HOWDY! It's nearing midnight, day of surgery. I was floored by the number of people who've been reading my blog lately -- and the number of people who care about me. You'd think I'd grasp that, but clearly I need many years of therapy to understand that I have a really great community.

This is probably the most important thing in cancer treatment: finding your village.

Nature walks: Pokemon Go & Plant Identifying!

If you'd have asked me ten years ago if I'd be a homeschooling parent, I would have laughed your ears off. It was a difficult choice for my family, and oddly it had a lot less to do with pandemic than you think, though COVID's timing made it a much easier decision. Schools weren't working for my 7-year-old, and he's been begging to homeschool officially for 18 months now. 

So far, so good, but I think that's because the biggest thing I've committed to this year is allowing ourselves grace.

I have hated the public discussion around school because it seems that everyone's defense mechanism is attacking someone else's decision. Everyone feels persecuted, and everyone feels the most persecuted. 

I've had multiple people try to convince me to stick with NTI and trust in it, rather than homeschool. Those conversations make me want to shut down and hide in a croft house in the Orkneys for the next 15 years. Other people have told me my kids will be weirdos or that I'm making a bad choice for them. Others have told me I'm making a selfish choice rather than sticking with the community (this, I believe, and it guts me because I firmly believe in community before self, making me question everything about our family's choice).

Basically, every parent is feeling pre-emptively judged. 

We have been used to internet shaming since our pregnancy announcements: for breastfeeding too long, for not breastfeeding at all, for having a home birth, for having a Cesarian, for putting photos of our children online, for not posting any photos, for being a stay-at-home-parent, for going back to work too quickly, for being in a "must be nice" position (oh, that one grates at me the most!).

Nothing we do is right, and I know this post is already inflammatory. 

I'm trying not to care.

I want to sit here and list every reason we are homeschool: to prove to you, my friends, that I have thought and researched and talked to school psychologists and principals and that I assure you, the decision to homeschool was not made lightly.

I know better. I do not need to justify my choices to anyone.

(But since my closest friends read this, I want you to remember what you know about me: do I do anything without first researching way more than I should? If you don't know me well, then FYI, the answer is: No, I don't.)

2020 was supposed to be the year where I stopped justifying things in my writing. Ha! I'm trying. It's beyond hard for me because my income has always depended on public opinion -- a tricky spot to navigate. I'm trying not to care: this is about my kids.

Anyway, we are LOVING our choice to homeschool. I hope you are LOVING whatever choice you have made, as I'm quite sure you spent long hours discussing and thinking and stressing over it. 

I've had several awful years of stress and grief, and since I can't be on tour, it is very nice to explore things with my children. I'm lucky they can read and do independent study. I'm lucky they are delightful and fun to go exploring with. I'm lucky they are eager learners who guide lessons as much as follow them. I am ready to buy an RV and travel the country with them. Or maybe buy that hotel in the Orkneys and move there with them. 

This week so far, we've listened fo Beethoven, looked at Impressionist paintings, drawn dragons, built LEGO villages, done laundry, cooked meals, made schedules, explored maps, learned new songs on the piano, coded on the computer (Graham is loving Let's Start Coding!), used Kahn Academy to figure out what grade levels my kids should be mathing, learned algebra while floating in an inflatable pool, done chemistry with pool chlorine, produced videos, and so much more.

I've been working at night (Yes, I still work. Yes, I'm lucky the hours are flexible.). I recorded vocals for someone who lives in Los Angeles. I recorded a song for a TV show for someone who lives in Texas. I performed at a benefit Zoom concert. I made a 6-part splitscreen video of me singing "Cathedrals," which you can see here. 

I've been writing. Thank you to those of you who have joined Patreon. It is EVERYTHING to me. I can't wait to let y'all be the first to read my memoir, and to share my art with you. If you want to do anything to support me and my art, please, sign up for Patreon.

Today I’m releasing a video I’m quite proud of: THIRTY musical saws playing my orchestral arrangement of “Happy Birthday to You”...  in a minor key. I recorded it on my dad’s Death Day, and I’m releasing it on my mom’s birthday (which is just a few weeks before her Death Day).

Now is the part where you ask: Brigid, ARE YOU OKAY?? 

Why, thank you for your concern! I am. I think. Adulting is hard.

