Love is the end of isolation. Sometimes, when I have meditative moments of insight, I get messages of clarity, wisdom, poetry like this: Stop trying to be normal. The end of isolation is love.
This week, after the virtual school started for my 4th grader, but before the preschool has started for my almost 3 year old, I crumbled in a day of chaos, fallen under the hammering spell of a low-grade stress headache. In respite, I sat on the porch, trying to find some order in my mind, and how to create a new work/live/school schedule all under one roof. Its Quarantine 2.0!
Time is on my side, and yet it is my greatest challenge!
I am always on the lookout for how creative mothers make their way through the world – I don’t have any other day job; my work is based on writing and music and I have two young children.
There is a real need for artist mothers to share in their creative process in my opinion – for encouragement, creative tips, support, and just sharing how its done in a practical sense. The world doesn’t always make it easy for artist moms to continue on their journey once they’ve had a baby. The path suddenly gets very bumpy. The road bottoms out. You don’t know how to go on. I would read Dr. Seuss’s “Oh the Places You Go” to my daughter and think – Oh, this is real. This is exactly what I’m experiencing.
When I had my daughter 8 years ago, I was really searching for some creative support written by and for someone like me. I didn’t find anything of the sort. Now I know of at least three podcasts: Rachel Zucker’s Commonplace;The Longest Shortest Time by Hilary Frank; and musician Laura Veirs’ Midnight Lightning. I still haven’t found any written material that deeply addresses how new mothers adjust their creative process and how to support it, which is not to say that it doesn’t exist. I just know I’d still like to read a book like that. However, when you are multi-tasking making dinner, a hands-free podcast is just the ticket! (and these three mentioned are great).
I used to have a more elaborate system of writing poetry and prose. I would handwrite in my journal, then transfer to a more refined notebook, then type it up, print it out, and workshop the writing. Since having children, I don’t have time to do practically any of that!
With a baby, I always feel like there’s a ticking timer at nap time. I try to squeeze in moments to write or practice, but I never know how long it will be. How long will my creative freedom last? If I start to record, will I be interrupted with a cry? Certainly, when kiddos are school-aged, time opens up. With more than one child, time must be blocked out with more commitment.
I create lists of how to prioritize. There is the weekly one and the daily list. For example today is – #1 practice music for gig tonight; #2 transcribe a piece for Sunday’s Mothers’ Day duet with pianist Josh Rawlings (that I can use for Harp Escape as well); #3 blast out my album to one agency; #4 write something. If I can do that much – that would be AMAZING! I always aim high. Sometimes only one thing gets accomplished, and if someone has a fever or a field trip, forget about it. I have to be real about the current daily situation of food, laundry, school lunch, diapers, etc. that I have.
When I had my first kiddo, I blended my writing and music together, sort of by accident. Once I stopped gigging late night shows, I began songwriting. The poetry morphed into lyrics instead. I had to become selective about what I said yes to. Would I take a club gig at 10pm? No way, not unless it paid well (ha ha ha). Eventually, people stopped asking me, but that’s ok. Because I changed.
I won’t lie. Sometimes I find myself lamenting over the artists who have more freedom than me. It takes so much time to polish a craft and I never feel like I have enough anymore. I don’t have a creative stuckness; I have a restriction. This is interesting though, because motherhood is also the blessing that allowed me to open up into a new form! When I stopped saying yes to all of the club gigs, I put my energy into songwriting. I started singing in public. I wrote enough songs to record an album. I formed a band (The Daphnes) and now I can be leader and call the shots to what fits my lifestyle. I probably wouldn’t have organized it all this way if it had not been for motherhood “restricting” me. Plus, it always seems like half of my songs are inspired in someway by the process of being mom. So – its a two-sided coin. A yin-yang.
I feel like its now or never these days, pretty much all the time. Its sort of Zen, but its also sort of desperate. I am very of the moment. After the baby boy fell asleep today, I checked my email and immediately blasted out a response which has turned into this blog post. It always feels so good to re-purpose something.
Being a musician mama means that I sometimes practice for 5 minutes with a squirming toddler in my lap, I cram in my own practice time between students, or I have to accept that I might be winging it at the gig a little more.
Its maddening! Its terrifying! Its exciting! Its the gift of a lifetime.
