Dear Alma, Is my instrument telling me I’m done?
OrchestrasDear Alma,
I left my oboe on the train last week.
It’s the third time in as many years. The first I blamed on Covid stress. The second was during my divorce. But this time there are no excuses.
I am managing my life and kids well. I have time to practise and time to play. My shrink says it’s my subconscious telling me that, deep down, I don’t want to play the oboe any more.
Could that be true?
What else could I do?
A Good Reed
Dear A Good Reed,
The forgetfulness can be one of three things. Psychological, physical, or exhaustion. Let’s look at the physical first. In the mean time, put a small tracking device in your oboe case that can notify your phone in case of separation.
It’s possible that something concrete is actually happening to you. Brain fog is a common side effect of long Covid as well as pre-menopause (which can start as early as age 40). In addition, playing any instrument has its own particular bag of health concerns. As an oboist, you are pushing air into a teeny opening at about the rate of 80-130 kilometers an hour. Risks include brain hemorrhage and aneurism. Being light headed, ear rupture and fainting can occur. It is worth it to check in with your health care provider for all of these issues, which may have solutions or may indicate a more serious problem.
Let’s look at exhaustion. Of course you are over worked and exhausted. You are a single, working parent in a high-pressure performance career. There is only so much we can do to combat this – you are doing your best to be well-rested, but you have obligations that you have to fulfill, things that demand more energy than a single person can provide. Can you hire some help at home, ask a family member for assistance, or have your kids take a more active role with cooking and cleaning? Every little bit helps.
A Good Reed – your gut question is whether you are happy being an oboist. Can you pinpoint the exact moment when you realized most recently that you had lost your oboe? How did you feel? Happy? Sad? Filled with anxiety? Relieved? If you can locate the memory of that split second feeling, you will answer your own question. If the feeling is relief, believe in yourself that you can find another career – they say that every human has about 8 different careers in their life. Maybe you are ready for a new chapter – it could be the best decision you have ever made!
Questions for Alma? Please put them in the comments section or send to DearAlmaQuery@gmail.com
I have been having bouts of forgetfulness and I went to the doctor. They diagnosed me with long covid and it was good to just have a clear reason for my feelings and tiredness.
It does sound like parapraxis. But then, we all have a love-hate relationship with our instruments and music-making. Maybe it’s something we should accept. It’s like our relationships with other people; they’re never perfect. PS: the oboe is an especially difficult soulmate.
PS: It’s easier to forget an oboe on the train than to forget a double-bass!
Is she forgetful about other things as well? Forgetting other things may not bother her as much because they are not as important to her. I have always had real difficulty with names and occasionally I will even forget the name of a dear friend.
Also it is always easy to forget things if a regular routine is interruped or not adhered to in some way, or if anything else is on her mind, even if she might consider what she is thinking about trivial or routine.
As a psychiatric nurse I would say that she should not pay a lot of attention to this Freudian subconscious stuff and instead should just get into the habit of looking behind her whenever she leaves any room or conveyance to make sure that she has not left anything behind. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
I do not know if oboe playing is her full time profession or not but it is clear that at least at one time she devoted a huge amount of time and her personality to it. One does not have to believe in the supreme authority of the subconscious to know that leaving it will be a grief experience, even if in some ways it might be a relief, when she has already suffered at least one heavy loss. A decision to leave it, at least leave it entirely, should only be made if she can rationally move on to something else and is ready and able to do so.
Good luck in your decision
Or maybe the shrink is encouraging you into a course of action that will result in more business for him/her? After all, changing career can be rather stressful… cui bono?
“My shrink says it’s my subconscious telling me that, deep down, I don’t want to play the oboe any more.”
If deep down you don’t want to play the oboe anymore, you’d know. You’d know even before your subconscious decided to speak up about it.
People forget stuff, all kinds of stuff, important stuff like their wedding anniversary date, that their kid is at daycare, that their mortgage payment is due today, that they’ve just eaten at a nice restaurant but forgot their wallet at home, that this is the day they need to pick up their spouse at the airport. The more second nature something is the more likely this is. Leaving a constant companion like an instrument case on the train seat is just another example, albeit a potentially very expensive example.
Some people even forget to pay their shrink when the bill arrives.
Yes I agree, there have been quite some things I forgot, but I can’t remember what they were.
Last time my therapist explained to me why I subconsciously want to forget these things, but I forgot that as well.
Sally
In 2017 well-know double-bass soloist [redacted] lost his instrument on the tube for the second time, and that second time it was rediscovered after 5 weeks much against his wish because meanwhile he had bought a new instrument. Now he struggles with the question which instrument to leave at home with every engagement, because he wants to use them strictly alternately, but he can’t remember which of the two he used the last time. They look exactly the same and sound entirely similarly.
This is a question you should ask yourself, not Alma.
Your shrink has an unconscious desire to get out of their day job.
Get a new one.
And put the oboe in your backpack.
Keep playing and go to another (non-Freudian) shrink.