need help making a decision

Whistle
1

Okay- I have been absent from the board for a long time now- that’s because well life got in the way. Last spring on the day of my graduation from Harvard, my partner’s father died of a sudden heart attack. Soon afterwards we moved down to North Carolina in anticipation of my starting my PhD at Duke. My partner found a job as a teacher, which he liked, and seemed to be recovering from the trauma of his father’s death. We adopted an adorable beagle mix puppy and life seemed on its way. However two weeks ago my partner found out his mom is severely ill with late-stage liver disease. He flew home to Los Angeles to care for her, and now is on leave from school and doesn’t know when, or if he is coming back to North Carolina. His mom may have a few years to live, she may not, she needs a transplant. He has to stay in LA until she either gets one or passes on.

My partner is a wreck. He is sad and angry and feels that his future has been severely disrupted. Our relationship while strong feels like its on hiatus. Meanwhile I am soo lonely, I haven’t made that many friend yet (made a few though) and feel really isolated without him in an area I don’t know. I left all my friends and my city behind in Boston. I am lucky that my faculty advisor is kind and has been looking out for me or there is no way I would have made it this far in school. I mostly stay home and study because my dog is still a pup and cannot be left for long periods of time.

SO what does this have to do with Irish music- well here’s the thing. I haven’t played much since I moved down here, no longer having lessons and having lost my network of Irish music friends. I found out that there is a slow session at a coffeehouse that is about 20 miles away, in Cary, NC, called Mr Toad’s espresso. I’ve never been there, I don’t know much about it, I just found the listing on the net. They are having a slow session this sunday afternoon and I am debating over going. I want to go- I want to meet new friends but I am utterly terrified of walking into an entirely new place not knowing anyone, never having even been in a slow session myself before.. and being a little rusty.

But I don’t wanna stay home anymore and feel sorry for myself and worry about my life. So should I go? and if I go, how should I approach this (having never been to a session before)

-Angela

2

Sincerely.

Go and be with your partner.

The PhD will wait, and if it doesn’t
then ‘they’ don’t deserve you.

Take yer whistles with you :slight_smile:

Hopefully helpful 2p’s worth.

3

Go to the session. . .bring your whistles. . .sit near the group and listen. Say hello to the person closest and explain that you’re newly down from Boston and are feeling a bit lost.

My sympathies to your partner. . .on both his loss and the stress. . .but no one ever said life was fair or that we will have healthy, whole parents for as long as we want them to be there and well. Its hard, regardless.

4

angela, i believe your partner needs you more than ever. but you’re both down hearted, wich is quit normal after all you’ve both been through. i’d go to that session, and if you don’t feel like playing, that’s ok, then just tell your story, i’m sure those people will understand. you’ll brighten up and meet new friends and feel the urge to practice again, but i surely wouldn’t drink any alcohol. then take that positive energy home, and try and strenghten your relationship with it in a modest manner.

anyway, your relationship will certainly grow very strong and beautiful when you can face all these misfortunes together.

5

Go to the session.

If feasible, I agree that being with your partner soon would be a good thing.

Best,
N

6

Go to the session, sit near where they are playing with your whistles on the table in front of you and be an active listener, making eye contact with the players. If they are savy and pick up on your presents there and are polite, then maybe they will ask you out of curiousity…do you play? Yes is the answer!

When I graduated from library school, I had to return to my parents home for a short while. While home my mother fell and broke her leg and hip and was in hospital for ten weeks, she was 71 at the time. When in hospital her mother, my grandmother died, my father was diagnois with cancer.

Also living in the same house was my younger brother, who is a mentally challenged adult. I had to look after everybody, arrange my grandmothers funeral, chauffer my dad to the doctors and getting my brother off to work everyday, plus look after their affairs and the house.

I was engaged at the time and my fiancee was in another city. She didn’t understand why I couldn’t be there rather than at home and really didn’t believe me of the situation I was in. Edited: I was given an ulitimatum by my fiancee, we parted.

I choose not to abandon the ones that raised me, and I was the only sibling in the vinicity that could do it, being a new graduate without a job and at home.

