Stormy Weather

I woke up very early this morning. This is not unusual for a Monday morning, and I think there is a bit of time anxiety at work on these early mornings, but I still don't like it. Thunder is rumbling in the distance, and it looks like it might rain most of the day. The stormy weather might just be the reason behind my angst and wakefulness. 

Ooh, that was a close lightning strike - loud thunder almost immediately after the flash. 

I still have an hour before I need to leave for work, but I have a long list of things that I need to accomplish in that hour. Blogging is one of those things, but it is not the only thing that I have on my morning list. Once I am finished with the things that I have to finish up before I leave for work, I have to navigate 50 miles to my place of business in the storm.

Once I get to work, it will be time to set up my April musician list for our sessions this week. It is time for leisure/choice time as well as for learning a bit about musicians who were born in the month of April.

I think it is hailing again. We had a round yesterday and now this one. The hail seems to be a bit bigger this round, but who knows? I am nervous because I have a broken sliding glass door pane so my office space has less protection than usual. There is quite a bit of hail hitting my sliding glass door at the moment, and it is significantly larger than it was yesterday. I just want to get back into bed and cover my head up. That can't happen this morning.

Stormy weather means that my clients are often emotional. Sometimes it is because they have not been able to follow their usual schedule due to having to take shelter. Sometimes it is because the storm is happening - lots of my students have weather-related trauma responses. Sometimes it is barometric changes that affect us all. I know that I had a headache yesterday right before it started to rain and hail here in the afternoon. My strategies for days like this are to offer low-demand, high-reward therapeutic music experiences (TMEs) in sessions. Musicians of the Month sessions are usually perfect for this type of session, but I also need something in mind just in case we have to deal with power outages or weather warnings that interrupt my strategy.

Fortunately, I have lots of TMEs stuffed in my brain, so I will be able to access that part of my recall to fill up sessions if my stuff just does not work the way it usually does.

The hail has finished. We now have some heavy rain and lots of lightning. Time to get started on my morning to-do list before heading to work. As I go through the list, I will be thinking about what I will be doing "just in case." Always thinking, always figuring things out. There you go - the life of a music therapist in a school setting.

That's all, folks.

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