Letter to a Young Musician
“Believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance and trust that in this love there is a strength and a blessing, out beyond which you do not have to step in order to go very far!”
--Rainer Maria Rilke
Last week a young woman reached out to me after stumbling upon my blog. A fellow clarinetist, she confessed to me her recent realization for a desire to have children. Along with that desire came an anxiety that this might conflict with pursuing her career dreams of becoming a professional clarinetist. Unable to sleep, she started scouring the internet for female clarinetists in orchestras that also had children, and came up with surprisingly few examples, my name among them. After speaking to her and trying to answer some of her questions as best as I could in the moment, I realized how deeply these issues have affected me over the years in my own life. In the few days following our chat, I kept thinking about all the other things I wished I had said to her, and was equally concerned that maybe I had come across as being overly negative or discouraging. So I had a thought -- maybe I could write her a letter containing these remaining thoughts that were swirling around in my brain. Better yet, maybe I could make it public here and potentially reach other young women out there struggling with similar dilemmas. With her permission I am sharing the letter below, leaving out her name and relevant details for privacy.
After our discussion the other day, I realized that there were things that I left unsaid that matter deeply to me, and that I wanted to share those things with you as you grapple with these important questions. To begin, I should have expressed to you how grateful I am to have both these things in my life -- a full-time orchestra job, and two happy, healthy children. I understand, perhaps today more than ever, that these are great privileges, and with that comes great responsibility. Getting the position here in Alabama was one of the big milestones in my life, and continues to mark one of my greatest accomplishments. I love music, and I love playing music, so performing for a living is an incredible blessing, one that I strive to never take for granted.
All that being said, no job or role had has held as much meaning, purpose, challenge, and reward as being a mom. We often enter parenthood for selfish or instinctual reasons -- I know I did. As I told you on the phone, from a young age I knew I wanted to have children, far before I knew I wanted to play the clarinet for a living. Conversely, parenting is so much about self-sacrifice; one is always putting the needs of another before their own, and giving more than they get back. It is one thing to know in theory that a baby is helpless without you, one thing to know in theory that parenting is a great responsibility, but it was actually becoming a parent that taught me that there is no more important job in the world. More than ever, today’s climate reveals that what we teach our children matters, and how we raise our children matters. This is no sum game however; the responsibility, self-sacrifice, long hours, and sleepless nights of parenting do not equal an empty heart, but inexplicably equal a richness and fullness of life beyond what we could imagine for ourselves.
Having children put life in perspective for me. In fact, I had no idea how much perspective I lacked concerning what really matters, until I had kids. I no longer had time to obsess over a solo or a difficult passage, and in many ways I learned to trust in myself and my abilities out of necessity. Falling apart under pressure was no longer an option-- if I did so now, the victim of loss and failure would not be just me, but also these small innocent beings that couldn’t survive on their own. And as I witnessed myself doing it, working and mothering, I gained the faith that I could do these two things. Yes, it was often messier than I would have liked. Not everything went ‘right’ all the time. But isn’t that always the case? We may have the illusion of control from time to time, but the truth is that we have control over very little. Our collective present reality is demonstrating this very thing: 2020 has quickly plunged us headfirst into a pandemic, a crumbling economy, continued racial injustice and strife, and an increasingly polarized nation. There have been few times in my life that I have felt this ‘out of control’ with regards to influencing my own future. It has been at crossroads like these that I am reminded of the need to believe, as you do, in something greater.
I believe that it is your faith that will continue to sustain you and guide you through these larger life questions and choices. I sensed in our conversation that you often feel judged by others for some of the choices you have made for yourself. I also sensed that the choice in question has brought you immense joy and cause for great celebration and intense gratitude, but there exists a cognitive dissonance around publicly embracing it without apology. I encourage you to let this go as a crucial step in building your own authority in your life and your work. It has been my experience that both the professional music world, and the arena of mothering are full of people that are certain that they know better than you do. With motherhood in particular, it was jarring to discover how many people see their own identity as a mother or a parent as bestowing the requisite credentials to decide whether or not someone else should bottle or breast feed, co-sleep or sleep-train, or even whether or not other mothers should stay home or keep working. The underhanded remarks and the unsolicited advice will come, no matter what choices you make for your own life. I am certain I have even unwittingly done this to others in the past, most certainly during dark days when I was struggling to feel confident about my own choices or life situation. The older I get the more beauty I see in the diversity of paths taken, the beauty of a unique purpose and plan for each individual. It won’t be what you think or imagine it will be in this moment, but that is a beautiful thing in and of itself. I think I mentioned Rainer Maria Rilke’s “Letters to a Young Poet” in our correspondence as a book that made an impact on me when I was at your life stage. This quote expresses what I was just attempting to say so much more eloquently than I ever could:
“You are so young, so before all beginning, and I want to beg you, as much as I can. . . to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
I have never heard of one single man out there that has ever been asked if they will continue working or leave their job and career goals behind after having children. It is 2020, and you, a thoughtful, intelligent, talented and hard-working young musician has had to dig deep to find examples of female clarinetists in professional orchestras that have maintained their careers and started families. We as women can bemoan this inequity, or we can start supporting one another. Really supporting one another -- not just paying lip service to a narrow vision of Feminism as handed to us by those before us. For what is Feminism if it only celebrates one way of being a woman?
I hope to offer you support and encouragement if you should ever need it. I suspect that before you know it you will be the one paying it forward and offering the encouragement to another. Your unique brand of feminine strength, love, and kindness is exactly what the world needs right now, and don’t ever let anyone convince you otherwise.
Yours,
Kathleen