Three years ago I had an unusual encounter at my local coffee shop. I had been in such an awful funk in November 2015. So, one weekday, when I normally worked from home, I resolved to get out of the house and went to my local cafe with my laptop. It was pretty packed with people, so I sat down directly across from someone. She was an older woman reading a new hardback, still wrapped in Elliot Bay Books brown paper. I asked her, “New book?”
As simple as that, we began talking. The book she was reading was by Patti Smith and it opened a small doorway between the two of us. We talked about the book and Patti’s music. This woman had gone to hear Patti read downtown the night before. Music meant so much to this woman. She told me her name was Pam.
Pam had worked for the postal service. She retired early she said, “But for what? I got early retirement and worked hard all my life. Now I don’t know what to do with myself.”
She started off working in Spokane, and was a sort of punk herself. She had dominating male associates, whom she rebelled against in the small ways she could while still keeping her job. There was a lot of misogyny in the 80’s at the postal service she told me. She needed this job because she was on her own. She had wanted to be doing something meaningful and creative in the world but felt trapped and couldn’t find a means to go to school, so she just stayed at the post office because it paid well.
I listened to her, but all the while I was emotionally fragile. I was feeling worried about how I’d pay all of my bills this month. I told Pam what I did for work, that I am a musician and poet, a writer of words and songs. I had made a well-thought out plan over three years that was five-fold. My focuses are: recording;public performances;private events;teaching; and the new addition: healing music.When one source of income didn’t come in, another would. Or so I thought.
https://monicaschley.com
I had recently quit a secure office job in arts administration to pursue my career as a full-time musician. But, at the time, things weren’t manifesting well as a Certified Clinical Musician. I thought I would have had five clients a month by now, but I only had one. It was making a real monetary dig into my small savings and was disheartening. I was starting to get worried. Scared. I also had a young child, and began to think that I had made a dreadful, self-indulgent choice to pursue my art as my career and she would suffer for it.
People have said sometimes its easier talking to a stranger than a friend, and I suddenly found myself speaking candidly to Pam. She was listening closely, in the same way I had listened to her, sitting across from me, with her long hair and thin face. She looked a bit like Patti Smith herself, a grande dame punk.
Because I had my laptop right there, I shared my website with her and some of my writing and recordings. I don’t know how it happened exactly, but suddenly, I found myself weeping. I tried to reign it in, but I had opened the gate. Pam listened so kindly and told me not to give up. That I was on the path to a uniquely rich life and most people didn’t have the bravery to take that kind of leap. She didn’t. She had wanted to, but was too afraid. To my great shock, she reached out her hand and gave me $50!
I couldn’t believe it. I certainly was not expecting anything to come out of our conversion other than that, a simple exchange of words. Instead, I had made a friend and a patron. She wanted to hear more about my shows and my work and asked to be on my mailing list of events that I send out monthly. That simple act of listening would have been enough, but the encouragement she gave me was lovely and fuels my spirits still today. Three years later at Thanksgiving, I still think of this encounter at the cafe with a wonderful stranger.
My daughter was five when this happened. When I would pack up for a gig, she would wave good-bye at the window and say, “Don’t give up!”
I am still not sure why she said that, but I sure needed to hear it. When I shared this story originally on my event mailer, many people wrote back with their own struggles and stories of endurance.
Now, I am in a new place, a better one I think. My work as a therapeutic bedside harpist did pan out, though there have been downs, I notice the ups too and realize that is part of the process. To my surprise, I’ve also become a mom for a second time. The fact that I can continue on with my five-fold plan with another person to nurture is a miracle in itself. My kids are both healthy and they help me to really prioritize my time – the balance of time I spend on my work; the time I spend with them; and how the two can overlap sometimes.
In Patti Smith’s book Just Kids, she describes leaving her home in New Jersey to make a new life as an artist in New York City. When she got to the bus terminal, she realized she didn’t have enough money for fare. She went to a phone booth to call her mother, and when she closed the door, she saw that someone had left her purse in there. Patti took that as a sign. She took just enough money from that purse to pay the rest of her fare and turned in the purse in to lost and found.
I might have given up on my dream had it not been for meeting Pam that day. I don’t know for sure, but I’m glad I kept going. The road isn’t always smooth, but the journey is real and sometimes there is magic.
