Midlife Meditation

I felt the first warning signs at 10:45 yesterday morning: a slight gumminess in my throat, a huskiness in my voice. By 1:30, I was practically inaudible. And I still had to teach a kindergarten class. I catch a lot of colds. It's one of the less glamorous parts of my profession: teaching music to 500 children, most of whom are infrequent hand washers, I'm exposed to every virus that enters the school. Once I feel one coming on, I can usually tough it out for a day or two, sometimes even a week, but inevitably, just as I think I'm past the worst of it, it moves down into my throat. My cough worsens, deepens, becomes more frequent, and simultaneously, my voice starts to fade. It usually takes longer than yesterday to completely vanish, but then, this cold has been moving more quickly than most through my system. If I'm lucky, my voice will be back before the end of the week, and I'll be back in my classroom wrapping up my hip hop unit. I teach with my voi...

So much for the holiday. Our plan was to spend the weekend at a condo in Sunriver, driving up to Mt. Bachelor for cross-country skiing and/or snow-shoeing. That didn't happen. Oh, we drove to Sunriver Friday night, as planned; but by Saturday morning, it was obvious to both of us that I shouldn't be outside in the cold dry air, exerting myself on the trails. My chest was full of mucous and what voice I had was a hoarse whisper that was too painful and frustrating to attempt except in emergencies. So we packed up and drove all the way home. The end of January is nearly here, and we have not yet been to the snow. Frequent colds are part of my job. During the four years I was away from elementary music, I'd almost forgotten this. I took hardly any sick days during my two years of half-time high school teaching, and I don't think I missed any days the year before that when I was 0.1 FTE at a Portland middle school, so it had almost slipped my mind. Now, however, I...

Assuming I'm well enough to get out of bed tomorrow morning, I will spend the day teaching music without the use of my voice. It's not that I have no voice at all; I can speak (croak) well enough to be understood. Ask me to repeat myself, though, and you'll find me pointing at my throat and shaking my head. The best I can do right now is whisper, and even that takes an effort. I've also got the sniffles and a persistent cough, not to mention a slight headache, but none of that is severe enough to keep me home. The two days I missed last week have already set me back too much. So tomorrow, barring a fever, I will get up at 5 and drive to school, where I will teach seven half-hour music classes without using my voice. Sounds (ha!) ridiculous, doesn't it? And it certainly feels ridiculous. But I've done it before. I've taught general music, preached sermons, even led choir rehearsals with laryngitis. Every time I get a cold, it eventually moves to my che...