Traveling Takes a Toll

Good morning, all, from a quiet-ish hotel room where I spent the night away from my mother and her best friend. We flew to the East coast on Sunday, drove to her friend's house yesterday, and will be going to the lake house to visit one of her stepkids today. Tomorrow will be some shopping and then we will go to a church service at her community facility. After we finish the trip, we will head out to visit my aunt and uncle before heading back to the West coast. I will stay for another week and then start the journey back to my home to figure out what I am going to do about money. In the midst of all of these plans, I have been offered a job interview for a position out west, so there are lots of things happening out here...

Right now, I need to take a shower, go down and eat breakfast, and then prepare myself for yet another trip performance. It is interesting how much energy it takes to travel, but I do enjoy it. Seeing "Aunt Mary" has been good for Mom and for me. She has always been my mother's best friend, and now we get to be around her a bit more. She is a vibrant and active 82 year old who lives in a community which offers all sorts of services for older adults. She currently has a cottage, but her husband was offered acute care and hospice care within the same facility when he needed it earlier this year before he passed away.

We took a tour of the facility, and it was wonderful. There are two music therapists working in administrative positions there, and I recognized one of the names for some reason. It is always interesting to find other music therapists out in the wild. They are participating in some music and memory volunteer projects, and Aunt Mary is part of those projects. They also offer music therapy contracted groups in the memory care portion of the facility with another local music therapy practice.

I am fascinated by the fact that Aunt Mary actually knows two music therapists besides me. As many of you music therapist readers out there know, sightings of others in the wild can be pretty scarce, but not here! I love that fact, and I hope that I will run into them at some point.

In the meantime, back on the West coast, I am starting to set up some appointments with other music therapists. It is exciting to be able to meet folks in person to talk about the role that music therapy has in the area where I want to land - eventually. The job interview that is going to happen is strange because I am not exactly sure that I want to work for someone else, but why not see what is being offered out there??

For now, though, I am going to head to breakfast and get ready to talk to my sister before heading back to Aunt Mary's cottage to see what she and Mom are up to.

I'll let you know if I have any music therapist sightings...