Happy Birthday Geoffrey

Love

This is why I go to More Than Music.  This is why the world goes round.

The people here at camp believe in me more than I do myself.  They have confidence in me that I don't even have.  There are so many days when I look at myself and I look at my violin, and I know that I'm not good enough.

The people here haven't even heard me play yet this year, but they're already telling me how great it's going to be.

This is why I keep coming back, year after year.  Love.  At the beginning and the end of the week, we all join hands and sing.

"If we all sing one song,

One song of love, one song of peace,

One song to make all our troubles cease,

One hymn, one theme, one hope, one dream,

Imagine what tomorrow would bring,

If we all sing one song."

Life is More Than Music

Megan: 1963~2008

Today was a wonderful time of reunion and rejoicing.  Music Camp started today- I've been going there for 9 or 10 years, and we thought that it wasn't going to be able to open again this year.  But it did, and I am happy.

When one has been doing something like this for so long, there is a bond that is formed that cannot be explained.  The people that were my teachers have become my friends.  The friends that I made I carry on into other areas of my life.  Reunion is rejoicing, and reunion is a lot of running around giving hugs.

But life is bittersweet.

My very first violin teacher at camp was an incredible woman named Megan.  When I first met her, her daughter was just born- she's ten now.  Every year in between was  talking about what the year had meant to both of us.  She was an incredible woman.  I thought the world of her.  Through our conversations, I learned that life was hard for her.  But she kept pushing through.

Last summer, she gave up on life and committed suicide.

Today, I look in her mother's eyes and I see so much pain.  I look at Michelle, who's only ten years old.  I wonder what she thinks- does she think that her mother didn't love her?  Because she did.  Megan loved so many people.  

And I think of a poem called Music I Heard.  The first verse:

Music I heard with you was more than music,
And bread I broke with you was more than bread.

Now that I am without you, all is desolate;
All that was once so beautiful is dead.

I  guess this is life.  We love, we lose.  Because we love, life is beautiful, but it is also bittersweet.  Because we love, we feel loss.  But we always remember.  Life is More than Music, and it's for that reason that More Than Music is the name of the camp.

...And in my heart they will remember always, -
They knew you once, O beautiful and wise.

A Glowing Violet Aura of Epic Proportions

I have purple hair!!  (?!)  !!!  (!!)

Yes.  It's true.

I expected a couple of red streaks with some purple hair extensions, but no, I was given a healthy head of hair that is the interesting combination of platinum blonde, foxy red, and yes, purple.

I feel like someone has hit me over the head with a rather large mallet. I was not expecting this.  I did not like it at first.  I look like some kind of punk rock star.

But, seeing as I have no choice, I think I am going to go on from this and enjoy it.  I'm actually rather enjoying it.  I am looking forward to seeing some people's faces with a delicious sense of malice.  Ha!

And yet, people always commented that I looked so mature for my age- I looked like I was finishing up university.  No more.  People may now label me as a "punk" who enjoys spray painting and terrifying elderly ladies.  Ahh well.

I'm going to enjoy every minute of it, and the bonus is, after this, I shall never be worried about what others think of me again.

Besides, it'll be shaved off in a couple of months anyways :)