Last month I glanced at the kitchen calendar and noticed my 7-year-old had scrawled “Grandude’s Death Day” on one of the boxes. It made me smile, which was nice on a day I certainly didn’t need reminding of.  

And so, rather than weep on that one-year-anniversary, I demanded time alone, sat with my musical saws and decided to conquer something I’d wanted to for over twenty years: record track after track, overlaying sounds and pitches, using my 20”, 26”, and 30” saws to see exactly what an orchestra of thirty musical saws would sound like.

Why musical saw and why thirty? My dad was the first to show me the saw, around the time I started playing the cello in elementary school. When I eventually read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, a paragraph jumped out at me, something that most readers likely just glided past: 

It was an incredible sight. The dungeon was full of hundreds of pearly-white, translucent people, mostly drifting around a crowded dance floor, waltzing to the dreadful, quavering sound of thirty musical saws, played by an orchestra on a raised, black-draped platform.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpImnRaYbD0

The main characters had gone to the dungeon of Hogwarts to a ghost’s 500th Death Day party. It was apparently a weird and spooky event, as you’d imagine a crowd full of ghosts would be.

It was also the first pop culture reference I’d seen to the musical saw, and I swore one day I’d make a video like the one I’m releasing today. 

This was 1998, before Harry Potter had been licensed, before the films, etc. I hoped that maybe I’d be able to record 30 musical saws for the movie someday, if ever one was made. (Imposter Syndrome struck hard: I know now that I absolutely could have found a way to get to Warner Brothers and create a musical saw orchestra for the film, if I’d been more confident!)

I hope y’all enjoy the video and find it charming, useful, maybe a little tearful, but not flippant. My mom’s 2nd Death Day is several weeks away, but I’m releasing this on her birthday instead.

Recorded on my dad’s Death Day; released on my mom’s birthday. My birthday is at the end of July (just like JK Rowling’s), and I acknowledge that this a weird way of dealing with grief. It took me trying to celebrate my first birthday without my parents to realize that birthdays are not a celebration of the day you are born; they are a celebration of the day you meet your parents. 

As I’m not particularly looking forward to a birthday without my parents, let’s do this year in a minor key. 

***

The Making Of!

How did I do it?

 From a musical standpoint, I switched the melody from a major key to a minor key. People tend to associate sad things with minor keys and happy things with major keys. I typically play "Happy Birthday" in Ab major on my favorite Stanley 26”, so I switched to Ab minor (G#minor if you are a transcription-geek like I am) flattening the Fs and most of the Cs. That’s why the song itself sounds mournful rather than joyous. 

From a video/audio standpoint: 

There’s not really a way to record THIRTY split-screens easily, but the ACapella app has 9-part and 6-part screens templates. Basically I made four separate Acapella videos, each set to the same metronome tempo. 9+9+6+6=30. Yes!

1. I recorded the melody once, then put on headphones, switched saws and played along to my first recording while recording a second video. The Acapella app makes split-screens a LOT easier, but it does require you to do a perfect take; no mistakes, no “punching in” or auto-tuning. Here’s a link to a Tutorial on How to Use the Acapella app.

2. I arranged 3-5 melody parts (each slightly different depending on the saw) and layered track after track. There are 6 videos playing some version of the melody, but in various octaves on different saws.

3. Next, I created a new 9-part split-screen entirely composed of some alto lines. 

4. Repeat for tenor harmonies, with 9 videos, since the tenor parts are typically the most interesting to me.

5. Repeat for bass harmonies, only six videos of these, and most played on my 30” baritone saw.

6. I added some reverb and mixed the audio -- I wanted the melody line a little louder, and for the bass & tenor parts to come at you from both sides (which only really matters if you’re listening with swanky swanky headphones, but, hey, I am a music geek!).

7. I downloaded each video to my phone, then to my laptop, where I used iMovie (hoping to earn enough Patreon money to justify purchasing a better software program soon, hint hint!) to put the pieces together.

8. The trickiest bit was lining up the sound wave files from each video, but i did that by stretching out the media files and making sure the wave forms matched, then listening obsessively just to make sure.

9. I used the “picture in picture” function on iMovie to make the 30 videos go together. I’ll make a youtube tutorial on that someday because it’s too complex and boring to go into that now. It involves exporting the mixed video four times and layering it. 

