I spent the week arranging silence, then the budget folks drowned it

Cut an interlude down to a single held breath across the whole orchestra — just the clarinets, and barely them. Rehearsal went so quiet you could hear the ceiling hum. Then Thursday's budget meeting came in hot and I've been defending thirty seconds of nothing ever since. Somewhere between the spreadsheet line items and the third clarinet seat war, I forgot that the rest is part of the music too. Sometimes I think the whole job is just protecting the empty spaces.