In the evening, it was family games all round.
Fourteenth Party
the girl
Jump
Early Spring Volleyball
Back Home
But our thoughts are still on the beach.
Ormond Beach Day 3
Our third day began without any alarm, with any reminder that we had to get up at any particular hour at all. Yesterday, we received a message from our Vrbo host "Hope all is well and enjoy your weekend!" to which I replied, "Everything is going great. We’re being very lazy, which was the whole idea." Since we got up yesterday for the sunrise, I guess that wasn't really all that accurate. Today, though, it was. No alarm. No commitments. So we weren't all out of bed until after nine.
After a breakfast of K's lovely pancakes, we went for walk on the beach, heading south toward the Daytona area for a change. Daytona Beach was in the news this morning for four separate shooting incidents over the weekend. Apparently, it's filled with college students partying for spring break, but here we are, just fifteen miles south, and there's no one around and not a hint of any kind of violence.
At least, not that type of violence. We watched a sea bird of some sort -- here my landlubber nature shows specularly -- catch a fish of some sort and fly about above us for a while. It seemed unable to decide what exactly to do, to land on the beach or to strafe the water's surface.
And just a bit further down the beach, a fisherman who'd caught a bonnet-head shark, itself quite the predator. It uses it's bonnet-shaped head to detect changes in electrical charge as it swims along the ocean floor. When it detects a change, it attacks that spot in the hopes of finding a blue crab or some mollusk or other.
All the while, more potential violence just off the shore: squadron after squadron of pelicans (that's what a group of them in flight is actually called -- what a perfect name) flew along the coast, not seemingly hunting (for they none ever dove), but also not seemingly uninterested in what was going on below them. Perhaps that's for the best: each time they dive, they do more damage to their vision until they eventually become completely blind. I suppose at that point, they starve. The cruelty of the natural world.
It gets me wondering how relatively violent we are as a species compared to other species. We like to think of life in the twenty-first as relatively calm, peaceful even, and it is for most of in the developed world. But the violence we do to each other in other parts of the world, and the violence we do to the Earth itself and most species, makes us unquestionably the most dangerous species on the planet. We are, after all, capable of all but destroying life on the whole planet in a a number of ways. Sure, we don't often end up violently devoured by some superior species, but we do more than enough violence to each other to make up for that.
But we can play cards.
Ormond Beach Day 2
"It's probably the most convenient time of year to catch a sunrise," K argued as she began her argument last night that we should get up early enough to watch the sunrise over the ocean. With it so close to daylight savings time switch, the sun rises at a very reasonable 7:30. It took surprisingly little convincing, so at 6:50, we were all up and heading to the beach.
We weren't the only ones. An older gentleman -- "older" probably meaning my age by now or just a touch older; I keep forgetting I'm in my fifties now -- was out setting up his fishing gear, and a few others were venturing out, coffee cups in head, to watch the sunrise.
I was hoping the large cloud mass on the horizon would make for a more beautiful sunrise than it actually did. Still, having the four of us there made it a memorable way to begin our first day here at Ormond Beach, which is only a 1.5-ish hour drive from UF, where L is studying.
After a half hour on the beach, we returned from a solid breakfast of bacon and eggs with biscuits before all decided that 9:00 am is a perfect time for a late-morning nap. We've all been sleep-deprived over the last few weeks, and since we had absolutely nothing planned for the day except some time on the beach, we all trundled back to our bed
In the afternoon, the kids took another nap (we did come here, after all, to relax) while K and I went on a walk.
Ormond Beach Day 1
We've come down to Florida to spend a couple of days on the beach with L. In some miracle of timing, all three of us connected to or involved in education have spring break the same week. So we arrived today and went straight to the beach after dinner.
Sports Saturday
It was a little like old times today: the Girl had a volleyball tournament; the Boy had a soccer game. L is playing on something like a rec team at UF. They travel to various universities and play other rec teams, and this weekend they're in Clemson, just down the highway from us.
The Boy had his first spring-season soccer game today. We had some worries that he wouldn't be on the same team as the previous three or four seasons, but with some polite asking and a little string-pulling, we managed to get him back on that team. It's a good coach with a good group of boys, and they should have a strong showing this season.
And so, as we so often did in the past, we had split duty today: K went to cheer on L while E and I stayed behind for soccer and youth orchestra make-up practice.
