music, therapy, and me

It is the last day of 2022, and I am ready to finish this year. I was talking to my mother last night about our traditional New Year's Eve traditions. We fall into bed and trust that the calendar year will change without us. We, occasionally, stay up until the new year has reached our continent, but we don't do that very often. A wild New Year's Eve at my house includes some ginger ale and watching movies until 9pm! 2022 brought lots of physical changes to my body and lots of new challenges for me. I now have slipped discs, sciatica, mild sleep apnea, lots of new medications, and physical therapy exercises - I really should be doing those more often... I found some renewed creativity and interest in things that I had eschewed. I have shifted some things around in my priority list. I have contemplated my future - lots and lots - and I have decided what no longer works for me, and I am releasing those things into the universe. There you go. My word for this year was "dee...

There are two sides to every argument. Know that from the beginning of this post. Also know that I am not involved in any part of this particular discourse because I am neither a brand new music therapist nor a music therapy employer. Some of what I write sounds somewhat curmudgeonly because I am an old music therapist. I have three months before I reach my 30 year anniversary of my move from intern to professional music therapist. I have been an employee of several facilities, and I did spend some time as a music therapy contractor back in the mid-90's. Some things have changed dramatically while other things have remained exactly the same. I can take a simultaneously futuristic glance and a historical view on several things that happen in this profession. (Can you tell that I am embracing my role as music therapy crone now? Might as well.) I started my music therapy professional life in 1993. By the middle of 1994, I had my first full-time job as a music therapist for the state o...

This was another rough year. It was a year of physical pain, grieving, loss of familial connections, gain of different familial connections, medication regimes, lots of feelings, and lots of questions.  Three family friends lost their husbands in unforeseen situations which plunged me into secondary and primary grief. My work didn't change much, but since I was having so many musculoskeletal issues, I was on medical leave for much of three months, so I did not earn as much as I was supposed to during the 21-22 school year. I had to cancel a trip to see Mom and Kelly in July because I had COVID in June - thankfully, it was a light case, but it did interrupt my travel plans. I cancelled another trip to CA just three days ago when my flight disappeared from Delta's travel routes. I have been refunded my money and given a credit as well for that disappointment.  Other things have happened that have been a bit more pleasant is acceptance to two conferences to talk about music thera...

My sleep schedule is so messed up at the moment that I am spending inordinate amounts of time awake when I am usually sleeping. I tend to wake up and just be awake. It is rare that I go back to sleep once I am awake, and last night, I woke up twice to use the bathroom. This is also pretty unusual. I was able to go back to sleep the first time (it was only about 11ish), but when I got up the second time this morning, I was up. So, I wasted some time on TikTok, and now I'm up and thinking. One of my social media forays this morning was a post about trying to hire brand new music therapists and there being a significant disconnect between what new music therapists with zero professional experience want to be paid and what the market allows. This is a significant issue in the world of music therapy. Sure, I would LOVE to be paid $100K to be a music therapist, but that is not the reality of life at this time. Let me preface this with some background information here. I am a music therap...

During holidays, my sense of time gets scrambled, and I live in a state of time fugue which is simultaneously refreshing and terrifying. This happens no matter where I am and no matter when I am doing holiday time. So, this blog series is helpful because it grounds me in a routine. Today, apparently, is Tuesday, so that means that it is time to write about therapeutic music experiences. During the Advent season this year, our theme was "I'll Be Home for Christmas." We sang or listened to the song every week for the past four weeks. That song is always a bit bittersweet for me since I live away from my family and always feel that song a bit more than I am comfortable sharing with others. I had to sing it, and it was a bit rough to get through. Now that I have not been home, I feel like this song's meaning resonates more and more. So, let's talk about taking this song and making it something to use with clients. We have looked a bit at how I take an object or materi...

Well... My plans for this week have completely changed, so I am at home, in my own space, rather than being across the country, enjoying their monsoon weather and basking in time spent with loved ones (hello, loved one #2 - you know who you are!!).  Since I am here rather than there, I have to go get some groceries this morning. I have plenty of food here at home, but I need some things to fill out what I have and to have more options for what I will be eating this week. I do not plan on doing anything other than going for grocery pick up, so once that is finished, I will come back here to do some aimless wandering around my home, trying to figure out what I am going to do with myself for the next five days. One of the things that I am going to do is to book my trip home for Spring Break! I will go home in 2023 since 2022 did not work out for me at all. Ugh. I have been wallowing a bit in self pity and "poor me" attitudes, so I am trying to shake myself out of it all. I don...

