I began hosting Women’s HeartSong circles online for the first time in April 2020. My laptop had been around for a few years but had been upgraded and it had 8 GB of RAM. However, I wasn’t able to get it wired into the internet in the room where I sing and the signal for wifi in our home was unreliable. Many of the circles I hosted online would freeze or drop off, sometimes repeatedly. Challenging, especially added to the differences between singing in person vs online.
Being human, I put off doing anything about the wifi as long as I could, but finally, I’d had enough. I went through all the steps to confirm the problem was indeed the wifi, including talking to an electrician who assured me that if it wasn’t working, the modem was probably faulty. Then I had to all but get on my knees to convince Telus to come and replace our modem with one that worked.
Now, our all-in-one computers are only 6 years old, but I am 48 years old, so I took exception to the idea that 6 years were too old. Telus insisted that our wifi was fine, but clearly, in our experience, it was not! Eventually Telus came. They tested the modem and the wifi speeds. They convinced us that it was our devices (specs) and not the wifi but kindly replaced the modem anyway and re-tested to give us peace of mind. Even so, the problems persisted.
Eventually, logic overrode the feeling of being irked at the idea that our devices were “old”. I gave in, decided to just go with the flow and ordered a laptop and a computer with a monitor. LOTS OF RAM. Better wifi capabilities. Once we had things sorted out and tested the devices, sure enough, the wifi tested strongly – success!
My husband cautioned me to test out Zoom the next day before the circle I’d be hosting that evening.
I enlisted one of my regular members to help me test and it turned out it was a very good thing we did. Never assume electronics will do what they are supposed to! (My mother swears electronics are run by evil gremlins.) The microphone and video weren’t working. I double checked the specs, they most definitely said there was a microphone and I could clearly see the camera at the top of the monitor. I couldn’t figure it out so I called Lenovo. The techie there told me I required a special cable for the camera and microphone to work. This was 5 hours before the evening’s circle and I was starting to feel a little panicky. The idea of ‘going with the flow’ was getting stretched really thin at this point!
I told the techie about the extra cable that came with the monitor, which my husband had said I didn’t need – “it’s redundant”. The techie said that wasn’t the cable anyway, that I needed a different cable, which he kept trying to describe to me. I asked him to send me a link to show a specific picture and the name, hoping that by some miracle they carried it at the nearby dollar store. He asked me to Google the name, but when I did, there were a lot of different items coming up in the search and none seem to be the one he was talking about – until, “gasp!” I saw it and it WAS the same type of cable I already had! Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! Thank ya, Jesus! I’m almost ready to genuflect. Now we can finish testing. Sweet! All is well. Back to going with the flow.
Circle began. I like to begin with a few minutes of dancing to get us present and into our bodies. I clicked play on Spotify on my computer as I always do, but there was no response from the group. They couldn’t hear it. It hadn’t occurred to us to check this aspect. I spend the next 15 minutes trying everything suggested, thanking the powers that be that the newly signed up member hadn’t make it that night to witness this latest challenge. In the end, I finally had to give up on dancing. ☹
Then Zoom booted me out of the call. Seriously???
I got back in to the call. A couple of regular members joined late, one of them just as we were getting started with rest of the circle. Aww, they’d missed all the fun.
By this time I was worried because I had a whole outline planned and we were already 20 minutes late getting started. I’ve learned not to rush things though, that I have to let them go sometimes, no matter what I have planned. Back to ‘go with the flow’ yet again.
It so happened that the songs I’d chosen to use for the first night of the new series of circles were ones the members all remembered well, we happily warbled through them faster than I could have imagined. I ended up with at least 20 minutes to fill before it was time to begin closing the circle. That had never happened before.
So I opened up the circle by inviting suggestions or song requests. I received one song request and one member who wanted to share a short song she’d created as part of a project she was helping her daughter with (she hadn’t written a song before.) She’d also been teaching herself how to play the ukulele. So she played the ukulele and taught us her lovely song. What a delightful blessing! It wasn’t only her creation, but having her lead us in a song and playing the ukulele, all of which was outside of her comfort zone, that made it all the sweeter to the rest of us. I led the circle in the requested song and before I knew it, it was time to start closing the circle, as if we’d planned it that way.
The closing was easy, perfect, and felt lovely.
I received a text later that evening from the member who’d arrived last to the circle “That was my favourite circle of all, so far!”
I had to laugh and shake my head. I smiled with gratitude.
All’s well that ends well.
The whole episode was a clear and gentle reminder that it’s okay to let go of plans when things aren’t working out and go with the flow. In actuality, it’s the absolute best thing to do.
Look at the magic that happens!
With
Love,
Light,
Laughter, and
HeartSong