music, therapy, and me

I have entered a time when my life is feeling strange. I know, what else is new, but this is very strange for me. I saw the job announcement for my current position on my personal email account this morning. Now, I am happy that I am able to retire from this position, but it is strange to have LinkedIn recommend that I apply for the job that I currently hold. I think my principal may try really hard to get me into the interview process - something that I do NOT want to do - I want to show them the quirks and benefits of the job without having ANY say into who is hired. He showed me a resume yesterday that I glanced at but did not look deeply into. I realized that I really need to neaten up my work area if we are already arranging interviews. I have left jobs before, and I usually try to have a closing time and date. I have also been fired from jobs before, and those situations cling to me for many years. I dwell on choices, especially when they are not my choices. It is never a good th...

Today is Monday, February 9, 2026, and the Online Conference for Music Therapy 2026 is over! This is a really good thing because it means that I have little to do but my own stuff for the rest of the month. There is very little that feels better than having a large project completed, and this is that feeling. I am tired, but that is my usual state these days, so I really can't pin my exhaustion on OCMT - it's just me! My sister has the day off today, but I do not. We both have next Monday off which will be nice. I won't be doing anything special next Monday, but I will not have to go to work, so there's that! I do have to get going and get things happening at work today. I am not sure what we are going to do this week, but I will come up with something. I am having to rethink what I do with my groups because they have become less coherent than they used to be. I used to be able to plan one session for each of my four different types of groups, but I can't do that ri...

It is almost time. In 11 hours and 15 minutes, the 16th Online Conference for Music Therapy will start, and it will be a 24 hour, international experience where we discuss music therapy all over the world. This is a labor of love for me - one that I got into completely by accident but that I continue because I enjoy it so much. I am doing less of the actual conference work than I ever have before. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. I will only be the primary moderator for one session - at the very end. I am the second moderator for four sessions. Gone are the days when I had to be at every session - thank goodness! I work lots behind the scenes of the conference, so having a bit of a break from being on camera is a very good thing for me. It allows me to respond to the countless emails about "I didn't know that the conference started at my time," and "where are the links to the conference" emails that I am bombarded with during the conference itself. The...

I was the recipient of a cough in the face yesterday. This happens when you work with humans, and especially when you work with kids, so it is not unusual, but I felt this one brush the hair on my arms and move up my body into my mouth. I tried to blow the germs away (very effective, I know), but I am not sure that I was able to fend off the germs wafting all around me. I have already had the flu once this season, and I would REALLY like to avoid the experience a second time! Two of my students (in two different sessions) looked sick yesterday. They were flushed and juicy, and I am just waiting for the note from nursing stating that they should not be around others. The thing is, working in a residential facility means that any germs will go through the entire community - clients, staff, teachers, therapists, and back again. It is not a pretty picture. Next year, at this time, I will be elsewhere, dealing with the germ culture someplace at that location - wherever it may be. Germs are ...

I am an old music therapist. I am getting ready to retire from my full-time job as a school-based music therapist in a psychiatric treatment facility and associated day school after almost 30 years there. I have been around a long time. My music therapy heroes are starting to pass away. Barbara Wheeler was one of those music therapy heroes who left this world this week. After a long career in academia, she "retired" and started more music therapy programs and acted as a consultant for programs around the world. She seemed to spend more time with other music therapists than she did at home, and that is the type of music therapy life that I am striving for myself. Another music therapy pioneer passed away. Dr. Roy Grant, a music therapist from Georgia, also left our world on January 24th. His music therapy legacy comes in training students and expanding music therapy services for the people in the vicinity of the University of Georgia. Coming to the profession of music therapy ...

Y'all, I FINALLY got to see my Monday groups, and they were not having it!  I forgot that my Monday groups are usually ones who struggle with being in music therapy - the "I'm too cool for everything" adolescents. You know the ones - they just sit and stare. No active interaction, slouching in their chairs, and not wanting to work or play or do anything that might ruin their reputations. I can usually con them into interaction in one way or another, and yesterday was no exception. By the end of the session, they were playing instruments and making some noise as part of a dragon parade.  That session led into two others back-to-back that were also not really feeling the whole Monday thing. No one was engaging in behaviors of concern, but no one was really engaged in what I was dishing out either. I do not think that today's groups will be any different. I am in a strange place in my life that I have never been before. I am on the cusp of leaving the daily interacti...