Well, I should be dashing through an airport right now, but I'm not. I got caught up in the winter storm cancellation brou-ha-ha, and I am sitting here, in my home, and trying to figure out if I will actually get a chance to get to California this calendar year. My July trip had to be cancelled due to covid - I got it for the first time a week before the trip was scheduled. It was disappointing then, and it is doubly so now. I am thankful, though, and am grasping that sense of gratitude to navigate all the feelings that are present right now. I am thankful that I was able to get home before my medications took over. I am thankful that I am not sitting in the middle of the Atlanta airport, wondering. I have a working furnace (hooray!), and two working toilets, so things are looking pretty good here...except that I don't have anything prepared to eat. Time to thaw some stuff so I can feed myself. Now, don't get me wrong. I am feeling sorry for myself and am not happy about no...

Today is a "hurry up and wait" type of day. I have lots to do, strange times to do some things, and too much time before adventures start. I am facing some medication disruptions and schedule changes in the next 24 hours, but I will persevere.  It always amazes me how much has to get done before the next thing happens. Today's list is to monitor a thawing toilet which froze over, watch the furnace as it has been a bit wonky - I slammed a couple of panels and things started working again - and run the dishwasher. I am packed with most of what I need to take with me, but I have to put in the last minute things because I think I am going to spend seven hours in the airport rather than try to sleep for a couple of hours at home. It is better to get to the airport and then doze while waiting for the gate to open than try to fight my medication and drive when my eyes can't focus well. I am hoping that the airline will offer to check my bag at the gate all the way to my fina...

I am working on a handbook. It is geared for music therapy students and interns and is going to be focused on internships. I have been working on this project, off and on, for about 8 years now, but this is going to be the year it finally comes together, so here it goes. Today, I am going to talk about my tricks to organize my time and my stuff. As with most of what I write, these are things that work for me and may not work for anyone else in this music therapy world, but just in case they do work for you... Here goes. I use a logic-based organization system for my music therapy clinical area. How does this work? I group my instruments based on how I usually use them. For example, my rhythm sticks, jingle bells, and shaker eggs go into the same container because I like using that combination together and because my clients like choices. I separate things out when I have therapeutic music experiences (TMEs) that go with only one of the instruments, but I tend to use them together most ...

Today was supposed to be an inservice day at work, but Mother Nature has cooperated with me and what I want to happen, so I am at home, watching the snow fall and thinking about various and sundry things. It is time for some introspection - after all, it is almost the end of the year, and yesterday was the winter solstice where I am in the world. I will do more of this as we get closer to the start of 2023, but it feels like a good thing to think about this morning. My 2022 included lots of pain medication, doctor's appointments, and physical therapy. I have learned more about my body - did you know that some people have an additional lumbar vertebra? Did you know that becomes important if you need to have shots in your spine? I know these things now. I spent about three months in the worse pain of my life, but I feel better on my medication and with my exercises (which I do not do the way I should...).  Last night, I did not go to sleep as early as I usually do. I got up from a re...

Ah. The last work Wednesday of the calendar year is upon me, and I am MORE than ready! I have four groups and then the Holiday Sing to get through before a faculty meeting where I anticipate that my boss will tell us all that we will NOT come in tomorrow for our training day due to the coming winter storm and we WILL come in on the day that we originally thought we were going to get off - January 3rd. That's what I anticipate. I was supposed to go to a potluck for the outgoing pastor this evening, but that has been postponed to an unknown date. The brownies that I baked for today's work cookie exchange and for the potluck are now up for grabs. I'll spend time in the next three days eating brownies and whatever cookies others bring to this cookie exchange thing today. Yesterday was a typical crappy pre-holiday school day. I got bit by a client who obviously knew better and had the audacity to then scrape my flesh from the teeth that had connected with me. I now have a gnarly...

Do you ever hear a song and think, "that would make a GREAT experience with ____. How can I use it in a session?" I had that experience yesterday with a client who loves all things Pokemon, Mario Brothers, and other things - this particular client always surprises me with session topics and I never know what is coming. Anyway, we started talking about chain chomps because that was what we needed to talk about. I know nothing about the Mario Brothers or Pokemon or any of that stuff - I've decided not to devote too many brain cells to these things since they have very little to do with my daily life. I am always willing to learn, though, so I learned about chain chomps yesterday at the end of the day. I found the musical theme from the game, and then my TME thoughts started churning. At this point, my TME idea includes some motor planning, some directed listening, and some attempts to sneak past a chain chomp. I might make an actual chain to rattle as part of our game - jus...

