Chamber music is all about listening and adapting to your partners. It’s about understanding that you are but a fraction of a whole, and that to make a complete work of art you must tend to the needs of the others. You must of course contribute your own strong voice: you have your own responsibilities. But fulfilling your personal responsibilities does not create musical magic. Playing one part exceptionally well is not enough. When chamber music works well, it is like a happy family where each person fulfills their responsibilities and roles whilst listening and adapting to the needs and desires of the others. I knew all these things before coming to SFCM. This was why I wanted to come here, this was why I wanted to pursue chamber music– because it was all about love. What I didn’t understand yet, because I was young and naive, is that love is really hard and that because love is really hard chamber music is also really hard.

Making amazing music with your peers sounds like a fun and bonding experience but what do you do when the intonation doesn’t line up? When the tempo is wrong? When the eighth notes aren’t exactly together? When you can’t follow a cue? When you have a different interpretation of a dynamic? When you have a different idea about bowing? When you can’t figure out a rehearsal schedule? The idea of making music together is beautiful, but the effort it takes is gritty. It’s sweaty, disciplined, intimate teamwork and you will never leave a rehearsal space the same as when you entered it. Your hands are going to get dirty, your hair is going to get ruffled, rosin and pencil graphite will be flying everywhere, and even the NICEST humans in the world might end up having a disagreement they can’t quite solve. I’ve been wondering for about 8 months if I was just wrong. Maybe chamber music was never actually about love. Maybe I’d made that up in the Disney version of my life and it was fake news. But then it dawned on me…

Maybe I hadn’t been wrong about chamber music– maybe I’d been wrong about love!

What I’ve learned over the past 8 months is that love is the way chamber music is. It’s WORK. Its gritty! It’s facing the places where you disagree and being willing to see things from the other point of view. It’s coming back and apologizing when you’ve made a mistake. It’s making space when someone is having a hard time. It’s listening when someone has something they desperately need to say. Its saying something in the moment it needs to be said, and it’s holding your tongue when nothing should be said. It’s looking in another person’s eyes and knowing what they’re about to do– being ready to face the challenge with them. It’s taking turns holding the heaviest responsibilities, and lifting each other up.

Perhaps the most important lesson I’ve learned about chamber music AND love this semester (mostly from my peers having patience with my very new viola skills) is that when people love each other: mistakes are allowed and mistakes are forgiven. Mistakes are worked through and mistakes are given a space within the work of art. In fact, if chamber musicians are good enough at listening, sometimes a mistake can be masked so well it becomes part of the interpretation.

In the words of Shakespeare:

“Love is not love/ which alters when it alteration finds./… oh no! It is an ever-fixed mark/ that looks on tempests and is never shaken.”

Great love and great chamber music are both based on two things:

1) the ability to forgive and empathize

2) the willingness to work through flaws and improve together

I’m so grateful that after so many months of pain and confusion I have discovered this. For awhile I was literally telling my friends I didn’t believe in love– because in my mind if lovers fought they didn’t love for real. I’m so glad that I was wrong. I’m so glad that I’ve come to understand that love is as complex and intricate and confusing and wonderful as any string quartet. More importantly I’m glad I’ve finally decided that both chamber music AND love are worth the gritty effort.

Dear Heartbreak,

Without you, I would have become a completely different person. At 14, I became a better sister and daughter because of you. At 15, you inspired me to become a good student. At 16, you encouraged me to become a musician. At 17, you taught me how to be strong before I beat skin cancer and gave me a high pain tolerance before endometriosis became a regular part of my life. At 18, you reminded me that life is worth living for your more pleasant twin sister: love. As a 19, 20 and 21 year old you inspired me serve others. At 22, you inspired me to become a social butterfly, a feminist and a teacher of young people. At 23, you gave me a reason to compose music as well as play it. Throughout it all, you have sparked in me over and over again: discipline, determination, strength, resilience, compassion, empathy, and artistic growth. As a child I didn’t dream of you, as an adolescent I hoped you would never come, and as an adult I often try to banish you. But, thank you for making me who I am. Thank you for changing the shape of my story.

