my purpose

today began very badly.

i woke up trembling, traumatized by nightmares and lack of sleep. last night was not the easiest of nights. i was brought back to a 9 year old girl trembling in a corner, reticent of june street in endicott. the first of my experiences with fear i've unlocked over the last couple of weeks.

the sun was out, though.

i showered and a spider came down out of nowhere.

i hate mornings like that.

spiders should come announced, at least give one 3 feet notice that they're around, not drop in while your back it turned to wash off the soap.

i stumbled through some minor poses of yoga and geared up to sleep at fumi's, violin case included.

i arrived, apologized to a colleague that i couldn't make our 10 am meeting because i was out of sorts and stared at my terminal screen as i tried to ingest emails. i responded to some steering committee stuff. i was thanked for remembering a birthday and was told that my hugs are something to look forward to.

that was a warm fuzzy.

my brain was still out of sorts. i was on edge, making tea. i had a moment with my ED to discuss Thursday's rather important meeting and included my thoughts about how such discussions should be conducted.

then i made headway with the girlhealth website, sorting archived pages and beginning with the about the authors section.

i'm sorting the topics into respective sections so dreamweaver doesn't bomb every time i make a change to a site template. the design is circa 1999. we know it needs an upgrade.

i stepped into a coworkers classroom and reflected on why girlsource exists and why her specific program exists. that was a deep reflection and conversation.

afterward i was accosted (and happily so) by two of my girls from the summer. i squealed with delight when i saw them and hugged them tightly. i ran to our former classroom and caught up with them. ray of sunshine.

after that i showed up 45 minutes late to a fundraiser organizational meeting and injected the need to be part of the programming process if they wanted more connection with the young women. it's so interesting how power dynamics can come into play, however unintentionally. everyone's a little bit agist, i suppose.

after that meeting, i went to my desk, exhausted. one of my board members noticed and so did my coworker. i relayed that i haven't really been sleeping comfortably. been on edge. felt unsafe.

they offered their condolences.

and i went to pluck my violin. i experimented bowing with my left hand and fingering with my right.

awkward. totally awkward.

i ignored the metronome, practicing fingering exercises for the a and d strings. i'm getting a little better with my pauses between notes, without marking up my music with cheats.

pizzicato felt more fun than the bowing, itself. my strings are out of tune, so i am just practicing the finger placements.

e string is high-pitched.

i have been imagining playing along with every piece of music i hear. and thinking about how amazing it will be to jam to jazz and to hear her echo among the hills as i play some fabulous melodic euro-classical piece. i can't wait to experiment with more arabic and aggressive fiddling of blue grass.

my violin, mi nina, mi bella, mi cancion.

she is my voice where i feel i have none.