I started my internship in 1998 and was approved before the National Association for Music Therapy merged into the American Music Therapy Association with the American Association for Music Therapy. My first intern started WAY earlier than I thought I was ready to go. She arrived, full of enthusiasm and three months earlier than I was planning, and off I went into a world of learning how to be a supervisor with an intern learning how to be an intern.  I am now looking at my 35th intern - we are in the downhill slide with #35 - and I feel like I have a handle on some of the things that once mystified me, but there is still always more to learn. Each intern brings with them a set of different experiences and areas of focus and challenges and gifts to the music therapy profession. One of the things that has stuck with me from the limited amount of reading that I have done in my selected texts is that the authors (from the American Psychiatric Association) felt that the supervisors ava...

Why do I even try? I am obviously not into reading for my professional development, so why bother with this charade week after week? I don't know. Perhaps my time would be better spent on other endeavors this upcoming year. I do want the knowledge and information included in the books and articles that I can access, but I am not all that motivated to do the reading. I don't get much feedback here on this blog, so I am not sure if others care what I do or not. Then again, I don't write my blog for others - it's primary purpose is for me, so maybe I should [goblin] keep going with the idea of reading for professional development... The problem is that it does me no good to have this as a quest if I am uninterested...and I am mostly uninterested. What would make me more interested? Probably only having to do it for a grade. I read during college, but I am not all that interested in reading all by myself. So, does anyone want to do some reading and talking with me?   Time t...

A couple of months ago, dissatisfied with the birthday celebrations at work for a group that doesn't bother to celebrate my own birthday but that assigned me seven birthdays to celebrate without assistance two months apart, I rearranged how we celebrated. So, I now am in charge of personalized birthday things. We are no longer doing large group celebrations where only two people pay for treats the entire group. (Most of my protestation was that I was assigned April and July with partners who were not present to help me buy and make things - AND that was after the May celebration was scheduled at a time when I was not able to be there - no mention of my birthday or anyone celebrating me, so cue the disgruntlement.) I am having fun with this. There is one other person who "helps" me out. She hasn't done anything yet. I have a couple of rules. If the person has contributed the $3 that we asked for, then they get treats and some homemade paper craft things. If they haven...

I am someone who yearns to be organized but who saves my successful organization systems for things other than my house. My clinic area is organized, arranged, and completely functional for what I use it for. My house is not, and my house is always a place where I want to be better (but rarely am better). My best organization system is my electronic systems. While I prefer paper and pen for my planning and brainstorming processes, I am all about digital organization structures. In my life, I use Google Forms, Access, and Excel the most. Of the three, the most enigmatic for me is Access, but it works for what I need it to do. Access is what I use for my clinical documentation. Each client has a file and the system allows me to make forms that keep records of all points of contact with every client for the duration of their stay with us. I can also move these files around as classroom assignments change and as clients leave and then return to our program. I do not know much, but I know e...

I am sitting here, at the computer, an hour later than usual, just not able to think about anything. I think this is my medication still in control, so I am taking a later start time this morning and trying to jump start my thinking process. This is not a pretty picture. My fingers are going all over the keyboard and even typing is difficult at the moment. Today will be yet another interrupted day for us. We have the annual holiday dinner which is a fundraiser for one event that our students participate in later in the school year. I am on food duty this time, so I will have to find a chair to sit in because standing for long periods of time is not something I can physically do at the moment. So, we will be doing holiday dinner things in between music therapy groups today. This day is more about the staff members being busy than the students - most of the students will not be involved in this at all - but, the dinner will interrupt our regular schedule. After today, the only holiday ho...

I am taking a day off today. It is somewhat related to things that are happening around my house, but it is mostly related to some of my feelings about things like holiday parties and having to be recognized for years of service. The problem for me is that this year is a year when I should be recognized for my years of service. Now, I should have been recognized last year, but they didn't bother to recognize several of us. So, this year is supposed to be the year that I have to stand in front of everyone, listen to some administrator who has no clue who I am or even what I do make up something to say in front of a bunch of strangers who do not schedule things to accommodate my work schedule. I always end up in a nasty mood after these things, and I hate them to my very core.  I have been trying to talk myself into going all week, but this morning the stress of this situation came crashing down on me, so I am using one of my non-contract days to take a day for me. I am going to cele...