Persephone Updates

I've been dabbling in a bit of fiction writing lately - only when the mood strikes and as a way to try to make sense of the types of things that are happening around us all. My protagonist is Persephone. She is a music therapy student in the year 2049 and things look a bit different form the way things look now. (If you are interested in reading all of my meanderings, search for Persephone in the search function on this blog - it will bring up my little bits of fancy.)

I have started to work on this project a bit more formally - I've outlined it and identified places where I need more information - and I am finding that this project is helping me to figure out things that I want for our profession. Also, it is a way of controlling bits of systems and ideas that I have no control over in real life. In my universe, music therapy students go for master's level study before entering the work force. All prerequisites are done in undergraduate training. I get to name all the courses, and the syllabi are all my own! It's fun designing a music therapy world that has some basis in my own experiences but can also reflect my biases and attitudes.

Now, I am not the best fiction writer, but I enjoy telling stories. This project is meant to be nothing other than just a way to think about the legacy of music therapy and how we, as professionals in this pivotal year, can shape what happens in the future for the next generations of music therapists. This is a serious thing to contemplate, so fiction helps me figure out my hopes and dreams for our mutual future.

Also, thinking about the year 2049 just makes me pause a bit. I will be way out of my current job - no way I can be doing this job at that age. I hope I will still be alive, terrorizing music therapy students as they use me to learn about music therapy. I will be the old lady in the corner demanding that they sing "Like a Virgin" by Madonna (not my favorite song, but definitely one that folks my age will remember! - hee!!) and then offering competency-based comments on their skills and what to focus on next! My sister will probably be sitting next to me, trying to get me to just sit quietly, but that won't happen. Probably one of us will threaten to tell Mom and the other will interrupt the poor students to yell, "Mom died in 20..., you old fool!" It will end up with us being sent to our separate rooms to get out of the hair of the students, our fellow residents, and the poor beleaguered staff members who knew that the two of us in that group was not a good idea but who couldn't quite stop us!

Maybe I should write in the both of us as characters in this story...that would be fun!