Music is the common connection

Ah, Covid. No heart for writing, for chit chat for a long time. I feel grateful for the personal space I've had during these many months. I know so many haven't had that luxury. I think about it all the time. The level of fear, sadness, distrust, anger, that we carry and I'm heartbroken. No answers here. The only thing I've been able to come up the is that, here we are. So, maybe just one foot in front of the other, try not to be a jerk, grab onto all the joy, beauty, warmth out of each day that you can and let go of the idea that you can fix what is utterly broken.

I sat down to think about music. Couldn't tell from that first paragraph-Ha! I have a most wonderful piano teacher who I was able to continue studying with on Zoom during the pandemic. I was really struggling with a piece of music and she suggested mind-mapping. I did a lot of mind-mapping with my history students, but hadn't thought about what that would look like with music. I started drawing and painting little patterns based on the rhythms and chord patterns. I love the visual patterns that emerged and did several paintings just for me, but when the holiday season approached, I started to map Christmas music. I have to admit, I really like the little cards that came from my adventures in "mapping" music. I put super simple snippets of music on the backs of the cards and had lots of fun just illustrating sweet little characters that seemed to fit each song. As a history teacher, I couldn't help but add a bit of history for the wassail song. I wish I had included a word or two of biography about Felix Mendelssohn on the second card!

It will be interesting to see what people at the Holiday Market think!