I began attending Waldorf School in the Fall of 1989. I remember coming to school (which at this time was held at Camp Holiday Trails in little cabins) in a car pool with other kids, and being dropped off in a field at the bottom of the hill where we met our teacher. We walked through the forest and up the hill every morning, rain or shine to get to school grounds. In the winter, the soft frozen earth was always full of ice, and if you found an icy patch, you could kick it open to reveal long skinny earth icicles in clumps that looked like teeth. I also remember looking up at the sky as we walked through the cold forest, seeing the swaying branches and a few of the orange and brown leaves that still clung on in that special time between fall and winter. We would wind through the woods and up the hill, following our class teachers to the little cabins where each grade nestled in for classes in our own respective cabins. I was in 2nd grade and everything was magic. We got to build forts with stone walls in the woods between the tall trunks of trees, and pulled branches from the “stink weed” trees to make harnesses for playing games where we pretended we were horses. It was a dream world.
When the school moved to Crozet in 1991, I remember how much the world expanded! We had jungle gyms and wide open fields to run in. There was a big square of pavement that we called the blacktop where we played endless games of foursquare, dodgeball, and hopscotch. We walked to the Crozet Library each week, and on special occasions, crossed the road to eat the yummiest and most famous Crozet pizza. These were the years when Crozet was full of southern accents and nods-hello. There were no coffee shops or new neighborhood developments. Just quiet nature and blue sky.
I started to learn the violin the year the school moved to Crozet. I began with string orchestra class and group lessons. It was a squeaky, and sometimes painfully out of tune, adventure, but I loved it. I started practicing — a lot — and by 8th grade I won the solo at our end of year concert. I went on to attend Charlottesville High School, playing violin under the direction of Laura Thomas, and then on to James Madison University, graduating cum laude from the School of Music with a Bachelor of Music.
In 2011 I came back to Waldorf when I walked through the doors of the Washington Waldorf School in Bethesda, Maryland, as the teacher for the lower and middle school string orchestra. Over the 10 years I taught at the school, I helped build the strings classes, with the help of my colleagues, into a healthy and thriving program. I found my love of teaching there, learning how to see the individual child, and meet their needs and unique learning styles.
Thinking back on my journey as a student and as an adult in this big wide world, I have come to the realization that it was there, in Crozet, Virginia, in the little music room off the side entrance to the auditorium, where I found my love for music and started my career as a violinist and music teacher. Waldorf School shaped me into a person who still wonders at beauty and stands guard over truth… get the reference? …and finds joy and meaning in the small things.
I am grateful to Charlottesville Waldorf for the gentle moulding of my being into someone who has the courage to follow my heart and follow my dreams.
I currently teach violin and viola remotely online from the west coast of Mexico, where I am pursuing my other passions of travel, surfing, nature, and dance. You can catch me back in town occasionally playing violin in local concerts, teaching private lessons, or working at the Charlottesville coffee shop Shenandoah Joe’s.
