easy going and relaxed, sometimes I need to be selfish and do what I want to do, which is far easier to do when I’m alone.

Rambling stream of consciousness, pardon the lack of focus in this post. Just some wandering thoughts from this wandering musician.

Looking ahead

Everybody that I have told about my upcoming trip to Rome has asked me if I’m nervous, excited, or worried about travelling alone. They are all excited for me; they have all said that they will be thinking about me and that I should be careful while I’m gone. And all I’ve been able to say is that I’m super excited about it, that it’s going to be the adventure of a lifetime, and that of course I will be careful. I’ve got a good head on my shoulders, I’ll be fine meeting new people, and everything else that I can think to say to make them feel better. All the while I’m standing there thinking about how I should feel more excited, or how my nerves should be eating at me. Maybe I should be more stressed out, or maybe I should be more worried about travelling alone. But honestly it still doesn’t feel real. This trip of mine. I’ve known about it since October and it’s always been one of those trips in the future, at the back of my mind, sort of things that always has a surreal quality. But now it’s becoming reality, I really am hopping on a plane on Friday and flying across the world. And it’s starting to sink in. And damn am I getting excited!

I’ve been assigned to play the second flute part for Haydn’s London Trio for two flutes and bassoon, a piece that will be played five or six times while I’m there. The repertoire that the symphony will be playing includes Mendelssohn’s Fourth Symphony, Debussy’s Afternoon of a Faun, two different Beethoven symphonies, and a handful of other pieces. There are dozens of different opera scenes and arias that we will be playing, including portions of La Traviata, Bizet’s Carmen, and Mozart’s Magic Flute. Although I won’t be playing for all of these performances, I was signed on as a section flute—which essentially means that I will be rotated in to different parts throughout the festival—I will be there for all of the performances. I’m excited about all the cultural expeditions that will be happening, and damn straight I’m going to go to all of them. Regardless of how late I was out the night before I will be up at 7 to go check out all that Rome has to offer. Even if it’s not considered the “cool” thing to do, many of my colleagues will be from Italy why would they want to bother going on these trips if that’s where they are from? Well I’m American, from a small town in Minnesota, and I will be immersing myself in every element of Roman culture that I possibly can while I’m gone.

I keep joking about how maybe I’ll find a job and stay out there. Maybe I’ll find a professional opportunity, a paid gig, that I can’t turn down and I’ll become an expatriate. I’ve been considering applying for a Fulbright to study abroad in England after I finish my masters here in America to get a performers certificate from a European school. Although I feel burnt out now, tired of school, looking for a change, something new and exciting to do beyond music. I have a feeling that if I were to go abroad for my next level of schooling that cultural change alone my reignite my passion for music. But that seems like a big gamble. This is where the Rome Festival comes in, if I fall in love with the attitude abroad, with the musicians and maestro(a)’s, and the culture maybe I will stick it out there for a few more years to see where life takes me.

Who knows, that seems to be the theme of this blog (and my life) lately. I’m starting my 23^rd year of life with my biggest adventure yet, who knows what will happen in the next few years? And who wants to. Really. I’m just going to keep living my life and seeing where it takes me. It’s been working out pretty well so far.  

Adventure Time in Saratoga, WY

Pool has always been a pretty large part of my life: I grew up playing in bars while my mom worked and while my family just hung out downtown (small towns allow small children into their small bars). I distinctly remember playing pool with my first crush, barely able to see over the table, and the joy I had in winning the “game,” (Although let’s be honest, it was not a legitimate game of pool, throwing the balls around and hitting at them with bar sticks). In high school I participated in leagues, we lied about my age so that I could play in different bars around town on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights (15 to 18 isn’t that big of a difference, right?) and I played in countless different bar tournaments. I bought my first intermediate flute with money from pool tournaments and I played pool every night from as soon as the bus dropped me off at the bar until I went to bed. Pool permeated my life in a way that didn’t negatively affect my school, music, or sports. I somehow managed to do it all while playing ridiculous amounts of pool around town.

Unfortunately my undergraduate degree brought on insane amounts of practice with the flute: rehearsals, concerts, and classes. Studying both music and philosophy I rarely had the time to go to the gym and eat food, much less go to a bar to throw down some money and play some pool. So for years I took a pool hiatus 9 months out of the year.

It was awful.

But then I moved to Laramie to pursue a graduate degree in flute performance. It was here that I saw a sign for a pool tournament on campus, a tournament I enthusiastically signed up. Things weren’t going well between my then-boyfriend and me and I needed to do something that reminded me of who I was. This tournament was it. I later learned that it was a regional qualifier, the very same tournament that brought me to the ACUI regionals in Salt Lake City where I finished undefeated as the number one seed for nationals. Pool made a sudden, unexpected comeback into my life and I have shamelessly embraced it. Now I play in weekly tournaments here in Laramie, sometimes traveling down to Fort Collins for the tougher competition and the better tables. I have been watching professional matches on YouTube in between practicing the flute at school and at night while I wind down from the day with a glass of wine. So it’s not surprising that I have been jumping at the opportunity to travel to see the pro’s play and to test myself against better competition.

