As an undergrad at SF State University final exams for the fall semester would frequently end sometime between December 19-22. So Christmas had to “wait,” with pretty much all buying of gifts and wrapping of presents and holding of parties getting crammed into those last few days.
[Interesting to remember that w-a-a-a-y-y-y-y back in those olden days there was no such thing as online shopping; you shopped in-person at a store — end of story.]
I took a break from college for a few years and worked as a waitress. Christmas was a time of extra shifts with big crowds and you didn’t even imagine you could take time off unless you had a ton of seniority.
During my years at the SF Conservatory I had already started freelancing and December was by far my busiest time. Orchestra holiday concerts; office parties; background music in shopping malls; and lots of church gigs. For years and years Christmas Eve was spent in a church, for my financial — not spiritual — wellbeing.
But then I became consciously aware of being on a spiritual path and my priorities started to shift. There finally came a Christmas Eve when I had to leave my church’s beautiful and deeply inspiring service early in order to perform at a church where the service meant nothing to me and felt totally lacking in inspiration. And I said, “no more!”
Which worked for a few years, until I got more committed and more involved and eventually started helping with the music ministry and even working on staff. And…you guessed it! That tendency has stayed with me through all my years with Ananda.
For years now my “personal” Christmas tends to wait until after the concert, after the pageant, after whatever else calls for music. So that Christmas inevitably finds me scrambling to catch up on gifts and wrapping and cards and socializing. At this point, I can’t imagine the holidays any other way.
But despite feelings of overwhelm and moments of stress — which I might occasionally mention to my spouse 😂 — I really wouldn’t have it any other way.
I’ve been sort of automatically categorizing my current sense of overwhelm as the “usual” increasingly intense activities that come with the December/Christmas/holiday season.
But today I’m realizing the need to acknowledge the intense undercurrents of all that’s going on in the world. On the most basic levels we’re completely fine out here in the boonies — taking precautions, supported by community. On more subtle levels, however, I can feel the “not-fine-at-all” reality of many, many of my fellow Californians, Americans, citizens of the world.
So, yeah, it kind of starts to all add up and you can’t help but feel the heaviness. Which is why staying centered, staying calm, staying open and loving, staying joyous is my/our most important work right now.
Well, it’s true that the weekend wasn’t exactly restful. It’s also true that — true to form — the more overwhelmed I feel, the more energy it takes to get anything done at all. Plus the resulting unsettledness contributes — yet again — to staying up later and later into the wee hours.
The good news is that I was finally able to get my eyes examined and new glasses ordered. I was already at least a year overdue for it when the pandemic hit, forcing me to wait even longer. Definitely feeling relieved to have a clean bill of eye health and to be replacing glasses that were starting — literally! — to fall apart.
On the other hand, nowadays a trip to town is exhausting in and of itself.
Okay! Well, I guess that pretty much answers my opening question.
I’ve been impressed, inspired, and deeply moved by many of the “virtual” (multi-track) videos that have flooded the internet over the past couple of months.
I’ve also been surprised and amazed by how much people have loved our endeavors along those lines; week after week they share how powerful and inspiring they find it.
But the fact remains that we sort of jumped into all this feet first in response to the need of the moment — without any preparation and having virtually no idea what we were doing! That being the case, I guess it’s not surprising that we’re starting to hit up against our limitations.
So tonight I decided to actually research “virtual choirs” and — boy oh boy — is there an overwhelming amount of information out there! It’s pretty much all I did tonight; to be honest, I feel almost like I’m back in college, studying my brains out. Yikes!
I admit that I certainly spend more time than I like feeling overwhelmed. It’s frustrating and, ultimately, non-productive in the extreme. So when I saw that yesterday’s post by Seth Godin (one of my favorite bloggers), was titled “Overwhelmed is a choice” it got my attention.
The entire blog post is powerful, not that long, and well worth reading. Following are the points that jumped out and grabbed me (italics emphasis is mine):
The internet is infinite. For humans, anyway. In the time you’ve been reading this, more than an hour of video has been uploaded to YouTube. You will never catch up. ….it’s natural to feel overwhelmed. Too much to sort. We want a foundation to stand on, but firm footing eludes us for a while. And then we find it again. Because we intentionally make ourselves unaware of the rest of it. …And right now, someone who works for you has a question, ….or a co-worker is doing something without your oversight–and it’s all proceeding without you, because total information awareness is a fiction. Find your footing and do your work. It’s a choice.
My new battle cry: “Find your footing and do your work!” (the antidote to overwhelm) 🙂
