Hello JSC Community!
This is Lynn speaking! I did the first blog post back in August (gosh, can you believe how time has flown), so I have tons of stuff to talk about! The focus, though, of this blog post is going to be my journey into integrating with Durham.
For those who don’t know, I’m originally from Fairfax, VA (just south of DC, and very much in that megacity). This is my first time living outside of Virginia, and I had never really been to North Carolina before I moved here. I mean, I’d driven through, but that does not count in the slightest according to absolutely everyone I had told that I had been there but stayed in the car. This led to some major changes, having to learn new roads, new “hot spots”, and new activities to participate in. Overall, a lot of newness, though this month I feel like I was finally settling into Durham (hence why I’m writing the post!)
First, I finally have a rhythm with my fun activities. I have been a musician all my life (literally, my mother put me in a choir when I was 3), and my goal was to find places where I could play (I play clarinet) and sing. Since September, I’ve been playing as a 3rd clarinetist in the Durham Community Concert band, and they just wrapped up their spring concert (time to start prepping for Band Fest!). For the past 3 months, I’ve finally been able to join a choir. I started attending St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in November, but in January I finally worked up the courage to talk to the choir director and join. Although I thought I was an alto when I joined, this month we figured out I’m a soprano and I was moved to that part. The final music thing I didn’t know I was missing was some fun improv work. Through JSC, an alumnus of the program got in touch with me and invited me to play at a Taize service at the United Church of Chapel Hill (Thanks Jack, please invite me back in the fall!). I have had my plate full with music, but I also got to finally show off Durham this month too.
My mother came and visited Durham at the beginning of the month. This was preceded by my panic asking every single person I knew what we could do. What we ended up doing was some hiking at the Eno River State Park, which was such a joy, then spending a day at the Museum of Life and Science (I cannot believe I hadn’t checked that out before, so dang cool), and on the last day seeing a production of Jekyll and Hyde. It was so awesome to be able to show off the best of Durham to someone who also had never been there before.
Overall, this month showed me what a great community and city JSC has introduced me to. It was such a fun month, I can’t wait to do it all again in April!