My first trip of this sort happened on March 23^rd when I drove down to the Denver pool hall Felt to see Nick Varner and Thorsten Hohmann play, with the intentions of playing in the 8-ball barbox tournament. Unfortunately due to the weather I showed up too late for the tournament to work out, but watching Nick and Thorsten play and hearing what they had to say about pool got me even more excited about the sport. There’s just something about watching a live match over a YouTube match that is just super exciting.

Which brings us to this last weekend. Oddly enough the University of Wyoming had Good Friday off for an Easter break, which turned out to be a convenient day off for me as a pool fan! I had known about the sixth annual Platte Valley Open pool tournament in Saratoga for a while, but I decided at the last minute that I wanted to shoot in the tournament. The final draw was hearing that Shane Van Boening was going to be there, because Shane is the pool player of my dreams right now. I have watched almost every one of his matches on YouTube and am always on the lookout for new matches of his online—whether nine ball, ten ball, barbox or large table, straight pool, anything. So hearing that he was going to be shooting pool at a place that was mere hours from my apartment was enough to get me to hop in my car and drive. I decided to try my hand at the Classic division and somehow managed to get in. With a $100 entrance fee, a $120 motel room fee, $30 for gas, and money for food and drinks, I was definitely stretching my financial situation for this tournament. And it was so worth it.

Although I lost my first match to Richard Case, a man that I would later become friends with, my first day in Saratoga was amazing. I was there with my buddies Scott Maloney and Delilah Ye Feng, and was in the midst of cheering on Scott when I heard that Shane Van Boening and Rodney Morris were in the finals of a mini-day tournament at the local bar, Duke’s. I shamelessly bailed on Scott to go watch the match. Shane and Rodney were playing a strange hybrid of 8-ball and 9-ball that EJ had devised solely for this tournament and that I had never seen before. So, unsurprisingly, I stood by a fellow pool player and struck about a conversation about the ball colors and the numbers. You see, for this Saratoga game (that’s what they dubbed this unique hybrid) the numbers 1-6, 7-12, and 13 were used, omitting the 14 and 15 balls—and the numbers did not match up to the typical ball numbers. 1 in normal pool is yellow, 1 in this game was green, and etc. So I asked the fellow next to me which was which and we started chatting (I think the ball colors matched up with snooker ball colors, but I’m still not sure).

After the match was over I kept chatting with the same pool player until an acquaintance of mine from Laramie wandered over and challenged me to a game. I didn’t want to be rude to my new friend, Jim Calderon, and just go play with this other guy, but he waved me ahead so I played a game. I won the match after playing much better then I had in my match earlier that night. Typical. I always shoot better in the hours after a tournament. It was then that Jim seemed to take an interest in my playing and he and I started shooting against each other.

Over the course of the next few days I learned more about my game from Jim then I have from any one other player. Because you see I never had a coach or anything like that. Nobody decided to teach me pool; I simply picked it up and worked it out. I’m always complimented on my stroke, which is long and even, and lately as I have been entering the pool world I’ve had a few people ask who taught me. But I can’t really say, so I say I taught myself. That’s why playing with Jim was a fresh new experience for me—he gave me good advice about my bridge hand, he questioned my shot choices, forced me to think about my leave, had me re-do shots that I missed until I got it, and just in general helped me out a lot with game. But not in an obnoxious way; instead we just played pool, sometimes I won, sometimes he won, and he corrected any problems that came up.

You might ask yourself why I, a young 22 year old girl, would drive to the middle of nowhere to watch pool, play pool, watch more pool, and then play pool until 3 a.m. and then 6 a.m. the next day. And honestly, all I can say is that you aren’t a pool player if you have to ask that question.

Despite only winning one match in my division, and honestly shooting pretty awful pool on my part, I am so glad that I went out to Saratoga. On Saturday I started playing pool at 10:30, took a brief break around noon to get a new tip on my cue, started up again at 1, and played until 4 when I then went and watched matches until midnight. After midnight I went straight back to the bar and proceeded to play with Jim until 6 in the morning. The only thing sending me to bed was the knowledge that I had to wake up at 10 a.m. to check out of my sketchy motel; otherwise I would have kept playing all night long. I watched Shane Van Boening and Rodney Morris battle once each day of my elongated weekend, I watched Raj Hundal, Stevie Moore and countless others play. I played for so many hours that I honestly couldn’t even tally them up. And I got to meet tons of people who were passionate about pool as well.

Many of these people were people like Jim, players in the Master’s division who seemed surprised at my passion for pool and my insatiable appetite for the sport. I learned their names (promptly forgetting most of them, unfortunately, I have a terrible memory for names), watched them shoot, and talked to them afterwards. I watched matches with them and talked about how when I watch a pro match I like to hypothetically run the table in my mind—picking a pattern of balls (1-3-5-4-2-6-7-8 for example) imagining what my cue control would be—and then I would compare that to what the player did. One player in particular would ask me at each table what I would do, or in the middle of a table how I would fix a problem ball or etc., and I was always proud when Shane or Rodney would do exactly what I said I would do. Hypothetically of course, I can see the shots, but I am working on the cue control to make them happen. But honestly, just being able to predicate the shots of a champion like Shane Van Boening really makes me feel good about my future in the sport.

