I walked into a little coffee shop in the Lower East Side yesterday, a product of gentrification. There was the base-y smell of wet bagels, and I noticed an employee grabbing handfuls of cream cheese with gloves to replenish empty tubs. Immediately, I was reminded of a part-time job I had the summer after my freshman year of college. I remembered the joys of being one of six people crammed at a long cutting board, scrambling to make bagel sandwiches for a line of customers streaming outside, impatiently waiting to place their orders.
This was before I developed schizophrenia, a time where I earnestly applied myself at school with the full hopes of finding gainful employment. I studied classical viola performance at a prestigious conservatory, and my goal was to be…
A professional violist, but in what setting? Perhaps in an orchestra, sitting principal chair? Or maybe a violist in a touring string quartet? Or possibly I win some international competition, which could land me a recording contract, eventually earning a job as a tenured professor at a conservatory. Honestly, I hoped to be a renowned soloist. Nothing made me happier than being at the center of attention, standing in front of an eager audience, whizzing my bow and fingers about. This was what I loved about performing, that attention.
Unfortunately, this love of performance did not manifest practically in my studies. Though not yet suffering from schizophrenia, I still had major depression and was overall scattered. Medications stabilized me, but still I struggled with depression in the practice room. I was unable to practice as much as I had wanted, thus depression lowered my productivity. My abilities on the viola did not improve as much as I would have liked, and I also was unfocused in my lessons. I could not prepare myself for auditions at a competitive level, and so my prospects as a professional were not good.
Perhaps another deterrent was that I did not like playing along with other musicians. In orchestras, I always wanted to sit as first chair in the viola section, which I would win by audition. Sitting first made me feel better than the other people, and I was able to focus on the conductor with only a music stand between us, almost as if I were the only violist in the section. And sitting in front also allowed me to not look at people. When I sat further back, I was forced to look at the heads of people I didn't give a shit about. They were all adversaries to be hated. Although I had won first chair often as a high schooler, this did not happen once I was midway through college.
Worst of all was playing in string quartets. As I rehearsed pieces with the other two violinists and cellist, we were expected to converse with another, offering suggestions to one another and making observations on how we could improve our playing. I hated this process. I found my colleagues annoying in their limitations, so I perceived. I was eternally pissed that the musicians always played with their faces buried in their music, never looking up to connect with one another. But how to mention this without inciting conflict? I resigned it as an impossible task, and instead brewed with unexpressed animosity.
Smelling those bagels had an interesting effect on me. I recalled my conservatory past not with negativity, but rather a longing nostalgia. I remembered that summer, when it was warm and sunny in the Midwestern way, different from that in New York which I now experience. When working at the bagel shop, I was not a musician, but instead a mere college student, mingling with non-musicians. I remember the downtown area where the shop was, nestled on a side street perpendicular to the main street lined with ethnic restaurants. I remember how the sun set in the west, casting shadows that invited contemplation. The air was dry and fresh.
It was this non-musical peace that got me through conservatory. The excitement of living alone, away from my family, self-determining my daily activities. Preparing a breakfast every morning of oatmeal with cinnamon and brown sugar, along with a hardboiled egg. Walking to class with my viola case in hand. Sitting in classrooms, looking at the walls, breathing the dry air. Filling out Sudoku puzzles in the daily university paper during lectures. I even enjoyed the non-performance musical curriculum, such as classes in music theory and violin pedagogy. There was a magic in the air that we musicians created.
I now choose to ignore my negative musical feelings and instead focus on this positivity. By reframing my past, I can no longer be haunted by it. Instead, I can appreciate the experiences I had at that time, having gratitude for the subsequent wisdom that I accumulated from them. I can also be grateful that I survived that difficult time. Certainly, this is something to be celebrated.