Nocturne #17, the poem that appeared in the Spring/Summer 2008 issue of Crab Creek Review, is part of a series called Black Eden: Nocturnes. All of the pieces are in prose, and were composed during evening hours, either just before sleep or after waking. They are heavily influenced by the surrealness of dreams, subterranean urban scenes and music. Writing Black Eden was a bit like working in a subconscious mine where I went down and chipped away every night.
Something new happened at the time I was writing this: I didn’t edit. It was as if no filter was the filter, so I there was no judgement on myself. Because of that, the train was able to keep moving. Though I didn’t know what I was doing while I was doing it, the writing felt honest, so I just kept it up with encouragement from a close poet friend. Very importantly, I trusted that there were no accidents in this process, expecting nothing and improvising all along. Stephen Nakmonovich has a great book about these ideas called Free Play: Improvising in Life & Art. After a year had past and I had 70 pieces. Then, I started to edit.
The music part of these poems (nocturne means melancholic evening piece for piano) encouraged me to play while simultaneously reading. Though a musician for most of my life, I’m a shy songwriter, but I used some of the poetry as a springboard for lyrics, which worked better than attempts in the past. Eventually, I called upon a dancer friend and other musicians to turn the piece into a performance.
Black Eden 1
As a shared performance, the poems were given aural space just as much as written space, which is something I feel pretty strongly about. I don’t think every poem has to become a performance piece, but I do believe a good poem has to both sound pleasing and look pleasing. This is not to say good poems are spoken versus written or vice versa – I don’t live in a black and white world. There just needs to be a balance of both expressions, and a writer should be conscious of this in order for the poem to live after she isn’t there to present it.
Donald Hall wrote that “poetry out loud is never quite so beautiful as poetry read in silence”. I don’t agree with this much, but I do think that for a poem to last longer than the poet, it must be read privately. However, I do take his notions to into great consideration (even though in this specific case – because the nocturnes are prose – it was stylistically easier for me to do then say, write a sestina, or even free verse). Hall also wrote that “Keats exists without being spoken. Performance poetry flames out like a match.” Personally, I prefer to have my poetry live somewhere between those two places.
Two Worlds
The narrativity that came out of these Nocturnes are loose and surreal, stemming from a first person perspective in a psychological underworld. In Nocturne #17, the use of woman’s make-up is a way to disguise the real from the unreal. Waking and dreaming are blurred concepts. In truth, the entirety of Black Eden is an exploration of those deep subconscious things we all know but don’t want to, or dismiss in passing moments. It is only when those thoughts ride up to our ears and whisper a little random joke that we might see a connection to something else more conscious and wonder – what!? Where did that come from? I didn’t want to forget all of the randomness in life, because for the most part, I don’t believe its all that random.
Black Eden 2
One last thing that inspired these poems for me was Seattle. I love the city in which I live, even in its worst. And for all of our urban banalities, inconveniences, and stereotypes, I wanted to capture that too. I think that’s something that all artists have the opportunity to do, which is perhaps the greatest challenge: to make sense of the garbage and take beauty from the wreckage – create a new message with your own voice.
That’s how you make diamonds.
Reference:
Hall, Donald. Knock Knock II. American Poetry Review March/April 2005.
Quietly working behind the scenes again, I have been spending time with my new baby boy, Dorian Max, who was born on October 29th. He has been a joy, but naturally, being with a newborn leaves mama utterly sleep deprived. My sleep is the wonkiest it has ever been, usually not getting in more winks than 3 hours at a time. Boo Hoo! Oh poor, poor Monica.
I am pleased to say that after a few months on maternity leave, I am returning to the world of teaching harp lessons, performing and harp therapy gigs at a part-time basis. I’m also booking weddings for 2018. If you get in touch with me, please know: Baby guy is my boss for the time being. I WILL get back to you, but it just may not be right away.
Back in December, at a mere 5 weeks old, he did let me have a show with The Daphnes at Dusty Strings Annual Open House. It was a real treat.
As I am nearing the end of my pregnancy, this poem struck a deep chord within me. The past few weeks, I luxuriously read and write poems every day. In between hearing all the discomforting news, lyrical words of wisdom bring me peace; a source for a sense of decency in humanity; and contemplation for a better world.
The poet wishes for leaders to take their responsibilities to heart and soul, in representing all of us to our highest human potential and our capacity to live harmoniously together. Heaney writes: “At their inauguration, public leaders / must swear to uphold unwritten law and weep / to atone for their presumption to hold office”.
