Sep. 2, 2023

Day 4 in Coyoacán, officially a neighborhood of Mexico City, but really kind of it’s own world. We start homeschooling the boys on Monday, so these first few days we’re spending like tourists. Yesterday we took a cab into downtown to visit the Castillo and Parque Chapultepec. The luxury of staying here for so long; we can just go do one thing, then go home when we’re tired. We’ll be back to see the anthropological museum and other parts of the park. The luxury also of not having started homeschooling yet: I can practice every morning (as soon as we hit 9am, to be nice to our neighbors).

Walking around, getting to know our neighborhood, some observations: SO MANY dogs here, and many get walked off-leash, but there are also still street dogs around (fewer than I’ve seen elsewhere in Mexico but still). Christopher went out early this AM and discovered a mass dog training session in the Zócalo- I was so bummed that I missed it! There’s a holiday coming up: Independence Day on 9/16, so once the month turned, everyone started decorating and there are flags EVERYWHERE. G and I had a conversation this morning about the idea of patriotism- it’s much more comfortable here where your government hasn’t been responsible for atrocities abroad, yet with the disappearances and cartel-related-corruption, it also inspires people to demand much more of their government I think. My very tiny two cents. We’ve been trying to follow the political news and there are a lot more interesting, powerful women, per capita, than in American politics! Google Claudia Sheinbaum and Xóchitl Gálvez to see what I mean.

The Ossia Year:

Ossia is an Italian word: it’s a path away from the main course of music, suggested either because that passage may be too difficult , or because the composer is offering the performer some agency and choice in the performance. You choose whether to play it or not, and then you return to the main line afterwards. And it’s also the name of the student-lead new music ensemble I played in at Eastman, an experience that gave me a lot of joy and inspiration for my own later musical path. It’s a word I’ve been thinking about a lot as representing the coming school year. We are taking a different path for the year, then coming home. Christopher and I are taking leaves from our jobs, taking the boys out of school to homeschool them while we travel the world. First chapter will be Mexico, then Europe, then Japan. The news is out- Aryeh in particular told his whole class and all his teachers months ago- but it still feels a bit scary to share the news. As a freelance musician, there’s some fear I have of being forgotten or replaced. I know that’s silly, 9 months goes by in a heartbeat, but still I have to be open about the darker side of the excitement in finally making this dream of ours happen. I’m going to use this space as a travel log, and very much hope to keep in close touch as best I can with loved ones.

(PS I published this almost a year ago, just switching this page to a blog, so I’m reëntering everything…)