I am excited to play in future tournaments, I am excited about the prospect of practicing and bettering my game, and I am excited about where I could be in the next few years. The power of youth is infectious and this is the first time I have noticed it: at 22 years old, I can do anything I want with my life, I have a long time to live it, and the open ended nature of it that I have bemoaned in the past finally feels liberating and exciting. I can honestly say that I hope to make something of my pool playing while also working on my music. Maybe someday I can gig at pool halls with a jazz combo and play in tournaments on the side.

That would be a good life. 

Performance

Over this last weekend I had an audition with the Fort Collins Symphony for their newly open principal flute position. I was looking forward to the opportunity to practice the audition process for orchestral gigs, because despite wanting and trying my best to win the audition I knew that I was guaranteed an enlightening experience, even if I didn’t win the job.

Performance for me has been a strange journey these last few years. When I was younger I was excited and willing to play for everyone, a precocious child with no uncertainty or shame, and with a passion for simply playing. I would play my flute for everyone, whether they wanted to hear it or not. But around high school and into my college years that gradually began to change. I still loved to play but something in my mind shifted from a concept of playing to one of practicing—rather then the freedom of play, I was confined to the strict standards of practice/homework. Although I understood that one needs to focus on the negative aspects of ones playing in order to progress, I missed the joy of simply playing my flute and learning new pieces. Something snapped within me in my sophomore year of college in a small performance for the woodwind studio—nerves I hadn’t felt before the performance sprung up in the midst of it and I lost control. My flute started shaking, my lips were quivering, and my breath control was nonexistent. This was the worst experience one can imagine, for not only did I sound bad and embarrass myself in front of my colleagues, but I completely lost all control over my body. That was the bad part. When you’re young you don’t think about being old, I never think about the possible day when I tell my body to do something and it can’t or won’t. But at that moment I was telling my body to stop shaking, to calm down, to keep going, and it refused. This was the moment of truth, and I have been shaking myself of its aftereffects since.

But on Saturday I made the trek to Fort Collins with a few friends of mine for an orchestral audition. My first “big-kid” audition, and I was surprisingly at ease. In the last six months my life has been going through a wide variety of changes: physically, mentally, emotionally, as well as interpersonally. All of these changes became very clear to me as I woke up Saturday morning and went through my morning stretching routine. I was cool, calm, and collected as I showered, dressed, ate, and hopped in the car. The weather was a definite help as well, the first beautiful sunny day in a long time enabled me to wear my skirt and top without a jacket. I realized that the baggage I had been carrying for the last few years may just be gone. However, I had been optimistic before and didn’t want to have these hopes dashed against a wall when I reached the audition, so I (un)wisely ignored these feelings and took off down the road.

Here’s an interesting revelation about myself: I get edgy, unhappy, and stressed out when I’m in one place for too long. Why is this factoid relevant? Well this trip was the first time since December that I left Laramie. It was the first time I got into my car and drove down the road for location X, and it felt good. Damn good. Perhaps this is why I put 80,000 miles on my car in three years—driving just feels right sometimes.

The most beautiful part of my Saturday was the audition itself. Despite the fact that the warm-up rooms were hot and so live that a note resonated in the air for five minutes after being played (note the hyperbole) whereas the audition room itself was completely dead (even the ceiling had carpet!), and despite the omnipresence of earlier winners from earlier rounds, obnoxious practicers, and blatant show-offs trying to get in your head, I played well in my audition. Not well enough to land the gig, but I’m not quite at the place just yet. However, I played in that audition just as well as I ever have in a practice room. Sure a few notes cracked from dry lips and the keys on my flute clicked and clacked like it was possessed, but my musicality, my tone, and my technique were my own. I was not overwhelmed by anxiety, fear, and uncertainty. I nailed it. This might not make sense to those of you who think that winning the job would have been “nailing” it, but sometimes it’s the experience that matters, not the performance. 

U Dub

I spent this last weekend in Salt Lake City with eight people who I had only met once before. Even though I didn't know them really well, I definitely had fun getting to know them a little better. We were all attending the regional tournament for 9-ball and table tennis, two guys and two gals representing UW in both tournaments. And I had a lot of fun, more fun then I have had in a long time. Perhaps I had so much fun just because I didn't have to do anything other then play pool and hang out (that would make sense anyways). Despite not being proficient in 9-ball (I’ve always played straight eight or ball-in-hand eight ball) I managed to take first place. I shot some good pool, and some bad. There was one match in particular where everything went right: I beat the girl 4-1. Unfortunately the championship match was probably the worse I had played all weekend. The other girl was struggling pretty badly too, it was kind of pathetic. But nonetheless I was victorious! Which means? Sometime this summer I’m going to nationals for 9-ball. Aww yeah!

Boom! Who knew?

I’ll put up a better, more thoughtful blog later. For now I have a lot of catching up to do and many deep thoughts to swirl around in my head. Things are gonna be working better for me soon, I just need to figure out how to make it happen.