Beginnings

And so the cycle begins. Monday comes round, I buy a paper, eagerly
flicking straight to the job page. I send off my saes already having a
fresh supply of a4 envelopes for my Monday evening ritual. The replies
come back in my own hand and I race through the job description. This
job is perfect for me. No, this job is me. I send off my CV and await
the peremptory thanks but no thanks letters which arrive weeks later.
Sometimes I receive a phone call. The number is strange to my phone.
Who can this be? Some debtor ringing for money, no an interview, who
me? Yes of course I'll be there and blow the cost. I can't wait. I get
dressed slowly. My regular routine. Wake up to the sound of my alarm.
Press snooze, several times usually. Wake again. Shit I'm going to be
late! I get up run for the shower to find it has been taken over by the
supposedly unwashed and finally get my two minutes of semi-tepid water
which erupts at intervals between a slow steady trickle. I get out
moisturise, towel dry my hair and apply several hair products to stop
the frizz. Usually recommended by some hyped up salon but which
invariably don't work. Then I get dressed slowly. My suit comes out on
these occasions. Mothballs and all. The black trousers, the shirt,
jacket and real shoes which will cripple my feet by the time I get to
the tube, but which are essential. Then I have a cup of coffee and
leave the house. I smoke a cigarette on the way to the tube reading my
A-Z. I'm sure I'm going to get lost so I leave at least an hour ahead
of the time I need to. Then there are no delays on the tube, the place
is where it should be and I end up an hour early. Thus I loiter in
alleyways or on street corners getting thoroughly windswept and smoking
large amounts of cigarettes to try and the quell the nerves which are
causing nightmares in my stomach. It is like having the entire
Groundforce and Changing Rooms teams redesigning the interior of my
stomach lining at a time when I could really do without it. I then have
to find a shop within a mile radius which sells mint gum, as I am
worried that my breath will knock them out, and end up being late
because I get lost this time. Or else, I will find a greasy spoon
nearby and linger over one cup of coffee, tea if the budget doesn't
allow, whilst the sight of large labourers tucking into a full fry-up
turns my guts.
Interviews are funny things. They ask strange questions, usually with
some hidden meaning which they expect you to find. I spend the entire
time between giggling nervously and cracking jokes at my expense,
wondering what the question before last actually meant and thinking
they are trying to trip me up. Thus I don't score too well I think. I
suppose I must come across as some kind of giggling freak, who is
obsessed with her own insecurities. The worst kind of interview I find
is the one in which they spring a kind of test on you just before you
leave. Having had a guided tour of other peoples offices and the
outside loo, you then have to endure a panel of people firing questions
at you and expecting answers to questions which they probably don't
even know the answers to. Then when you think you have escaped the
humiliation for another day and can leave for freedom and a cigarette,
they spring a test. I didn't like exams at school, I avoided them at
University and I certainly do not want to have to do them now. However,
they say, don't worry it's very simple and then give you a calculator
and ask you to work out tax returns. What?! I can't even do my own yet,
let alone someone else's. I ask you!

Thursday comes round I get another paper and again flick straight to
the job pages. All that is staring back at me is sales and lap dancing.
Maybe I should become a lap dancing trombone player, who organises
events at the weekend! I suggested this to a fellow in the bookies and
he thought it would be a good idea, though I'm not sure he was entirely
coherent at the time, or that he even knows what a trombone is. I
believe that in twenty years time, the world will have become a place
where people fall into two categories. Lap Dancer or Sales person. We
will either be selling things to each other or selling ourselves. Why
are all the graduate jobs in sales. Have I spent three years, no more
of my life learning the finer points of the performing arts or have I
been simply learning to sell useless pieces of crap to people on
commission?