How glorious it would be if we had leaders who didn’t assume they were above all powers of karma, laws of God or natural physics of the Universe!
I watched Young Frankenstein last night, the Mel Brooks spoof of Mary Shelley’s classic thriller. It was nice to laugh! I want to be able to laugh at the severity of what is culminating in the world right now, but it is all too serious to brush off. Which part of what is broken in us should I focus on?
Mary Shelley was married to the great Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley who said, “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.”
Let’s not allow for fear, anguish and anger to block our vibrancy. Its time to shine a light on what is blocking us. Heaney’s poem is a reminder of the great importance for truth and beauty to live vibrantly in the world. Let us continue to let it flow through us.
No matter what my aspirations are, my blog continually only gets monthly posting. So, what have I been doing this past May? A month in the life of a mama musician looks something like this:
Friday – Played for hospice clients in North Seattle. Came home for lunch, did reports and corresponding before getting daughter from school. A lovely day, we took our time walking back home.
Thursday – Kind of a mix-up with childcare, but otherwise a very good day.
Wednesday – Great gig with my band, The Daphnes, at Stone Way Cafe. You can catch us there again on Fri. June 23 at 7pm.
The Daphnes
Tuesday – My motivated high school student came at 8am for her lesson so she can get orchestra credit! Home cleaning and organizing, then teaching more students in the afternoon.
Monday – Memorial Day! Enjoyed a hot holiday off with my family at Folklife Festival and got to hear a few friends playing music.
Sunday – Not one, but TWO last minute gigs! I had gotten a call on Friday to play a wedding that another musician cancelled on. Then, at 7:30 am I got a call from a church choral leader in Ballard to sub on keyboard. I ended up doing both performances and had a fabulous, positively fun day. Also last minute: neighbor friends came over for dessert in the backyard.
Saturday – Very hot day. My kiddo was moving quite slowly and no one wanted to go to Folklife Festival that day with me, so we took a walk to Open Books on 45th where I got to nerd out about poetry with staff. Ice cream! Then, Jeppa, Eli and Lutra came over for a backyard picnic dinner.
Friday – Evening recording session for my album with awesome accordionist, Scott Adams!
Scott Adams (accordion) in the studio
Thursday – I have no idea what I did this day.
Wednesday – Wed. Sing! Nate Omdal and I play two sets of bass/harp duets for a cocktail party/art opening in Issaquah.
Tuesday – Played harp for hospice clients and taught students at home studio.
Monday – Went to Bellevue to play two client patient visits as therapeutic musician (one for Providence Hospice, another for Family Best Care)
Sunday – Flew a butterfly-shaped kite with the family at Gasworks Park. A solo eagle soared with it! Mostly a day off, then recorded violin tracks with Julie in the evening.
Saturday – Violin/Harp duets with Janet for a wedding on the MV Skansonia Ferry after going to the 125th Anniversary Carnival for BF Day Elementary School (Seattle’s oldest school) and teaching a morning lesson at Dusty Strings.
on the Skansonia w/Janet
Friday – Content writing and editing for the new Musicians’ Union website.
Thursday – Played a terrific concert at The Neptune Theater with Evan Flory-Barnes’ large ensemble. I love his projects.
Neptune soundcheck
Wednesday – I slept so poorly the night before and had insomnia. I felt like a zombie most of the day, but did some parent volunteering at my daughter’s school anyway, met with her teacher and did some teaching of my own at home studio.
Tuesday – Teaching. Parenting. Rehearsing at Cornish for the Thursday concert.
Monday – Writers In The Schools (WITS) is a wonderful program through Seattle Public Schools. My daughter has learned how to read and write poetry from talented professionals and tonight was the end of year K-3 poetry reading, which couldn’t have been more adorably heartwarming.
Sunday – Mother’s Day. I got some new stylin’ sunglasses because a particular young person always breaks mine.
Saturday – Gamelan Pacific Concert at The Chapel. A positively uplifting event, listening to Indonesian music and featuring a tribute to composer Lou Harrison.
Friday – I had a funeral to play for one of my past hospice clients, at a Catholic ceremony in Bellevue.
Thursday – Chaperoned for my kindergartener’s field trip to Seward Park. It started raining when we got there and never stopped.
Wednesday – Morning hospice clients and afternoon harp students.
Tuesday – Rehearsal with Janet on violin for wedding in a week, picked up my kiddo from school and came straight home to teach students.