Life ain’t easy and never goes as plan. There is phrase written on the wall in basement of the library here: “If you want to make God laugh…make plans.”

All the best.

MarkB

7

Amen, in both counts. But go to the session, that’s the easiest ane most immediate thing to do. Take your whistle. Play a little.

g

8

Angela, I sent you a PM.

-Paul

9

I would choose the session over loneliness. Love of the pleasure of music will prevail over fear and Good Spirits will watch over you.

My thoughts are with you and your partner.

Chris

10

I hope everything will work out for you and your partner and that you soon will experience the joy of life again.

All the best!

/MarcusR




11

I was planning to write an answer to your question, but so many others have given good advice that I can’t really add to it.

Just know that, whatever decision you make, it should be YOURS.

Keep your lines of communication, and your options, open.

For now, just go to the session and enjoy it. Being out among others is a good thing.

Mary

12

Thank you all for the warm, kind words of support- I really really appreciate it. I am going to try and go tommorrow- mainly to get out. One can only read so much William James all weekend before you go crazy. I figure I will just take my whistles and sit quietly near the players. I hope to meet some friendly people.

As for my partner and I- we are committed to pulling through this together- but when I offered to take time off of school and go and be with him he very forcefully said no. He said it would be a waste of my talent and the scholarship I was given (5 years paid for with a substantial stipend). He feels that one of us has to have a good future career and that well- it might as well be me. He knows that I have scraped and starved through Divinity school to get here- and he would rather have me stay here and finish up. Besides after my coursework is done (end of next school year) I can leave the NC area and move back to LA to be with him (and incidentally my own family) to finish up with my research and dissertation. He would (and I would too) rather have me focus on working hard and getting out of here quickly to be with him.

Also the situation is fluid. His mom could stabilize for a while or take a turn for the worse very quickly- so its very hard to predict.

Thank you again however for all your kind words and suggestions. I am going to try and get to the slow session tommorrow- and there is also one in Raleigh I can go to. I am also enrolling my puppy in obedience classes to hopefully meet some other cool dog owners in the area. I need to get out- its too lonely in this apartment with only the pup and a tank full of fish.

-Angela

13

Angela,

Music expresses those thing that are beyond words. It fortifies the heart and soul. Go and play, play for the joy of your loves embrace that is waiting for you, play for the longing of that embrace, play for the perverseness of fortune, play for the commitment to the strong path, play for the breath of peace and play for the stillness between the notes.

Do what ever it takes to play, but play. For as music expresses that which is beyond words, it also give us things that are beyond words, beyond our ability to ask or even think to ask. It is those gifts that give you a little something extra to share with your partner, in a letter or phone call, or holiday visit.

After a long day, last week, I was standing on the train platform waiting for my commuter train home. The announcement that it would be an hour late spurred me to the end of the platform, to play. A friend, seeing me, came down and commented on how patient I was that I could sit a play such love tunes. I told him, he had it backwards, I play because I’m impatient and the tunes are my patience maintenance.

With all that is going on in your life, the musician in you needs to play. So, at the session, simply explain you need to play, and ask if they will let you join in their music. Most musicians, will now the need and understand. Many will actually look forward to the opportunity, knowing the greater the need, the greater the magic that might find melody. It’s not a make believe magic or hocus pocus, it’s the true magic of hearing and sharing the music. The melodies find resonance with our essence, our heart, that part of us that transcends our understandings. Asking to play with the folks in the session is taking a risk, your risk will be appreciated by the better musicians. The better musicians will know the importance of what you have entrusted to their care and will treasure it knowing that it will nourish the best in their own music.

Of course, we musicians are sometimes a lot better with tunes than words, and hence much of the above may go unsaid.

For most of us, we simply share your need to …

14

I’m glad you decided to go to the session. And, the first chance you get, book a ticket out to L.A. for a visit, and make it a regular habit. Even if it’s just for the weekend, do it. Rack up a little credit card debt if you have to, but try to get out there every month or two. It will pay off in the end.

Robin

15

Angela, your Partner sounds like a really decent man. He must love you a lot. Go to the session and be sure tell us all about it!

-Paul