Then it came. The call. A call to arms. I am to teach music to small
children. that isn't solitary I hear you cry, but no, it is music. And
music is my first and only love. One almost forgotten in the rush to
pay the rent. The best part of this is that they are so young, their
carers are with them. I don't have to deal with the simpering and nose
wiping their filth. I only have to sing and play with them. but that is
just glorified baby-sitting. I know. That is the beauty of it. I get
paid to enjoy the fun part of baby-sitting. My only worry is that I am
selling my soul to the corporate devil. I meet people I knew and the
first question is always, so what are you doing now. They understand a
person working as a barmaid, or waitress whilst "resting" but the word
teaching comes up and suddenly you are ostracised. It is as though you
are suddenly not good enough to pursue a career as a performer so you
must lower yourself to teach others to do better than you. Teaching is
so important, and difficult if you want to do it well. I don't
understand the stigma my peers attach to it. Having said this though, I
could not and will not work in a classroom. The atmosphere itself fills
me with dread. The unrelated paperwork, the unruly kids. But the idea
of imparting knowledge to others, thrills me. I love to talk. I love
people to listen, and most of all I love to make music with people. Any
people. Whatever their age or strengths. Change the classroom
environment to one of a workshop say and my imagination is fired. I
cannot help but take part. I do not pretend that I know any more about
music than anyone else, but I love to facilitate music and art making
of all kinds. I love to show people that they can make music. That they
are able to do things they never knew possible. Maybe that is why I
write. Maybe that is just because I talk too much. I have so much to
say, that I can't find anyone to sit still for long enough to listen! I
can't help it. I have always been like this. That is my strength and my
weakness. Music is the bridge between the two. It helps me to say the
things I can't find words for, so I use someone else's notes to explain
my feelings as I have difficulty expressing them myself. Mostly I put
my stamp on them. I fuse my life with theirs for however long that
piece may last. I once had an argument with a jazz musician about why I
don't improvise as much as I apparently should. He looked down on
classical musicians because they don't write their own music. I said
why didn't he become a composer, he said why don't you become a
teacher. There you have it in a nutshell. Teachers aren't seen as
creative, active, they are seen as passive. And in art. This is not
necessarily a good thing.
A flatmate was training to be a teacher, but he hated it. Everyday he
came home and spent the entire evening complaining about his life. He
was only 23. When the day for his first school day came he spent the
entire evening reminiscing about his previous life in Sweden. Life? His
hadn't begun. He was depressed because he wanted to make music with
people and he was frustrated because that wasn't how he could live his
life there and then. I try to tell him he has time. Time is the one
thing he has, and talent. Together they are the most important things
in a person's life. And everyone has talent. In some shape or
form.

Living in shared accommodation is interesting. There are so many things
about it which are good. But equally there are things which are very
bad indeed. Being able to try things out on people is good. Living in a
creative household especially, you can bounce ideas around. Debates are
great as long as they aren't about household problems. Talking about
the state of politics or a bad day at work are healthy, but constant
arguments about the washing up and bills and the smell emanating from
the smallest room are not. It's when people do things for you without
you asking. When they know, because they live with you. They know the
little quirks. Your strange habits. So they'll go to the supermarket
and buy you a giant sized 10kilo bar of chocolate, or tidy the house
for you when they know you've had a particularly bad day. Even if you
haven't told them yet. Those are the bits that make shared houses fun.
The 2 hour conversations about kid's programmes of our youth which go
on well into the night and mean you don't get that early night you
promised yourself. When you all manage to sit around the table together
for the first time in about a month, and someone cooks pasta and pesto,
and you open a bottle, or six of wine. Those are the good times.

I'm going to be a musician when I grow up.
Not yet but someday. Maybe I'll have lessons, maybe not. But I am going
to be a musician. I've decided.
The look on the kids faces when you sing to them, makes me want to
explode with joy every time. Some of them are just learning to speak,
trying to work out how sounds are made. It's as though they can't
understand where this sound is coming from. There incredulity and
amazement at the world makes me look at it with fresh eyes everyday.
And this is good because all the things I'm cynical about, which is
most things, fade away and I am amazed everyday by the simple things,
thoughts and deeds which make up my life. They lift me up and carry me
with them on their shoulders. Not the shoulders of giants, but the
shoulders of the little ones. If I'm going to play the trombone, I need
to practise more. This is a word which is alien to my vocabulary. I
also got away without working to play the music which I had to for my
previous life. I got by with a little bit of talent and a lot of luck.
However. This meant that when I came to my life now, I was of the
teenage mentality that thought I could still get away with it. This was
obviously not the case, and I had just started to get into routine of
practise and working hard at my playing when I graduated. Now I have
let it all go. I am a fool. I tell myself I am not good enough anyway.
that isn't the case. I could be if I tried. If for once in my life I
actually worked at something. I hate having these two personalities in
my head. I think they are referred to as id and ego. Well, id is always
right and my ego? I wish it didn't exist.