Walking around a college campus last weekend must have been what triggered the dream I had in my five short hours of sleep Friday night.
In this dream I was talking with my former clarinet professor from graduate school. She told me that if I started practicing again and got my "chops" back I would be accepted as a doctoral candidate and offered a T.A. position paying $50 an hour (as if any T.A. in music would pay that much).
But still, in this dream I was ready to say YES.
The next thing I remember is sitting outside under a tree with my husband talking it over. He, of course, was bringing be back to reality because in the excitement of such an offer I had forgotten that I was a home schooling mother of four and would have to make other arrangements for their daytime care and education.
That's all I remember.
When I awoke I still felt the excitement of such a possibility.
I don't usually grieve over my decision to give up nearly twenty years of clarinet playing to give myself more fully to my vocation as a wife and mother but every once in a while I feel as though a part of me has been amputated and that my creative breath has nowhere to go.
The next night I dreamed that I was holding and playing a clarinet. The black grenadilla wood and silver plated keys felt just right in my hands and a true extension of my soul. While playing I was immersed in a different zone, a prayer, a state of meditation. This alternate state is what I miss the most in my life. The ability to be completely alone with focused concentration on creating something beautiful that communicates what words cannot. I miss becoming one with an instrument that produces a lovely deep purple melancholic lament as well as a round and bouncy spirited romp.
I even miss just the ritual of assembling a clarinet every day. I imagine it sometimes with my eyes closed - I wet my favorite reed while I take out the bell and add the lower joint, twist on the upper joint, connect the bridge, add the barrel, the mouthpiece, place the reed and slide on the ligature. Tighten. Not too tight. Inhale. And let my breath go. I could do this in my sleep. But for now, only in my dreams.
