Dear loyal readers,
As I reflect on what this blog has (or hasn’t!) become and what I had intended to do with it, and reflecting on what the world has been going through in recent months, I just think to myself what everyone is probably already thinking, “Wow, while everything else has gone to s***, I’m so lucky to have my health and so lucky to have such an organization such as Apple Hill to come home to.” Home. Strikingly obvious to what we have been going through these past two and a half years – strikingly potentially oblivious/taken-for-granted on regular, non-pandemic years.
Home.
Maisie the cat embodies one meaning of “home”
I was talking to a friend a couple weeks ago about the meaning of home. I struggled through some ideas in my head for a bit, then gave my answer that was some gargled speech that had the words introverted, snuggly, cat, music, parents, food, whiskey, golf, baseball, hockey, sleep, pillow, book, introverted, music, Apple Hill in it. Pretty intense stuff and soooo deep. Not. I couldn’t really find an answer to my friend’s question of what home meant to me. After a couple of days, for it usually takes me way too long to answer life’s persistent questions, it dawned on me: Home doesn’t have to mean a house, doesn’t have to mean one significant thing. Home can be many things: your parent’s home-cooked meal, a cat snuggle in bed, on the stage performing, drinking whiskey with friends, stealing a base in baseball, swearing at your 3-wood on the fairway, driving to Apple Hill in the morning and walking into rehearsal; home is what you make of it, and home can be two, or five, places in one day.
Throughout this very small chapter, I am facing the music to you all: my seemingly long absence from writing blogs for you all was directly caused by the pandemic, as was musical arranging sadly… I had writers/arranging block so to speak, but with potentially wonderful things on the horizon for the rest of the semester and beyond, I would like to revive this smattering of words, my colloquial As You Like It, my From the Core. I will continue to revive topics that I meant to talk about last year for this year and talk about present and future endeavors (as well as what home means to me; hint the Opus numbers 😉)!
For this morning, while I am writing this post for you all, this post is home (much like when Jack Aubrey did his speech in Master and Commander, “…on the far side of the world, this ship is our home…” dun dun dun, la di da, dun dun, cue intense music…).
What is your home?
Stay wonderful everyone, happy spring, and Practice Home.
Up next: K-POP comes to Apple Hill, the pros and cons of K-pop and how Apple Hillers, and classical music (!!!), can take advantage of them – the pros and cons.
Sincerely,
Jesse
Comment * HoME Harmony of Mind Expressed