the_sea_of_suffering unhinged i'm drowning in it. not just my own. several of my students are heavy with it too. one of my adult students sisters was diagnosed with terminal cancer this year. yesterday in his lesson he told me he hasn't been practicing because tomorrow (today) is his birthday and his sister always used to take him out for his birthday. i am not sure if she is still alive. i couldn't even imagine losing my brother. one of my other students has missed a couple lessons because she is not eating and losing weight and was already so thin to begin with and none of the adults in her life can figure out why. when i talked to her mother yesterday i told her that the little girl has seemed very sad lately. she is in the fifth grade so that would make her...ten, eleven. too young, too young to walk always staring at her feet with not a trace of a smile on her lips, in her eyes. except for when she plays for me. her mother told me that they want to keep her in lessons because it makes her happy and they don't want to take anything away from her that makes her happy but they need to figure out what's wrong. and i know what's wrong and it broke my heart because she is just a child. but the more i think about it, that was when the same overwhelming sadness first entered my life. i feel so close to her because she loses herself in the violin and books the same way i did when i was her age. am i too attached to my students? could i be any less attached to my students? i feel stupid, idiotic, ashamed, traumatized. when men look at me on the street, i want to kick them in the teeth. if it wasn't so warm, i'd do everything i could to cover myself. it's all around me everywhere and i'm drowning in it. 080613 ... u24 you are doing a wonderful thing, teaching these people. they need you, and perhaps you need them, too. anything more i could say sounds stupid so i won't. just rest, sleep. you will heal. 080613 ... Ouroboros reflections in the water- you feel deeply because you find yourself in them. being with them through their storms is a life raft- and music can be their life raft. There is so much pain and suffering in the world, it is almost unbearable. But there is also so much beauty in the world, that makes the suffering bearable. Keep swimming 080614 ... unhinged 'may i be the raft that carries you across the water' it's part of my vow. i got a cancellation slip in my box at work today about how my younger student is 'really sick.' that worries me. 080618 ... unhinged (i have learned to keep my nose above the water; maybe every last part of me is submerged but the oxygen still moves in and out) 180527 what's it to you? who go blather from