Making room

I came home from church last night to hear a very strange sound from the basement. It was of such low frequency, coming up through the floor, that I almost felt it rather than heard it.

I knew Earl and the kids were downstairs, so I didn't really pay it much mind, and walked around on the main floor for a good five minutes before I realized that it was Earl playing his bass.

Earl hasn't played for years. He did some gigging in the early years of our marriage, but was far more interested in the orchestra business than in being a performer. And then, he left his job at New England Conservatory (he had been the ensembles manager for the prep division), joined Prudential, and has been enjoying his career ever since. He's rarely picked up the bass in that time.

Sadly, the bass has been in the basement for at least 5 years, ever since it was moved out of the "extra" bedroom that became Brian's and Timmy's room. It is in need of repair, although the sound is still decent -- no rattling or anything. I suggested that he take it to The E String, with another one of my 20% off coupons, but he quickly informed me that it would be at least a $5000 repair. Perhaps another day.

We looked around the house for better place to store the bass, but it's not something that one can fit just anywhere. We finally decided on the corner behind the piano, which necessitated some rearranging of toys, books, and our gigantic Christmas cactus, which should be getting ready to bloom soon. (The plant's internal clock is a bit off; I call it my Veterans' Day cactus.)

Because of the rearranging, I buckled down and dealt with my disaster of a bookshelf and the numerous piles of music books on the piano. I now have a very organized set of drawers where the messy bookshelf used to be, and all my piano teaching music is clearly labeled. The piles on the piano are gone, or rather, relocated to the basement, until I can go through them and put them away, which will also mean going through lots and lots of old files that are stacked up in front of my music bookshelves down there. It's just as well, though. I've been thinking that we probably don't need to save every note from every team meeting from Abby's preschool years any more. They're not of any practical value now, and I'm certainly not sentimental about the files, nor the times from which they came.

So the living room, which is also my teaching room, now has more open space, along with Earl's bass in the corner. (There are also four violins in the room, and another one upstairs, but that's another blog post.) I dread dealing with the piles downstairs, but will do it 15 minutes at a time if I have to, until it's all done.

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Abby had a pretty rough day today, with no school for the Yom Kippur holiday. Now that I'm thinking about all the rearranging we've done in the house, I wonder if that's what threw her off. She was really out of control at times.

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If it was the environment that was making Abby crazy, then maybe it's what enabled me not to be crazy in dealing with her this afternoon. I'm always better put-together, mentally, in orderly surroundings. That is not to say my surroundings are always orderly, but that I'm much more serene when they are.

As long as I stay in the living room, I can be a calm mama. Ohm.