Emptying to Refill for the New Year

With just two days left in 2010, I am suddenly filled with an extreme sense of awe about the past year. It's been a dense, wonderful, and challenging series of events!

Not that I need to catalog my happenings for the past twelve months (which did include touring on four continents, getting pregnant/having a child, getting used to an expanded family, and taking a break from and then going back to performing... whew).

No, it's more about acknowledging waves of gratitude and relief, and just a little bit of shock. This all just went down! And it has all been pretty good--tough at times, but good.

With an enormous exhale I feel I can let some of the details of the year obscure a bit into a wash of color. And I feel strong and clear again to breathe in the new year...

(...and with Baby N's help, to catch up on correspondence that has slipped a bit for the last couple of months!)

Zen and the Very First Leap

That birth is so profoundly spectacular *and* so decidedly ordinary is even more beautiful than Bach...

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New Day, Same Old Frog (Sort of...)

Like many people with a brand new baby, I have this new lease on life. The beauty and creativity of bringing a child into this world: carrying/growing him, birthing him, nourishing and attending to him, and then watching him GO!... it's all so spectacular.

And after a brief period of mourning about having to go back to work so soon, I decided to see my work of performing as a blessed opportunity. How great to get to share music and a vibrant community of music lovers with my brand new boy! I GET to make music while also enjoying my expanded new family.

So, here I am: overjoyed with my new family. Content and grateful about my career and looking forward to going back to work. I imagined having these transcendent first shows back, reaching out to our wonderful audiences in deep new ways.

What a shocker the first few shows have been! It turns out that I have allowed some of my same old distractions (and lots of new ones) to keep me from being fully prepared and present when I hit the stage. My playing/singing lacked polish. My stage banter wasn't as elegant and easy as I'd assumed it would be. Plus, I let my friend who'd been holding my son in a sling during the show hold him onstage for the Encore last night. While I got ready for bed, I kicked myself for not holding baby Nigel myself, out of the sling where the audience could see him...

Um, in the light of day I can see the simple Shannon-specific steps to take next time around:

1. Build in transition time/warm up time after handing son off to caregiver before going onstage.
2. Choose one person to perform for (imagined or actual) to jump start my focus. My thanks to my friend and fellow blogger Kerry Dexter for chatting about this one today!
3. When things don't go as hoped/expected, let 'em go right away.
4. And... embrace the decision to not use my baby to entertain our audience!! Unless Nigel is awake and really needs ME to hold him (and becomes part of the act by default), he is just a baby and does not need perform for anyone at any time.

Three steps forward, two steps back. That's progress, howsoever slow and annoying and disappointing. It's tough to be patient with myself; but with a kid in the mix, I have renewed incentive to become more forgiving and patient--with him and myself and others. Little by little the bird makes his nest. And little by little, this frog is building a calm, beautiful life for herself and all the little peepers in her life...

Rolling With It Beats Croaking About It

Of course, self-employed musicians in the States don't get a single day of paid maternity leave. But even those employed by others often get only 3 months of paid maternity leave (sometimes much less). Yay on Canada for offering ONE YEAR of paid maternity (or paternity?) leave. What a way to honor human beings!

After having baby Nigel, I took as much time off as finances would allow, which ended up being about 5 weeks off from teaching. And 9 weeks off from performing, easing gently back into things. By 12 weeks (nearly two weeks ago) I was basically back to my former workload.

My pocketbook is grateful to be working. But I felt a bit anxious and worried that I might be short-changing my son by having to tuck away for sound checks, performances, rehearsals. And I have NOT enjoyed the periods of separation from him on the times that it has been more sensible to leave him with our caregiver, even though I love and trust her completely.

I lamented to my friend Alison that I wished both my husband and I could take more time off to get our bearings on being new parents, and to tend to our son completely. Also a self-employed musician (and mother of two), Alison instantly reassured me saying, "it's a lot of schlepping, a lot of hard work, and exhausting. But going back to work when a kid is still tiny is infinitely worth it, because it's so good for you."

OK, I'm going to roll with this. Yes, taking a baby with me to gigs or sometimes leaving him with a sitter means I am constantly carrying stuff. And, yes, it is challenging to tend to my family's needs pre-show and then get up on stage and give a good, centered performance (more on that in a future blog post).

But being able to make a living doing my creative work with my family in tow whenever I can is good for me. And what is good for me is good for my family. Enough grousing and croaking about having to hit the road already... it's time to enjoy forthcoming adventures as a trio!