music, therapy, and me

I spent some time this week actually reading something for my professional enrichment and to move me forward on one of my quests for this year. I have been taking some random, colorful, and sentence notes all over my bullet journal to keep me going and to remember important things about this book. I know that I said that I wasn't going to take notes, but there was so much information in this book that I just couldn't help it. I am reading Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi. As I understand it, Ibram X. Kendi wrote the meat of the book and Jason Reynolds made is read more like a novel than a textbook. At least, that was the implication of the introduction by Ibram X. Kendi. I am about halfway through the book now.  One of my quests for this year has been to seek understanding of some of the movements that are happening in our world these days, one of those being the Black Lives Matter movement. This is my first step onto this quest. I am a...

I currently live in the middle of a jungle. My backyard is growing very tall weeds at the moment, mainly because I am not at all inclined to mow or anything, but also because I was in severe pain most of this spring and just didn't have the brain capacity to think about finding someone to mow my yard during the summer months. When I finally came out of the haze of nerve and pain medications, the weeds were tall and taking over everything. Last weekend, I was ready to tackle the jungle out there, but I couldn't open my sliding glass door. I have to have electricity to run my weed whacker, and there is no outlet in my backyard. So, I have to be able to have the sliding glass door open so I can run the extension cords out to the weed whacker in my backyard. The guy came yesterday and tried to fix my door. He was not able to do it either, so I feel better about my home maintenance skills. At least he unlocked the door, so I am now able to get in and out. I am just waiting another 9...

The most consistent system that I use in my music therapy life is that of color-coding. I color code file folders, storage bags, and everything I can possibly coordinate through color. Now, I know that not everyone can see and perceive colors. So, if you are someone who cannot, please know that there is an alternative to colors. That is patterns. If you cannot see the difference between yellow and blue, then use stripes versus plaid designs in black and white. There is no issue about finding the things that work for you - no one EVER has to do what I do in my systems - the point is to find the things that help you work smarter. For me, that's color and colored patterns (sometimes). Do you want a deeper dive? Here's why I use colors as my base system. Over the many years that I have been a music therapist, I have spent countless hours, words, and ideas about how I want to do things as a music therapist. I take bits and pieces of what I see and what I like about things, and I mak...

In my college town a couple of days ago, three women decided to take an unsecured scooter from the front of one of the Walmarts. They went in the store, noticed the scooter sitting there, went shopping, came out 30 minutes later, saw the scooter still there, and apparently thought, "Abandoned. Mine," and then scooted off, taking the scooter with them. Well, as you can imagine, this was not an abandoned scooter but was the property of a seven year old kid who was in the store with his mother. The police had camera footage of the three women, and the department posted their pictures all over social media. The little boy got a new scooter and helmet from some donations from concerned community members, and then the women returned the scooter and "apologized." The apology, which the police department also posted on social media at the women's request, included statements such as "If we had known it had belonged to someone, we wouldn't have taken it," ...

"My creativity is back." This was a comment that I heard yesterday which just warmed my heart immensely. Creativity is such a part of being a music therapist that it is so heartening when it flourishes in our brains and our professional practices. The lack of creativity might lead to feelings of inadequacy, or stagnation, or failure. It is amazing how much a spark can help. I live through ups and downs in my own creative mood and abilities. They are not uncommon for me any more - the dips and waves of creativity are things that I have learned to expect, respect, and work through. When I heard that comment yesterday, I felt less alone in my own process of being a music therapist. It's amazing how much validation we can find when we hear that others experience the same sort of things that we go through. One of the things that I like the best about being a music therapist is the creativity that goes along with presenting music to other people. I take it a couple of steps bey...

I use the AMTA Professional Competencies as the foundation and format for my National Roster internship. This shouldn't be a surprise if you are a habitual reader of this blog, but if you are new, then click the link to see what I am talking about.  The American Music Therapy Association Professional Competencies are the foundational document for education and clinical training experiences in the United States. This document is intended to outline the skills that music therapy students need to master in order to do this job at an entry level. It does an okay job of this, but there are still things that need to be done in order to make the professional education of music therapy students truly competency-based. I am the music therapy product of an educational system that did not have the competencies as a foundation. I eagerly embraced the competencies when they were adopted in 2000 as both a graduate student and as a music therapy supervisor. I have delved into the world of compe...

A while back, I decided that it was time to start reading for music therapy enrichment again. Now, I have done this particular thing many times over my career - with varying levels of success, but I feel that this is one way that I can continue to grow as a music therapist even while conferences are being canceled and things are a bit uncertain in the American music therapy world. There are always books - that is one of my personal mantras as well - there are always books. I tend to fall back into books when I need to do so. Right now, family matters are taking over most of my emotional bandwidth, so reading is something that I can do while still engaging in fretful worrying and hypothetical planning. I have decided that I do not have to take notes when I am reading. Before, I insisted on taking notes because "that's what you do when you are reading for research." Then, I realized that I am no longer required to do research. I can just read. So, notes are no longer requir...

I am a relatively new home owner, and it is challenging to me. It has almost been seven months since I moved into this place, and I am still living in an unorganized, box-filled mess. I have had to replace the dishwasher and now cannot even open the back sliding glass door in order to get myself out to the overgrown back yard. I feel like I am floundering and failing in this part of life. I took a gulp and booked some help with the sliding glass door yesterday. I have a person coming to look at the situation and to fix things next Friday. That gives me a week to get this room ready so the guy can access the door without trying to climb over my desk. It also encourages me to move my computer desk to a new place to see if I like the other position better. This part of the project requires that I do some other work first, so I have been working on the guest bedroom/music therapy bedroom so I can put some of the stuff out here in there. I have a week to clear out and clean up. Yesterday, i...

