How refreshing this optimism is!

A new year!

It’s amazing how different things have been this year compared to last year. I’m at the same school, studying with the same professors, and focusing on the same things: music and pool. But yet things couldn’t be more different, new friends, roommates, and colleagues. Combine that with a new work ethic and renewed focus and passion and this year can’t be any more different from the last. I am disappointed in myself for letting last year decay into the awful musical, personal, and emotional hellhole that it gradually descended into, but I can’t change how things were in the past—al I can do is look forward.

And damn, does looking forward feel good. I still have no idea where I will be next year, although there are some faint outlines of potential living situations coming to at the edge of my vision, but I’m still learning how to revel in this open-ended freedom. Friends and family continue to tell me that things will work out, that if I work hard and just keep doing what I do something will happen, and I’m starting to believe them. So much can happen in just one short year and the only way to let good things happen is to leave a space open in your life for new experiences to fill. In the past this space felt like a void, a black hole that desperately needed to be occupied by something, anything. But I’m realizing now these aren’t negative spaces, they aren’t terrible things to be avoided, but rather they are opportunities, openings for future endeavors. This does not imply freedom and empty time, the space isn’t temporal as this is the busiest year of my life so far. It’s a mindset, a thought process, and a willingness to say ‘yes’ to something new and different.

Who knows where I will wind up when I’m open to going somewhere new.

Boom.

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.  

Blowing in the Wind

How do you keep yourself grounded when you’re being torn apart from all directions by gusts of wind? When the wind starts to blow from one direction, forcing you to lean into it, work with it, and move on—just to suddenly change directions and push you from behind flat on your face. How do you build up the strength to fly when the air patterns are chaos, when the wind is howling and fierce, and you’re afraid to hit the ground?

I seem to have an attraction for windy places. My undergrad years were spent on the plains of Moorhead MN (read: Fargo, ND) where the extreme temperatures were matched only by the even more extreme wind. Grad school in Wyoming means that not much has changed, although it is a bit warmer here. I reach out to these places as places of personal growth and professional development. Why can’t I live somewhere temperate, normalized, and predictable?

I’ve always lived my life according to some sort of “plan,” tying my dreams and ambitions down to a metaphorical rock, holding on to them for dear life. It’s as if I was afraid that the wind from outside would tear apart my inner ambitions. As if letting myself go beyond the self-imposed confines of my mind would blow away all that I am, leaving a lifeless shell in the place of me. Whether I was tied down to a relationship, invested in my studies, or was simply narrow-minded in my scope and ambition, I’ve spent the vast majority of my life with blinders on. 

Tunnel vision.

But now, as a grad student studying music performance, I’m realizing that you can’t live life this way. One does not simply walk through life on the golden road of a perfect life plan and stick with it for the entirety of the journey. Rather, perhaps it is I who cannot simply do this. Every time I set a plan something happens that makes me want to change it. Life is open-ended for all of us; we walk through life creating our own narrative. That’s all that needs to be said about it. If you tell yourself that you are a good person, a dedicated student, a passionate lover, and a reliable friend, you will act the part and it will eventually be so. If you’ve ever read the books of Patrick Rothfuss then you know what I’m talking about, Kvothe went through life telling everyone around him he was a hero and acting the part. Eventually the act becomes the reality and what had earlier began as a rumor is now a truth.

It is all a matter of how we handle this open-endedness. Do we become an agoraphobic in terms of our lives? Do we fear the vast amount of possibilities that are constantly available; shunning them all in favor of the restricted life path we have set for ourselves?

I was a closet agoraphobic. I limited my perspective on life to only include music, opening it slightly to include philosophy and then slamming that door shut just as quickly. I decided upon grad school, moving away with my boyfriend and planning out the next five years of my life in advance. But then I arrived here, and somewhere along the line I let the wind into my heart and it has blown me away. 

I made the leap away from the comfortable and broke up with my boyfriend. Leaving solitude behind I started seeking adventures in new places alone and with new friends, I’ve met more awesome people and had more fun life experiences in the last few months then I had had in the past few years. And this is no ones fault but my own. I do not blame the men I loved for limiting my life perspective, I do not blame the professors that encouraged me one way or another, and I do not blame my family or friends, it was merely myself that decided to live that way, and I carry the blame. I was the one afraid to go somewhere new alone, I was the one that decided early on to throw myself head first into a career path with little to no hesitation and thought that it might now be right for me. I was the one who got myself to where I am today and I’m pretty damn glad that I was that person, because I am happy where I am. 

I know now that one cannot go through life in the negative, one cannot say "no" to everything. I'm old enough to know the consequences, whether financially, educationally, or whatever, but I'm also young enough not to say "no" anymore. If I have the opportunity to feed my soul with something new I will gladly do so, whether that means more time in new places playing pool with friends and soon-to-be-friends, or whether it means travelling half-way across the continent to immerse myself in music, I will do it gladly. 

The wind is unpredictable and that’s just something you have to deal with. Trusting that your wings are strong and your eyes are good, you just need to fly away. Sometimes you will crash and burn, but you will keep flying because flying is in your heart, it is a part of you. Every time you cross that hill, fly through that valley, and soar into the sky, your heart lifts and you are happy. Fearing the next crash, worrying about yesterdays weather, and avoiding flight for the safety of the ground is not the way to live, it is not who you are. You are strong, you are unique, and you will make it—no matter how the wind tries to stop you and hold you back. 

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.