Or www.drecounterpointed.blogspot.com, for those of you who prefer to do it the old-fashioned way by typing it in yourself. 

Read it, become a follower, comment!  I simply felt the time had come to move on.  There was just a little too much emotional baggage hanging over this blog, and it was time for a fresh start somewhere else in cyberspace.  I will leave this blog up, of course, in case someone may stumble across it and find it useful.

 Give to me the life I love,
   Let the lave go by me,
 Give the jolly heaven above
   And the byway nigh me.
 Bed in the bush with stars to see,
   Bread I dip in the river -
 There's the life for a man like me,
   There's the life for ever.

 Let the blow fall soon or late,
   Let what will be o'er me;
 Give the face of earth around
   And the road before me.
 Wealth I seek not, hope nor love,
   Nor a friend to know me;
 All I seek, the heaven above
   And the road below me.

 Or let autumn fall on me
   Where afield I linger,
 Silencing the bird on tree,
   Biting the blue finger.
 White as meal the frosty field -
   Warm the fireside haven -
 Not to autumn will I yield,
   Not to winter even!

 Let the blow fall soon or late,
   Let what will be o'er me;
 Give the face of earth around,
   And the road before me.
 Wealth I ask not, hope nor love,
   Nor a friend to know me;
 All I ask, the heaven above
   And the road below me.

Look at these kids, with their skinny jeans and Converse sneakers and iPhones.  Pssh.  Blasting their crappy music and not signaling their turns.

I think I am getting old.

A clip from tonight’s show:

We’ll start that another time…

The truth is, my thoughts often turn to Bulgaria and the Peace Corps, but not in the way I thought they would.  I remember snippets of it, images and feelings, and (shockingly) I find myself grasping at the bad stuff in my memories and remembering those moments of contentment much more easily.

I haven’t written a whole lot about what’s been going on in my life lately, because so much is up in the air.  And I am treading carefully, amazed at how the good moments are outnumbering the bad.  I find it difficult to let myself enjoy them.  Bulgaria was an emotional minefield.  Things would be going swimmingly for a little while and then all of a sudden, something would happen (or not happen) and I would be cursing everything and everyone, on a complete emotional downward spiral.  It became such a fact of life that I couldn’t even enjoy good hours or days or weeks because I knew the bottom would drop out.  It is difficult to make anyone who wasn’t there understand it and I am sure it made me sound crazy when I would call friends on Skype, crying, working my way through a bottle of wine and a pack of Victorys.

The even crazier thing is that there is so much I miss about it and people understand that even less.  The people who know that I cried every day for a year, who listened to me fall apart, who read my rambling emails, just don’t know what to do with me anymore.  Frankly, I don’t blame them.

Anyway, the real reason I am writing this is because the B-26 group is leaving for Bulgaria soon and there is no shortage of new blogs popping up on Peace Corps Journals.  I have observed the following: everyone is very concerned about saying goodbye to their life in America.  I know I was the same way and this got me thinking.  For most of us fresh-out-of-college PCVs, this opportunity marks the last time in our lives that we can compartmentalize.  There was grade school, then high school, then college.  Life exists in a period of pre-this and post-that.  “After I got my driver’s license” or “before I turned twenty-one” or “before I broke up with this person.”

I thought I was going to be so different when I came back from Peace Corps.  I think I am in some ways.  But what is most different is that I no longer strive to be an entirely different person.  I suppose Peace Corps can be used to entirely reinvent yourself, but I found that in the case of me and many of my friends, under duress, you cannot be anything but you.  The good, the bad, the ugly.  And you live with it at every moment and you take it home to your tiny apartment at the end of the day.  You learn to handle it, even though sometimes you just cannot.  You run or you write or you drink or you set out to be a super volunteer.  And the most beautiful thing you will have is the friendships with other volunteers.  Because they are right there with you and they can handle it when you can’t.  So I guess, simply put, my advice is this: be who you are, don’t apologize for it, and lean on your group members.  You need them and they need you.

After going for a spin in my friend’s cherry red Mustang convertible last week, I decided that, in order to get what I want out of life, all I need to do is buy one of my own.  It’s that simple!  Who says material things can’t make you happy?  I was riding a wave of good vibes from that for days!

Yesterday, my friend and I took a day long road trip to South Bend to see a piano recital at the University of Notre Dame.  This might seem slightly crazy,  as it is a five-hour drive each way, but 1. I had nothing else to do and 2. I got used to traveling absurdly long amounts of time and distance to have some human contact while living in BG.

It’s much more pleasant to travel in a car, where you control the music and the climate and don’t have to worry about stinky old men sitting next to you.  Also, I-80 is freshly paved and devoid of the visibly drunk drivers I often saw in BG.  Unfortunately, the trip was missing that element of surprise that comes with Bulgarian travel.  The Ohio turnpike is sterile and predictable, with State Patrol cars sitting and waiting to catch speeders and brightly lit rest areas containing Starbucks and Panera every thirty miles.  I didn’t have to wonder if I would see a car with a goat in it or if the person in front of me be would be traveling with a box of chickens.  No concerns that the train would stop for half an hour while the gypsies fought with the ticket taker.  No fighting with other passengers about the existence of the techeniye.  (These things have all happened to me.)

Over the course of our trip, we listened to:

The Les Mis soundtrack

The Jesus Christ Superstar soundtrack

three mix CDs

half of the Verdi Requiem

two Dan Savage podcasts

the Cleveland Orchestra’s radio station

Also, traveling west from Youngstown makes me feel better about the part of Ohio in which I currently live.  Once you are west of Sandusky, Ohio and Indiana are pretty much a barren wasteland, punctuated only by Toledo, an appalling lack of any restaurants, and billboards reminding you that you are probably going to hell.