Monday – Office day. I usually start off the week with a chunk of time corresponding from the home office, scheduling, and decompressing from weekend gigs.
Sunday – Harp Recital Day! Hosted my first ever harp recital for students with great success.
Harp Recital (2017)
Saturday – A nice hot spring day. Took daughter to a birthday party. I tried to practice but felt so distracted. A semi-productive day.
Friday – After working on various projects from home, went with the family to a friend’s art opening in Columbia City and I also picked up some money from my last gig at Columbia City Theater.
Thursday – Doctor’s appointment in the morning, and in between parent pick up at school, I taught five students at Dusty Strings.
Autumn means organization, or at least to some people it does! My harp students know that when they come over to my studio, they will invariably see piles of yellow legal pads, music books, sheets of poems, pencils, postcards, to-do lists, headphones, and manila legal files stuffed with more of the same on and surrounding my desk. New studies show, though, that might not be such a bad thing for a creative type like me.
Virtually, things are much cleaner for me. I’ve just compiled a concise bibliography of selected publications and posted them to my website (Recordings & Writing). Its an organized list of selected poems and essays I’ve written, available in one easy to find place – imagine that!
This post was originally published at Pyragraph and is reposted here with kind permission.
Backstage in NYC
A year ago I quit my day job. It was easy to make the announcement and write the first part of my story, because I was excited! However, writing this follow-up has been a lot more challenging.
A little background: The day-job I quit was part-time. It was secure and it complimented my creative career as a musician and poet. So, I was conflicted about leaving. However, I knew that if I stayed any longer, I would never take the chance to see what was behind the other door—the door that led to working on music and writing exclusively, the door that led to me working as a freelancer and calling my own shots. I was miserable with the thought of never knowing what that would feel like.
For various reasons, the clock was ticking. If I was going to jump, it had to be now.
How did I prepare for this? I talked to other full-time musicians and I crafted a business plan. Then, I seriously talked my five-fold business plan over with at least a dozen people, as well as a representative at Seattle Small Business Association. I got green lights. I created an active teaching studio. Also, I became a Certified Clinical Musician (someone who plays particular therapeutic styles of music at the bedside of the sick and dying). The plan was that the day job hours would be taken over by therapeutic work, more or less. Since putting my plan into practice, I still think it’s solid in theory, but several factors beyond my control caused a certain amount of failure.
An important nuance I’ve had to take note of is seasonal fluctuations in work. I have wedding gigs in the summer, but not many students. This past year has shown moments of good fortune—touring with amazing musicians to New York with the successful show, Now I’m Fine—contrasted by disappointments when efforts don’t pay off—I did an intense two-day trade show for state healthcare workers expecting to drum up new clinical music work, but got empty leads, which left me physically and mentally drained.
There have been lots of challenges this first year on my own, but they’ve only pushed me to try something new and get comfortable with making mistakes when they happen.
New things I’ve tried this year and succeeded at:
Recording original tunes in studio and at home (in progress)
Making a music video
Bartered harp lessons for other needed services
Led healing harp tones guided meditation workshop
Fallen short:
Getting 3-5 therapeutic music accounts (I’ve succeeded so far at only gaining two)
Rejected grants
Future goals:
Skype harp lessons
Self-publishing a multi-instrument album
Leading more group workshops
More therapeutic music accounts
In one year’s time, I’d say I’m not as rosey-eyed, that is, I may not have taken into account how the highs and lows are much more extreme, which can be more exciting and more scary. Yet still, I’m optimistic by nature, so I always have that working to my advantage. I am very comfortable with turning down offers that are not respectable or reciprocal. I also happen to live in a wealthy city, where there are many resources for artists and people who will pay for artistic services.
My choice to work freelance has really been about my need to fulfill a dream. In his poem, “Harlem,” Langston Hughes asks:
What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore— And then run?
I knew my dreams would lose their strength, or worse yet, cease to exist, if I didn’t answer to their calling. That is what this career choice has been about, because working in the arts is more than just “making a living,” it’s a lifestyle. I like seeing where the mystery unfolds, even if it’s a little terrifying. It’s my path and I own it.
Here’s a new ditty for the day: Fire & Ice. This solo harp excerpt is from a longer vocal and multi-instrumental track I’m working on. Today, I have only a few hours to record and I wanted to hear some instant results!
