Fun Friday - My Collections
Anyway...
Today's topic is my collection of collections - some things that give me great joy and that I have incorporated into music therapy at times and that I continue to try to justify (even though justification is not necessary when something gives you joy!).
I am a collector of things. It is part of my packrat tendencies and my generational urge to keep things that most people consider to be trash. I have lots of things that fit into different collections. I have my Disney Pop! collection, my mini brands Disney collections, my toy collections, my Star Wars paraphernalia, my instrument collections, my library, my visual aids for therapy experiences, and the list goes on and on and on. I enjoy getting things, but I also want to use those things as much as possible, so I try to figure out ways to (again) justify the space and the cost of my collections and collectibles.
As I am sitting at my desk right now, I can see all sorts of things that fit within my collections. I have all of my Wish collectibles in front of me. There are Incredibles collectibles and miscellaneous other Disney characters. I have two different R2-D2 models within eye shot. There is my cat calendar and my penguin egg timer. I have Star Wars labels and keychains that I have collected over my many years of life. These things make me feel happy. Next to my R2-D2 keychain is the pair of wooden shoes that my grandmother bought in Holland when she went around the world after she retired. There is little rhyme and reason to why things are where things are, but I like it. I think that having these things around me are part of my creativity and help me feel comfortable in my space.
Let's focus, though, on the collections of things that I use in my music therapy work.
I have theme boxes for every month of the year. In those boxes, I keep date specific materials and TME ideas so they are contained. For example, March has lots of St. Patrick's Day TMEs and visual aids as well as some clover games. I put month specific books in there as well, so the March box has There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Clover book in it as well as some Easter things (since Easter happens in March as well as in April - I have some duplicates in the April box, but those things tend to migrate between March and April).
These monthly collections are functional for my music therapy space. When I am focusing on specific music education concepts, they go into the boxes, but those things are not required to be in the March box - it is just how I have arranged things. So, there are some woodwind visuals in the March box. There are lists of musicians born in March and other things that happen in my clinic during the month.
I also have collections of TMEs, TME visuals, and other materials that are not easily arranged into monthly themes. Those become self-contained collections. For example, I use my notation neighborhood visuals over several months. Rather than having multiple copies of this neighborhood, I have that visual aid collection in its own envelope so I can use it over multiple sessions in many different months. To help me remember that the notation neighborhood is something that I plan on using for specific months, I put a note on an index card with that prompt. So, the April box has an index card that states - Notation Neighborhood - A, G, and B. That indicates that we are talking about the notes a, g, and b. March does not have that sort of note because it is a short month in the school world. We do not talk about notation during this month since we have Spring Break that takes away an entire week. I get the visual prompt to get the neighborhood visuals out for the month and then return them to their storage place when the sessions are over.
What types of things have you collected over the years? What do you collect for your job versus just for joy?
I have stuffed animals. I have strange shakers from all over the world. I have unique instruments that are not usually part of someone's music therapy instrument closet. I have books that are singable and books about people making music and books that have nothing to do with anything at all but that I just enjoy. When you go into my music room here at home, you can see drums and handheld percussion and broken guitars. The visual aids are in the cabinets along with my internship paperwork and tax records. The sheet music books are in the library where they have taken over an entire bookshelf.
To keep myself from being completely overwhelmed by my music therapy stuff and my other collections, I spend time thinking about how I can use these materials and items and visuals. In the case of music therapy things, I have to come up with six separate TME ideas for every item that I keep in my storage areas. I call this my Six Things Rule, and it helps me justify what I keep. When I receive things as gifts, I keep them but still figure out the Six Things that I can do with those things.
There you go. I am finished with this blog post about an hour before I have to leave. My body is preparing itself for Springing Forward this weekend. I have been going to sleep around 8pm and waking up at almost 3am. That will make next week's time shock a little bit easier, I think. We will see next week.
Time to move the laundry to the dryer, get my shower done, perhaps get a little breakfast, and then head to work for my preparation day. We will be talking about woodwind instruments next week, so I want to figure out exactly what I want my clients to do during that session - we cannot share woodwind instruments easily, so I want to demonstrate but not share the instrument. So, I will be going through my March box, I will be thinking about woodwind instruments, and I will be developing TMEs to go along with this music education concept while still remembering that I am a music therapist - so lots of options and suggestions for this strategy...
See you soon!
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