The Highs and the Lows

The past week has been long, so long. Last Saturday we were in lockdown all day because of a nearby shooting and subsequent manhunt which was, unfortunately, unsuccessful. The police lifted the lockdown just in time for Daniel, Nathan and I to head out to the opera. We was “Moby-Dick.” It was composed in 2010 and was definitely a modern opera. I’m not a fan of modern music because it lacks the structure, the form of more classical music. It doesn’t go where my brain or my ears expect it to go and it leaves me feeling vaguely unsettled and as if, even though the curtain has dropped, there was something lacking. Give me a good old I-IV-V-V7-I chord progression any day! So it felt like one of the longest operas I’ve ever seen and I’ve seen Wagner so that’s saying something!

Monday was Nathan’s audition for this year’s school musical, “The Music Man.” He was anxious all weekend, half excited and half nervous. He felt like he did well at his audition and then the waiting game started. He had to wait for the remainder of the auditions to happen on Tuesday before the callback list would be posted. Needless to say, he wasn’t focusing well.

Tuesday and Wednesday were jam packed with Matthew’s geography bee (still so proud of him!), Dare graduation and Arrow of Light ceremony. At 2:29 p.m. on Tuesday afternoon, one minute before school was supposed to end, I got a text from Nathan saying that the middle school had gone into lockdown. Kevin was waiting at middle school seminary building so he could take Nathan to the dentist and he saw the cops shoving kids back into the church as they headed out to go back to the school or home. Needless to say, Nathan was pretty tense. It is not every day that the school goes into lockdown when it is definitely not a drill. They were only in lockdown for about twenty minutes, but in that time we also received the automated call letting us know that the elementary school was in lockdown as well. We found out later that the lockdowns had been a precautionary measure as the police executed an operation that resulted in the arrest of three people though to be connected to Saturday’s shooter, although the shooter was still at large. Due to the lockdown, any after school activities at the middle school were cancelled so Tuesday’s musical auditions got pushed to Wednesday which meant the publishing of the callback list was postponed as well…which didn’t help Nathan’s state of mind. On Wednesday the shooter was finally caught and honestly, I think the whole neighborhood heaved a sigh of relief.

On Wednesday evening, Daniel participated in Battle of the Bands at the high school. It was not very well planned or publicized this year and as such there were only two bands participating, but his band won first place and while it was fairly anticlimactic due to the lack of many competitors, he gets a share in the prize money and was pleased about that.

On Thursday I had a niece head into surgery to get a recently discovered, very large cyst removed. Everything went well, but it did add to the general stress of the week. Nathan had callbacks for which he was again, excited and nervous. And once he came home, the waiting began again. The drama teacher at the middle school posts the cast list online the evening of callbacks and he came home and started playing what they call “the refresh game,” the constant refreshing of the webpage to see if the list is up yet. Those three hours were very long for him, but he has no idea what it was like in the olden days when we had to wait for a week and then showed up at school to see the cast list posted on the drama room door. Finding out at home means everyone can cry out their disappointments without the audience of all the other students. Anyway, he was anxiously awaiting the posting of the list which finally happened around 9 p.m. And heading up the list was Nathan, playing Professor Harold Hill! He is super excited! I’m super excited! We’re all super excited! His phone was going crazy as people reached out to offer congrats!

So it has been a busy week around here. We’ve had some stresses and anxious moments. But we’ve also had an amazing week full of triumphs for all three boys. I’m glad that the week is nearly over though. I need to catch up on my sleep…and my house cleaning.