Cup 2: Super Mom! (Just in time for Mother's Day)
Drink: Plain ol' cup of joe from Starbucks
I don't usually swear first thing in the morning, but I do have my moments. I was supposed to drive my brother to school, but somehow slept through my 3 alarms. Thank god my dad's an early bird. And to top that, I had just barely enough time to take a shower, and to chew on something for breakfast before running out the door to meet Cup #2. Ever so slightly rough start to my day.
With just 5 minutes to spare, I arrived at our agreed location: A lovely Starbucks in Rochester Hills. Hah, I gotta say that it looks way better than any Starbucks I've ever seen. It looks like a black spaceship...with a drive-thru. Slick.
When I walked in, Mrs. Joul was already seated at a table, engaged in conversation with a fellow colleague (a violinist, actually) from the Rochester Symphony Orchestra.
After a little wait, I got my drink (a delicious hot Caramel macchiato with extra caramel, if you were curious) and walked over to our table. I asked Susan what kind of drink she got, and she said that her colleague (the other person I saw when I walked in) bought it for her, and it was just a regular cup of coffee. But she normally gets a vanilla latte.
Susan Joul is a fellow native of Michigan. Growing up in a very musical family in Ann Arbor, she studied cello, piano, and voice. After graduating from Ann Arbor Pioneer High School, she went off to Arizona State University to pursue a degree in Cello Performance, under the tutelage of Taki Atsumi.
She currently has a studio of almost 30 students, who interestingly enough study one of the 3 instruments (listed above) with her. It must be really nice come studio recitals. You'd have quite a lovely mix of instruments and repertoire.
In addition, Mrs. Joul has her own performance group/business called Ivybrooke Strings (named after her daughter), is Principal Cellist, Personnel Manager AND Librarian of both the Rochester Symphony Orchestra and the newest orchestra in town, Symphony of the Lakes (Waterford, MI), soprano soloist with the Saint Paul's United Methodist Church Choir, judges local young artist competitions, does a lot of contracting for churches and recordings, and devotes many hours to accompanying other teachers' students at their studio recitals. In her spare time (Time??), she loves to knit, tend to her vegetable garden, and spend time with her daughter, Ivy.
Well frankly, I don't think it's so much a matter of "how", as it is "why." The answer to "how" would simply be time management, and to not overwhelm yourself with too many activities. But it's quite obvious that that's not the case for Susan.
She has a very strong drive to do everything that she does. And well.
Maybe from someone else's perspective this seems like "work." True. But it's work that she loves to do! Her great work ethic has changed very little over time. Incredibly organized and prompt, Susan has always loved being busy. It's just who she is.
Lesson 1: Figure out what you love to do (and it can be more than one thing), and commit to it. Do it well. It's very difficult to live a life where you're juggling a billion things you don't care about. Find what you value most in your life, and time management will work out on its own.
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At one point in our conversation, she talked about her persona before she gave birth to Ivy. It was made very clear that the old Susan was a much different person than the Susan now. "I was really self-centered, independent, and didn't want to be a mother. Can you believe it?"
Shocking, isn't it? 98% of the time it seems like every woman wants to have kids at some point in her life.
17 years into her marriage, one day Susan found out she was pregnant. An accident within wedlock. Her husband had always wanted a child though, so of course this was great news to him. But this significant disagreement between the two put an incredible amount of strain and stress on their marriage.
Additionally, a year before her pregnancy, she had successfully lost 128 pounds. But all of that was going to go away. All because of the baby, who she didn't even want.
She described this period as being the worst point of her entire life.
For 3 months, she had intensive morning sickness. Vomiting literally all the time. And then after a certain point, she cracked. She needed to tell somebody about what she was going through (and I don't mean just the vomiting).
It was at a gig, where she was playing with her good friend, James, a violist. And after hearing about the state she was in, he said, "Susan, everything's going to be alright." Though being the stubborn person that she was, she didn't believe him.
When Ivy was born, Susan recalled not connecting with her daughter very well. She was still resistant of this baby, but then again, she wasn't about to do anything drastic to her newborn either.
But after about a month, she finally gave in. And that's when she realized James's words rang true.
Another thing she mentioned was that raising Ivy has gradually made her grow into a more patient and loving woman. But "...not all mothers aren't meant to have children." Interesting.
Lesson 2: Everything happens for a reason. Even the things you don't think you need (and/or want) in your life, they're there to teach you something.
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We also talked about how friendship is more important than romance. But if you do find yourself getting seriously involved with someone, there needs to be both an emotional and physical attraction. It's really unfortunate that much of the media defines romance as being "love at first sight", spontaneous, fast-paced, oh and their trademark, very physical.
A tangent of that was, How do friendships come about? Why is it that we click with some but not others? At first Mrs. Joul said it has to do with dominance. I disagreed, but we did notice that in our friendship circles, our friends were mostly opposites of us personality-wise (quiet, reserved, a tag-along), but there were still some underlying things we had in common.
But then we changed our minds and thought that it might have to deal with tolerance. How much "bothering" (if you're the pessimistic or antisocial type) can you take from someone? Can you take the time to let someone in? Do you want to let that person see the real you?
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Mrs. Joul and I plan on continuing our conversation sometime next week. But in the meantime, let me know what you think! What's your take on all of this? I'm very curious to hear what you have to say.