10. I added some title cards! That part was mostly easy, though would have been much faster in Adobe or FinalCut. (I had to create some transparent PNG files in Google Docs to layover the final video in order to get the titles in the right part of the screen. The title cards that come with iMovie weren’t cutting it for me.)

I’m now just THRILLED to release it, and I’m even more thrilled to release it on my mom’s birthday. She was born in summer, and she died in summer. My dad was born ten days after the winter solstice and died before the summer solstice. There is so much magic in dates, even when we’re not looking for them and even when we don’t believe in them.

*The reason I’m proud of this video is NOT because of the musical prowess it took to arrange and perform; I’m proud that I finally recorded it. You see, I was taught by the music and business world that I should play dumb, and I’m tired of that. I’ve got skills, y’all, and I’ve wanted to arrange a thirty-part musical saw orchestra for YEARS. 

Photo of my wedding for absolutely no reason other than I was looking at old photos.

I'm worried. That's nothing new; I'm always worried. I'm also angry and bitter and angry for others and annoyed by others. It feels like so many artists have struggled for so long, and in the slightly-more-egalitarian arts-world that was brought to us by the internet, there was room for non-wealthy people to have some level of success or at least have a small platform or middle class artist life.

Coronavirus is knocking those climbers right back down to where we started, which is to say that now, only the independently wealthy can afford to be artists. That means we are going to hear art and stories from mainly white men with patrons. Lesser known artists -- and those of us who are primary caregivers for small children -- are falling to the wayside.

There is some hope out there that some of those white men with platforms will help amplify the voices of others rather than rolling in the spotlight themselves, but it's a crapshoot. I see more artists than ever actually trying to use their powers for good, but I am also feeling left out of the fold because: I am a mother. (And you wonder why I kept my second pregnancy secret!)

I've found that mothers have had their voices particularly squashed, especially in weird pandemic times that are forcing families to revert to single-income households. Which family member quits their jobs when childcare is unavailable? The lower-earners: primarily women.

Anyway, this is a blog, not a well-reasoned essay. It's just the thoughts that keep me up at night.

I was excited for a while, as women and other artists who have experienced oppression are more likely to share the spotlight and amplify voices of Black artists, disabled artists, poor artists, women artist, LGBTQ artists, and more. It felt as if lockdown had leveled the playing field... we all had to perform from our homes.

But then we started to see quickly that homes are not all equal. Some artists have $10k microphones. Some have home studios. Hell, some have homes.  

I'd like to donate a USB microphone to an artist out there who needs one. I can't level the playing field on my own, especially when I'm typing one-handed from an 11-year-old laptop while wearing a shoulder sling, but I can offer a small piece of gear that would make it easier for an artist with fewer advantages to tell their story and share their art.

Tag an artist who might be in need? Or maybe better to privately send me a message with names of folks in need? I'd like to raise the funds to help others tell their stories.

We need to hear all kind of art these days; not just white men.

I'm in a sling for a while, but I'm anxious to get back in front of the camera and connect. When's good tonight? I might pop online and see if I can do a live-stream with my left hand and loud voice. Maybe my four-year-old can strum while i play chord changes of the guitar...

Newgrange, Ireland, and my shadow.

Six weeks ago, I was in the Wicklow Mountains in Ireland, mapping out a memoir I’m writing about the sandwich generation and my experiences caregiving for two parents with cancer while also solo-parenting an infant and a preschooler (the book now feels completely inappropriate to finish, now that being an adult orphan with young children is not so unique, thanks to pandemic, but anyway).

I took that trip to give myself the space I’d missed out on for years, when other people’s health was priority. It was an affirming trip, a beautiful trip, and I’m also 100% sure that the French couple next to me in the pub one night (and I only went out ONE NIGHT) had the Coronavirus. (My cohort in Ireland agrees, and as that couple finally left, every other table in the room looked at each other with a “Why in the world were those two just dry coughing over their entire dinner and dessert???”)

But that was six weeks ago. A continent away, the day before the first positive case was found in Ireland, and, as it seems in my head: a lifetime ago.

Today I’m thinking about all people in my social media friends who are new to anxiety. They are mentally exhausted, freaking out about things that aren’t a big deal, generally irritable, can’t sleep, and can’t turn their brains off. It’s oddly reassuring to see the people whose brains typically work “normally” to be susceptible to stress and anxiety, and it reminds me that my own experiences over the past few years (caregiving, working from home, wiping baby butts, parent butts, unable to take care of myself because that whole oxygen-mask metaphor doesn’t always apply: and yes, I have a therapist) were legitimate.