The concert was highly enjoyable, as well as soul-crushing.  Enjoyable, because it contained great repertoire played wonderfully.  Soul-crushing, because the acquaintance who played it has a bachelor’s degree in organ performance, economics, and something else from Notre Dame, is now getting a Juris Doctorate from the school, and decided in his spare time (!) to put on a recital containing some heavy repertoire on his secondary instrument.  I sort of wish I had that level of genius, but until it comes, I will just rely on my wit, sarcasm, and high alcohol tolerance to get me by.

I was down at the university today to rehearse for this senior recital I’m playing in a few weeks.  I went to get a drink of water and, within thirty seconds, was accosted on all sides by professors telling me that the school is going to be hard up for accompanists in the fall and they need someone to play for their students.  Several accompanists aren’t coming back in the fall, one died, and a few others can’t seem to get along with the professors.  Huzzah!  Haide, August and diva sopranos.  Bring on the Italian opera transcriptions and song cycles.  Andrea wants to make some money.

While this is thrilling news, that little voice of self-flagellation and uncertainty sneaks its way into my head dozens of times a day.  Because I am doing exactly what I was doing before I left, only my technique is worse.  I appreciate that I was approached about this, but I know if I lived in larger city, I could not hack it.  The music world is competitive and I am not a competitive person.  I suppose none of that matters, since I am in Youngstown and people want me to play and I should just shut up and be happy, but it doesn’t make me feel very good.

I guess I am a little bitter, and let me tell you why.  I’ve done a bit of job interviewing and gotten a fair amount of disparaging remarks about 1. my degree and 2. my Peace Corps service.  Not that I am expecting the world to think I am the bees knees, but come on people.  I am not useless.  In my most pessimistic state, I start thinking everything I’ve chosen to do in the last decade was a mistake.  On my most optimistic days, I decide I am simply going to suck it up and accept that being able to play Beethoven Sonatas and rid my residence of fleas are not useful skills and I will be bartending till the end of eternity.

I am not where I thought I’d be when I turned twenty-five and I suppose that’s ok, it just might be better if I had a degree in, like, accounting or something.

I started getting a little choked up while singing with my choir at the cathedral today.  First, because we are a damn good choir, if I may say so.  Second, because it was so good to be at home for a holiday, to be singing with these people who have supported me and pushed me to be a better musician, and to know that we were all grateful for one another’s presence there.

This past week has been good, but kind of sad.  Today would have been my two year anniversary in Bulgaria and I found my heart really aching to go back to that time, to what it felt like to be so excited and optimistic about the future.  To be doing something adventurous, meeting new people.  Even in the beauty of all the wonderful music and friendship I experienced this week, I wanted one moment to see the wildflowers blooming in Bulgaria or hear the call to prayer in Istanbul, or sit quietly on a train, alone with my thoughts.  Of course, that came with a high price, of loneliness and isolation deeper than anything I have ever felt.  I guess we will always wish to have one thing when we have its opposite.

This Easter, it truly feels like a new beginning for me.  I am grateful for all the experiences of the last two years and for the opportunities coming my way now (slowly but steadily).  I hope you are all having a great day and I am thankful to have each of you in my life.

1.  I still hate the Mephisto Waltz.  I also sort of don’t like Funerailles.  As someone who used to be a Liszt devotee, I can’t help but wonder if my love affair with Franz has ended.  And if he didn’t really just write the same piece hundreds of times…

2.  The American public is still sorely lacking in concert etiquette.  The ubiquitous cough-drop-opener was sitting RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME.  He sat quietly through some feisty, louder stuff by Brahms and Granados, then decided that the perfect time to eat some candy was during a delicate Grieg piece.  And, like they always do, he couldn’t just let the damn wrapper be.  He had to crumple it up for a good thirty seconds.  Pleasant surprise of the evening: nobody’s cell phone rang.

I was perusing the interwebs looking for steady church jobs and was surprised at how many websites I came across that said something like this:

After years as a middle school social studies teacher, Joe Smith felt God was calling him to do something more with his life, to minister to the people.  He ignored the call for awhile, since he was not a theologian or ordained minister.  Finally, he could not ignore the call any longer and a small community of fellow believers started gathering in his living room.  That community grew over time and now, The Church of the Rock of the Risen Lord has found its home in our new building.

Sweet Holy Mother of God.  Where to start? 

I was raised Catholic, as most of you probably know by now.  I have worked for many different Christian denominations.  My friends who are sacred musicians often have two or three jobs (as I did at one point), working for everyone ranging from Catholics to Methodists to Jews.  I have been fortunate enough to work for and with many great people, musicians, ministers, rabbis and priests alike, people who are like family to me, people who I could (and have) called up at all hours when I need something.  I have also worked for priests and ministers who, frankly, seem rather clueless and incapable in their leadership abilities.  I have heard everything from well thought out, intellectual theological discussion to total rambling messes of sermons.  And this amount of disparity is from people who have been trained to do this. 

And now, any shmuck off the street can start a church in his basement and “lead” people to believe who knows what.  At least in established denominations, there are checks and balances in place.  Running a church is, on some level, like running a little town.  It takes a lot of work to keep everyone happy.  It really worries me that somebody can just start one up.  Many people are totally lost in life and looking for something to make the world make a little more sense.  They’ll believe whatever someone tells them, even a former social studies teacher with no formal theological training.

Sigh. 

Also, in my job hunt for NON-religious affiliated jobs, I have come across several openings for which the description starts out like this:

Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ?

Um, can you really ask someone that?