The main symptoms of endometriosis can cause severe irregularity in something a lot of people take for granted: your physical body. On the physically worst kind of day in an endometriosis patient’s life one experiences:

1. irregular/unexpected/heavy bleeding
2. extreme/severe stomach and pelvic pain
3. irregular bowel movements
4. urinary tract pain and irregularity
5. difficulty digesting food
6. mood swings/mental health struggles (many endometriosis patients experience anxiety, depression, and PMDD)

The days in which an endometriosis patient will experience all five of the above are not actually so rare. In a good month, maybe we’ll have five of those days. In a bad month, that will be every single day. And you know what is the worst part? Life just keeps going. Tests don’t wait for the bad days to pass, neither do auditions or performances. Class and work are everyday, and we have to find ways to cope with our pain enough to do our very best. No one wants to be held back by chronic pain, especially by a chronic pain that is commonly misunderstood and often referred to as “the silent disease.” I think the most difficult part about the physical and emotional struggle of living with endometriosis is that sometimes the pain makes it hard to hold up our cheer– to smile, to laugh, to be positive, to uplift, to be a light in the lives of those we love. Some days we are going to have a much harder time being cheerful, positive and fun– we may not even seem like the same person. We may be quieter, we may have a shorter temper, we may be more easily disappointed. We might be stressed, we might get panicked, we might cry. We feel betrayed by our bodies, and sometimes that might make us feel betrayed by our lives. As someone that deeply values her relationships with the people in her life, I can promise you that endometriosis patients don’t want to be mean, we don’t want to be annoyed, we don’t want to complain about minuscule things, we don’t want to be who we are on our worst days. But sometimes as hard as we try, we can’t be the perfect warrior that holds every bit of pain inside. Sometimes the battle makes it from the internal to the external and it impacts our relationships. I will promise you though with all of my heart that endometriosis patients (along with other patients of chronic illnesses and chronic pains) will never forget the days you made us laugh when we wanted to cry. We will never forget the days you were willing to stay in instead of go out. We will never forget when you reminded us to take our pain meds when we were getting annoyed with everything, instead of calling us out on the fact that we were being a bit irrational. We will never forget when you held our hands and our faces because the pain was so much more than it had ever been. In short, we will never forget you being there on the bad days. Endometriosis patients may not be the easiest people to love, but if you love us on our bad days, we will love you forever and always.

After spring semester finals were over, I was super desperate to look for alternative solutions to my endometriosis related problems– mainly the extreme pain. I was given several options (some expensive ones!) from my women’s health doctor, but she mentioned nothing about nutrition. I started reading as much as I possibly could about endometriosis: books, articles, blog posts and I started noticing a pattern. Among all the many treatment options mentioned, almost every source I looked to said something about nutrition. With so many different ideas about what kind of nutrition helps or hinders one’s quality of life, I felt that I needed to try some of the ideas out myself. I think one of the reasons no women’s health doctor has ever recommended this to me before is the proven benefits that have been studied are, being brutally honest, marginal at best. However, for me, I have found every marginal bit of help to be worth seeking out. My favorite book– the most comprehensive and trustworthy one I can find on endometriosis and nutrition is called “Endometriosis: A Key To Healing Through Nutrition” by Michael Vernon PHD and Dian Mills MA. The title is somewhat deceptive, because there is no cure to endometriosis as all of us with it know all too well, and because these nutritional choices don’t truly “heal” anything. However, I have found that by making good food choices based on suggestions in this book, I can minimize the side effects of endometriosis (UTI’s, diarrhea, bloating) as well as minimizing the extreme pain itself. Also, lots of these suggestions are just healthy food choices to make in general. Eating raw, fresh fruits and vegetables is the most important part of an endometriosis diet– but is of course a healthy choice to make regardless of whether you have endometriosis or not. The rest of the diet can be simply understood by reading this chart (they use like two chapters to explain it, but really this sums it up entirely). You will note that a HIGH intake of FIBER is also an incredibly important part of this diet. 

The book also explains very clearly that some foods will bother some patients more than others, and so you have to really listen to your body and figure out what works best for you. For example, I have found that white bread doesn’t really increase my pain– while for some others– it deeply increases pain. Similarly, some women find that eating red meat greatly increases their pain, whereas for me it actually doesn’t. Once I found out that I had muscular damage from my endometriosis, I actually increased my intake of meat (IE started eating it, when I had prior been vegetarian), but I found that it did not increase my pain or other symptoms. If anything, it made me feel better– or at least stronger. I think the most difficult part of eating with endometriosis in mind is that you aren’t really supposed to have treats: ice cream, candies, baked goods, etc. This has been extremely difficult for me because I have a sweet tooth in the EXTREME. I will not tell a lie, as I have been switching over to eating to reduce my overall pain, I HAVE cheated a bit and occasionally had candy at the movies or a treat on a holiday. BUT I have reduced my overall consumption of sugary treats by at least 85% and that has made the biggest difference of all. HOWWWW have I survived you may ask?

