Sigh... a new year, and the away tours and work has begun again. Sure, there was tiny little couple of days stint at the start of January... and then a slightly longer week at the end of January. But that was short for the first one, and then my family joined me for the second one to have a combined trip away together.
This current one is the first of the longer stints where I'm away by myself again... and it is a strange life. Perhaps much less glamourous than people on the outside think... but I guess that lots of that is sort of self-inflicted due to my insular personality. Or maybe I'm just old and cranky...
In these touring performance periods... there are no calls during the days, and then just a single evening performance call. That means that there is lots of time to kill... and I've long lost the desire to go sight-seeing or to do anything like that.
And that means that I'm just mostly doing administrative work for our ensemble, or a touch of practice for upcoming concerts, or just killing time watching TV or playing games... and despite the fact that I would kill to have this much time to watch TV and play games when I'm at home... somehow, it just feels a bit hollow when I'm away.
So, I do prefer to keep myself slightly productive and do work... either admin or music.... which is then spread out with some relaxing time.
And I'm generally not that keen to do stuff with other musicians during the day either, somehow, although the alone time can be a bit much... I find the sort of group chatter and socialising with colleagues to be a bit much after a while. Don't get me wrong, I do like being around my colleagues... but only in short bursts and generally one-on-one or in tiny groups... otherwise, I can rapidly find myself thinking that everything has descended into a sort of low-common-denominator type of banter that doesn't really interest me.
The worst parts are the lonely meals... it is sort of reminiscent of the days when I was a student and a young professional... lots of empty dinners cooking for yourself... finding the desire to do something more than a tin of tuna on instant noodles. I'm better these days at it... I pack some basic cooking herbs and oil and that sort of thing... it makes a big difference to have that stuff around... and I have limited the takeaway food as it starts to disagree with me... and the amount of money that you can pocket from the food allowance is quite big when you cook for yourself!
My wife doesn't believe that I find it so lonely... but the times that she has done it, she does notice... but on the other hand, when I'm away... she is run off her feet with dealing with the kids and her own freelance schedule as well. It is the nature of our different instruments... that I travel a lot and she tends to stay put. It has always been like that, and the tours pay really really well...
So, I have to keep myself occupied in the next few days... there is a mountain of admin work to for the ensemble to do... websites and concert organisation, plus a lecture presentation to write. I didn't bring an extra violin this time, so I can't practice for the next concerts until I do a quick pit stop back at home at the start of the week. This week, admin... next week, practice. Then I'm back for a little bit...
I do need some performance shirts though... maybe I'll go for a little walk tomorrow and see what the local factory outlet has. At least that will get me out of the hotel for an hour or two...
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I can't imagine being on the road all the time. My wife and I travel quite a bit in the summer, but I usually try to space the trips out so that we can have a little at home time as well!