Clouds and silver linings

Picture: I love taking pictures from my kitchen window, as no two days are ever the same. This was last week, 25/08/11.

A new week, and one that ushers in my month, September, a month I always anticipate happily. Spending so much time dealing with sickness, recently, I've not had much time to get things going re my concert. However, everyone's on board and I'm starting rehearsals tomorrow. Looking forward to practising with Hilton Schilder on a grand piano - wow! He's such a beautiful musician and a real inspiration.

I started tutoring a young boy last week, and this has brought a whole new dimension to my life; he's an utter delight, complete with twinkly eyes and an impish grin, and I look forward to our sessions. Working with him - planning my sessions and enjoying our lesson time - has brought me back to the realisation that I am a teacher and that I've always loved teaching. What I don't like (about education in South Africa) are the bureaucracy and the stuffy institution-related issues that I know I've outgrown. Having said as much, I could easily end up back in the system, unless something else happens to earn me what I need to take care of my family.

But things ARE indeed looking up: with the additon of two new guitar students who're due to start in September, I now have 21 people learning to play the guitar with me. In June, I had 7, in July it grew to 16 and in August, 19. Looking at that steady growth and knowing how little marketing I've actually been doing, I know I have the potential to double that number before the end of the year.

The most exciting part of it all, though, is how much I ENJOY what I'm doing! I love preparing my lessons and I love teaching them. But most of all, I LOVE seeing my students' faces when they hear themselves playing.

Last night I had supper with a friend who's also had a rough year with employment. So nice to talk to someone who, like me, keeps an open mind and sees life as filled with possibilities, as opposed to some other person in my life who, based on personal fears and old unresolved issues, keeps dragging me down down down with an energy that insists on undermining my optimism, an energy that clings to a morbidity that seeks to instill in me the fact that every silver lining has a cloud.