First of all, I want to start this blog off by saying that everyone in my life (as far as I know) is alive. I wanted to put that out there at the start of this blog because there are some pretty significant things happening in my family that are going to be stressful but this is not a blog post about dying. Here's the deal. Last night, my sister called me with some news about our brother. The details of all of this are not really important. What I am trying to get myself to focus on right now is the fact that up until that phone call, everything was settled in my life. It was the last day of my work week, I was talking to my Mom who was pretty chirpy on the phone, and I had spoken to my sister who was the same way. We were all in a pretty good space. Then, things changed. After I spoke briefly to my sister, I waited a bit to call my Mom. My sister felt that she needed to talk to Mom about what she had heard, so I started to dither out here. I was crying, I was raging, and I was no ...

I am sitting here, at 4:30 am, after my shower, starting to ruminate on what is going on in my life right now. I am struggling with feelings of being overwhelmed, exhausted, anxious about things, and having to catch my breath all the time. I realized that this pattern is one that I have been through before, so I am going to write about it yet again... I woke up this morning at 2:38. Since I was wide awake, I headed to the bathroom and as I was walking to the bathroom, I heard running water. At first, I thought it might be rain, so I moved to the bathroom, did what I had to do, and heard no rain sounds. That was odd, so I veered from my path back to my bed and followed the sound. I found my kitchen faucet going full blast! The scrubber holder that I had hung on the porous tile of my backsplash had fallen down, hitting the toggle knob and starting the water. Fortunately, the drain and sink were clear, so the water was just draining, but I have no idea how long this had been the case. I w...

One of my favorite shows is The Big Bang Theory , and one of my favorite episodes is one where Sheldon makes a statement about no longer wanting to say "I told you so" because that is pretty cliched at this point. He decided to change his smug statement to "I informed you thusly." I happen to like this and have taken it as my own statement of smugness. Yesterday, I went through some of my old blog posts to see how long I have been predicting that AMTA would be going through some audacious changes. It's been a pattern for over three and a half years now. Insert smug statement here. Going back to work is causing me to struggle mightily this week. I am currently sitting at my desk at 5:21 am, struggling to keep my eyes open after increased pain in my back yesterday and complete exhaustion. I cancelled my intern webinar last evening because I just couldn't keep my eyes open. I did not get to sleep as early as I was hoping, but I was able to relax a bit. I am hav...

It is Tuesday, the day I usually spend talking a bit about what I do when I am designing the things that I do with my clients - what I call Therapeutic Music Experiences (TMEs). Today, though, I feel the need to write about something else. Last evening, I attended a Zoom meeting for internship directors and academic faculty members. I am not sure who was on the invitation list, but I think there were a bit more academic faculty than IDs - not many, but skewed towards faculty a bit. This meeting was called by the Council Coordinator for Education and Clinical Training, and we gathered to hear about what is going on with AMTA and were supposed to be able to ask questions about both education and clinical training. That part of the meeting took about four minutes. We were reassured that these systems are going to continue as they are at this time at this moment. Okay. That was not extremely reassuring, but at least we got some information about who to contact if there were any issues in t...

It is time to go back to work. My sixteen days of rest and relaxation are now finished, and it is time to head back to the daily routine. I can't say that I am ready to go back to work - this has been a hard haul lately, but I am resigned to the fact that it is time, so off I go into the world of being a music therapy supervisor. My current interns have reached the point where they are doing all of the groups now. I really have very little therapy to do, especially at the beginning of the week. As a result, my role is limited to oversight and mentoring rather than active therapy. This is a difficult time for me because I am limited to what I can do in order to give my interns the time that they need to learn how to do this job. I will be spending the next month sitting in my office, taking notes and giving feedback to my junior intern and challenging my senior intern to think more for herself the way I do with all of my interns at this point of their internships. It will be a long ...

Today is my last day of my first summer break. It was the longest break that we have had this school year - 16 days - and it is the longest break we will get in the next school year as well - all the others are 9 or 11 days long. I saw a social media post that reminds people that teachers do not get summers "off" but that teachers are unemployed when they are not at school. I get paid for 213 days per school year. The other days that I get "off" are unpaid days. I do not get paid for the extra time that I spend at work because that's not what the deal is for school employees. I am not paid hourly - if I was, I would qualify for 5+hours of overtime every single week at the least. That's not the point of this post, though. Over the past 15 days, I have spent lots of time in anxiety - about the state of my house, the weeds in my yard, the weather. I have also spent lots of time resting. I have spent some time working on putting things out of boxes and into more...

Members of the American Music Therapy Association were sent an important email on Thursday entitled "AMTA Overall Update." A link to the full article is here if you did not see it or are not a member of AMTA. Basically, the email states that our professional organization has finally realized that there need to be some changes in how we interact with one another and to what we need to expect from AMTA. Please note that this is a blog - not a definitive source of anything at all. In the next paragraphs, I will be sharing my opinions and observations about things through my own lens of experience as a music therapist and as a professional member of AMTA for almost three decades. My opinions are my own and are very specifically just that - OPINIONS! You are free to disagree with my views here or on other social media platforms. I always welcome debate, especially when you do not see things the same way I do. In my mind, I think this conclusion has been inevitable since about 201...