I’ve written about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs before, but let’s revisit, in case we’ve got any new readers. In the spirit of being kind to yourselves, let’s try to remember that during this pandemic, this strange period of quarantine, of uncertainty, of fear and anxiety, means we are trying to just survive right now.

Literally: we are trying to survive.

It’s a challenge. Happy humans need a lot, but right now, allow yourselves breathing room. Do yoga if you can, but don’t if you just cannot. Because sometimes you just cannot do the things that the Twitter tells you will make you feel better. I don’t care what studies show that getting dressed every day will make you magically feel better about yourself. Sometimes spending that time showering and getting dressed means you missed morning snuggles with your sobbing child, and guess what? I often feel better with bed head and pajamas, no matter what my more put-together friends suggest.

Let us remember that, when we are at the bottom of this pyramid (survival), we are not trying to get straight As in life.

Right now, it’s all pass/fail.

Give yourself grace and permission. Permission to sleep, to hold your breath, to not do everything right, to make butter noodles for dinner, to let your children watch Pokémon, to work your ass off because you still have a job (congrats!), to not finish your book, to not return a phone call or a text, to ignore your voicemail, to not make your bed, to not use this “down time” to better yourself.

We are trying to survive.

Today I woke up on my own, at a reasonable hour, without anyone fussing at me or needing breakfast immediately or a butt-wiping or rushing to the bus stop. It was beautiful!

Yes, Angus sleeps with me still, and the morning was full of sweet snuggles. We were going to move him to his room on his 4th birthday, but that was in the middle of the pneumonia, when I was counting his breaths with a stopwatch pretty much all night. He’s recovered, but I’m unwilling to move him to his own bedroom. The pneumonia scare along with the COVID-19 situation makes me actually want to bring Graham back to our bed too and just revert to: Family SuperBed!

I’m writing here partly because my own quarantine journal has suffered. I’ve been having Graham write a daily entry, and the archivist in me loves the idea of everyone having a journal. I’ve just not quite been mentally available to write my own, however, so this blog must do for now.

We are hanging in there. I’m desperate for community, but also relishing the time with my family. I’m confused about testing, and I’m wondering if we’ve already had the virus. Angus, of course, was not tested, though he had every symptom. I’ve lived on high-anxiety for years, so I’m not taking any more deep breaths or Xanax than usual. But life is getting scary, wouldn’t you agree?

Random thing that helps my income: click on one of the ads that pops up? I don’t control the ads, but I actually get paid per click and I get paid a lot more for an ad click than I do for a Spotify stream, so that’s a free and easy thing you can do to support an indie artist :) 

We’ve had real conversations about who gets the children (it’s in our will, but then I worry about people contesting and such) if worst-case scenario happens. We are on lockdown. I might take the kids on a bike ride and let them play in their backyard, but we haven’t even played with our neighbors since the first week of March (Angus’s fever first appeared the evening of March 8). I’m leading a neighborhood book club for the kids on Zoom, so that’s fun, but mostly I’m trying to enjoy every day. Life can shift on a dime.

Weird thing: I’m so glad my parents are already dead.

They would not have been so good at obeying the lockdown orders. Also, I don’t know how we could have managed chemo, Hospice, appointments, etc. They would have had to just suffer at home to an early end anyway. So right now, my thoughts are with everyone out there who is caregiving for ill parents — illnesses that have nothing to do with COVID-19, but which nonetheless make life difficult. I imagine your days and nights are even more anxiety-ridden and stressful than mine ever were. And remember my dad was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer the same week he admitted my mom to Hospice care. I’ve been through some crap.

So today’s ramblings are just about love, and loving each other, and caregiving, and heroes (Hospice workers; all medical workers; all firefighters; oh, just so many people!!), and family and the love.

Also, I made a fun video for my Patreon community a few days ago, and now I bring it to you. Thanks again to my beautiful Patreon community — that is a LOT of you reading now, and please know that you are my lifeline, my income, and my inspiration.

ENJOY MY BLOG? OR MY MUSIC? PLEASE JOIN MY PATREON!