The Boy's team dominated in the early minutes, quickly going up 2-0. After that initial surge, though, their dominance waned a bit, and they even allowed a goal. "We got too comfortable after that," he explained as we were leaving after the first half to head to rehearsal. When I picked him up three hours later after rehearsal ("Oh, I forgot how awful those long rehearsals are," he moaned as he got in the car), he told me that he'd gotten a text about the game: 5-2. An overall dominant performance.
The Girl's team also had a dominant performance, not losing a single game and losing only one set. K said the Girl played as well as she's played in a long time, with some really strong kills and overall aggressive play. They walked away with the tournament victory and big smiles.
Afterward, just like old times, the Boy and I went out for Mexican at our favorite restaurant. "We've tried other places," I told the owner, "but we just keep coming back here."
Sunday Music
We’ve heard the piece so many times that we all find ourselves humming it throughout the week. E’s been working on his district- and region-band music with the hope of a state band callback. His work on the solo element has gone from halting and angular to smooth, melodic, and emotive. The tone is rounder, fuller.
Walking to the car yesterday after the regional auditions, he explained where he thought he had messed up. He missed a scale the first time through—one of the easiest scales, he noted—and also fumbled a brief independent passage. Still, he said he felt better about the solo overall. Not bad, but not great.
He talked about the sight-reading portion, realizing too late that he should have practiced using only the thirty seconds allowed to preview the score before playing. “I should’ve done that sooner,” he said quietly as we pulled out of the parking lot.
It’s a familiar truth—for all of us—but especially for him: anything short of perfection can feel like failure. In that way, he reminds me of L. She would come home upset after a test and proclaim that she had failed, only for us to find out later she’d made a 93. “That’s failing for me,” she’d say. With him, it’s not academics so much as music. As long as his grades are solid, he’s content—but with performance, with auditions, the standard is relentless.
Earlier this week, he talked about one of his motivations for pushing so hard: making first chair at the state level. L, after all, was a state champion three times. In her sophomore year, her school volleyball team won the state championship. In her senior year she finished first in the state in high jump, third in javelin. K assured him there was no need to measure himself against his sister, that this competition existed mostly in his own head. He explained he understood: whether he believed that or simply said it to ease our worries about the pressure he puts on himself, I’m not sure.
What became clear this week is just how hard he is on himself—harder than assessors and judges are on him. This week, we received notification that, for the spring season, he will be playing first chair trombone with the Carolina Youth Symphony. “But it’s only in the Repertory Orchestra,” he said. I expected the news to thrill him. Instead, he was quiet again, focused only on the fact that there are two levels of orchestra above his. To him, this felt like another shortcoming: first year out, and “only” Repertory.
After one rehearsal, his school band teacher—who also conducts with the youth symphony—pulled me aside. “One year,” he said with a smile. “He’s making great progress. He sounds great.” It’s good to hear others say what you already know about your child, even if he himself can’t quite hear or admit it yet.
Later this week, we’ll find out two important things. First, whether E made All-Region Band. I’m certain he did. The amount of practice he puts in was impressive—even to me, a non-trombone player, I can hear the difference. The second is whether he’ll receive a state callback, a chance to audition for All-State Band—the most competitive of all the ensembles he’s aiming for. We’re not a big state, but still: thousands of middle-school trombone players. We really don’t know what’s out there.
Still, I love to watch him want it. I love that his teachers encourage him, that his private instructor remains enthusiastic, reminding him that this curve is steep and that mistakes are not failures. And I love, even in the quiet drive home after auditions, that the music is still there—rounder now, fuller—filling the house once again.
Final Friday
Tonight was the Girl's final evening at home. She heads back tomorrow for her second semester of college. (Is it only her second semester? How is that possible? It seems she's been studying forever, and we've only just begun this adventure in independence and eye-watering expenses.)
"What do you want for dinner that final night," K and I asked her. She thought for a while and replied, "Fettuccine alfredo."
"With shrimp?" It's her favorite, and I would have been surprised if she said no, but "No" was indeed her response. "With chicken, I think."
But how to spend our last evening together? We long ago realized that we are only a small part of our daughter's circle, and that meant we'd only have a little time with her this evening. "I want to go visit M one last time," she explained. M, her closest friend from high school, studies at Fordham; they only see each other when they both happen to be home. So a family movie was out, and besides, there's not much socializing with a movie. Additionally, since the Boy has regional band auditions tomorrow, he would be more than reluctant to spend so much time away from his trombone on the evening before such a significant audition. In the end, we played cards.