Well, here are a few of my favorite healthy snacks with a little bit of sweet in them, but not enough to be damaging for my condition. And lots of them have protein in them for those damaged muscles so that is a plus!

1. Perfect Bars (I literally LOVE these), the peanut butter chocolate chip ones are my favorite and they have 15 GRAMS OF PROTEIN

2. Emmy Macaroons, made with all organic ingredients (lots of coconut which is good because FIBER)

3. Banana Peanut Butter bites, fruit and protein and the chewiness is SO satisfying

4. Popcorn, high in fiber and seriously fun to eat– especially with different toppings (I try not to use sweet toppings, mostly salty/savory ones, and not too much butter– LIME IS MY FAVORITE).

All righty, well now that I’ve given endometriosis patients and healthy friends in general some fun ideas for eating healthfully, I’m off!

Lyrics: Helen Reddy

When it was decided that a family project for the summer would be participating in a high intensity personal training regimen twice a week, I was anxious. Not because I don’t enjoy exercise, not because I don’t love a challenge– but because I have a condition that causes lower abdominal pain of varying degrees almost every single day of my life. The last appointment I had with my specialist from the UCSF Women’s Health Center they informed me that this condition, which they believe to be endometriosis (no official diagnosis can be made without surgery), has caused damage to the muscles of my pelvic floor along with the muscles and nerves on the lower left side of my abdomen. Needless to say, this makes squats and situps harder than they used to be. But I’ve always been determined and I’m not one to disappoint or back down on a goal and so I’ve done 4 Mission Fit personal training sessions these past two weeks. 

I approached each session with a certain amount of trepidation and concern: fear even. But I also approached each session with the undeniable conviction that I will not let this disease defeat me. If I wake up with stomach pain worse than the pain I had the day before, that won’t stop me from practicing the violin, or doing my very best on my schoolwork, or from being the kindest person I can possibly be. It also won’t stop me from being strong physically. Or at least that is what I am hoping by participating in this physical fitness program, and by jogging on the days I don’t have Mission Fit. 

What does all this have to do with feminism? Most people out there know that if someone says “you run like a girl”, they don’t mean it as a compliment unless they’re in charge of the always campaign “Like A Girl.” Out of all the ways men like to prove they’re superior to women, the physical is way up there. My trainer said that recently, he has more women that stick to his program than men. He chalked it up to us being “more willing to endure the pain.” I honestly feel that willingness to endure pain is based on our need to prove that we CAN. The more you have to prove, the more invested you will be– the more emotional energy you will have to throw into every punch, every squat, every plank, every situp. I have a lot to prove as a fighter of endometriosis. I have to prove to everyone, especially myself, that I can still function like a normal person–even participating in high intensity exercise. 

Being a feminist having endometriosis, putting the specifics of exercise aside, is tricky because you feel that you are trying to prove your equality to men in the community, in the workplace, and in the home all whilst your female organs are making it hard for you to just handle average tasks. But, I guess that’s why partipating in a high intensity exercise program feels good even when it hurts. It feels like you’re saying “take that” to the endometriosis– the female disease that tries to prevent you from being the powerful woman you want to be. 

Doctors everywhere say it’s incurable, that it’s chronic, and then give you some kind of birth control that brings down the pain maginally. There are a few that will give you the surgery you actually need, knowing well that you may have to come back for another operation in a few years. It’s so easy to lose hope with endometriosis, to give up the idea of being strong and powerful because the pain can leave you feeling so weak. But what I have decided is that I will never, ever stop fighting this disease and I will never give up hope. Every day that I put on my athletic gear (recently that’s 6/7 days) I remember that fact. 
Basic description and statistics of endometriosis: 

Facts about endometriosis

https://www.acog.org/about_acog/news_room/~/media/newsroom/millionwomanmarchendometriosisfactsheet.pd