Highways of thought

It's easier to say this when I'm resting in the middle of a vacation than when I'm zooming around in the middle of my typically hectic life...but I'm finding lately that I have more control over the highways of thought I take than I once thought I did.
Let me explain.

Highways are different. Anyone who's driven across Kansas knows that feeling of forever, endlessness...great distance. The only feeling of forever one can get while traversing Staten Island is Traffic Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. (Note: if you need backroads, I've got them all!) To go east on Long Island from my hometown, you can take the Northern State or the LIE; one of them prohibits trucks and is filled with gentle curves while the other one is tractor-trailer heaven. Each highway has its own character.

So too do our lane choices in highways. I used to be a right lane driver. I was scared that I was in the way of other cars, and since I was cautious and slower, I clinged to the right. I marveled at the bustling left-lane drivers and felt my anxiety rise when I knew I had to make a left lane exit. Nowadays, I've learned that tonking along in the right lane is actually not so safe, because merging traffic at the highway entranceways can get confused about deciding whether to race in front of me or get frustrated about waiting until I pass. I'm also a lot more comfortable driving than before, and so the middle lane is just right for me.

Why oh why oh why am I going on so about this? I understand if you're wondering why, too. The answer is apparent: a metaphor is found along this highway road.
These highway concepts can parallel my emotions and attitudes.

There's more than one route to get to a destination. In the past, I have often got all caught on one congested cranky road of thought and haven't seen any exit in sight. Over the past decade or so, I've learned to change my thoughts, opt into happier highways, and therefore remain positive. In the stress of selling the house, though, and in the stress of fighting insurance companies, sometimes I lost sight of the fact that I didn't have to get so worked up over the tension of a situation. I felt like I was stuck in traffic and I needed to be somewhere else (ten minutes ago!) and I lacked the sense of patience to just look out the windows and see all the other people in the world with me. Or I pressured myself into a fast lane when I really was more at ease in a slow lane, because I told myself I *should* be able to handle it.

I'm realizing that we have more choice about the emotional highways we take and the lanes we choose within the highways.

I hope I can remember this when I'm out of the laze of vacation and into the craze of my real life!

The Tides: Sunset

One December Afternoon
One Sunset
One Minute of Photos
One Ocean
One Me
One Memory to share

Broken Chords

In my gentle procrastination (also known as rest!) of this vacation, I cuddled up in bed with a young adult novel this evening: Broken Chords by Barbara Snow Gilbert. Immediately, I was entranced by the voice and life experiences of the story's protagonist. This coming-of-age tale is about a musical prodigy who is preparing for the audition of her lifetime (one that would earn her a full scholarship to Juilliard) and who, in the process, wonders what she is sacrificing for her art, and wonders if having the talent is enough when the passion is missing. It is a book about self-definition and of not keeping on a path just because it's the one you've always walked. It's also about the complexity of parenting and teaching relationships. Needless to say, I gobbled it up...and loved it.

There was a point when I had the passion to be a music major. I yearned to be one. I begged to be one. I cried and whined and fought because I could not.

My parents reasons were...well, reasonable. I had just been struggling from tendinitis and was required to severely limit my viola playing. That alone was a reason. They also wanted me to have a more certain/stable career. I've never been great at being flexible, and any artist's lifestyle requires a certain tolerance for insecurity and uncertainty. My parents knew me...

My arguments were strong, too. It killed me that people with less musical know-how than I were being allowed to follow their musical dreams. As a composer or as a music teacher, I would not need to play viola for long hours, and my piano playing was barely affected by the pain. I was also learning to pace myself better and to listen to my body's signals before the pain was unbearable.

One maddening blow that I experienced was when I met with a music professor from Hofstra (Mom's school, and one in which I had played the viola for the college orchestra even as a ninth grader). This little man refused to hear me play to see if I could be considered as a transfer student or a post-graduate student (just attending for the music classes after I had my degree.) He said, and I quote loosely, that "Sure, there are thousands of students who tinkered with the piano who think they can be music majors." He contended that if I didn't want it badly enough as a senior in high school, I wouldn't want it enough later in life. I was enraged!

The end result was my graduating from college early--and then choosing to walk the path I had chosen (language teaching) to see how it suited me, before possibly making further career changes.

My grown-up life speaks for itself. I never majored in music. But music is forever. I play always. I learn and grow and create always. Not having a degree in it hasn't prevented me from taking college and graduate level courses in music or in music theory and composition. It hasn't stood in the way of my music directing or teaching piano, and I certainly have made lots of chamber music over the years. Just as my main music education as a child was in private homes, my grown up music apprenticeships have been outside of the academy.

I am not a perfect musician. (Does such a thing exist?) My technique is a weakness--and my shtumpig fingers are only partly an excuse. My sightreading is a strength, as is my musicality and overall interpretation. I am grateful that I can always follow my bliss in music rather than being held up to an external standard of how things should be.

Spoiler alert for the novel that prompted this post:
The novel I read today ends with the protagonist's decision to back away from her concert pianist dreams and potential...and in so doing, she (temporarily at least) backs away from music altogether. I hope that long after the scope of the story she feels music's magnetic pull and comes home to it in a non-competitive sense. I can't imagine my world without the home that music provides me.

Mysterock

Over Thanksgiving, I returned to our old Vermont house, and thus to Tagawott. In every person's childhood, there is a point when it is evident that childhood will end. One could argue that this precise moment of realization is the end of Childhood. For me, childhood was a topic of glorification for many long and conflicted years (conflicted yet happy ones?)...and just at that cusp of realization is when I made a sacred place out of the woods in Vermont. With respect to Terabithia and Idlewild, I named the "rooms" of the forest, and this boulder, Mysterock, was my first forest landmark. I wrote many diary entries there. I cried many tears there. I lingered there at sunsets and rushed out to sit there (despite the dew!) on vacation mornings.

So much has changed in the woods around our Vermont cabin, but Mysterock remains. It was good to be back in November!

The Fire

I chose the fire photo for my title page on the blog because fire can seem ephemeral and yet one flame ignites the next and our lives continue with the warmth and light that has been passed down to us, the same warmth and light that I try to keep passing on. Each flame, each fire's dance, is different but the serenity of sitting by a fireplace and staring at the sparks is constant.

So too it is with music. I have played many different pieces on many different pianos...and I have played certain songs a billion times in different situations. (My favorites to play again and again are Schubert's Impromptu Op. 142 No 2, Beethoven's Rondo from the Pathetique, Chopin's Nocturne in E Flat Major and Grieg's Anitra's Dance.) The comfort or joy I find in the music is constant, even though my mood or the situation may vary.

Again, so to it is with life. The seasons come and go. I am sad at the loss's time has brought, and grateful for the gains I have encountered with growth and new friendships. This year, at the holiday celebrations, there were more babies... I missed my grandparents and my sister, and yet felt them very much with me, within me... I still revelled in my friendships and the needed rest time. I still curled up late in bed with a book. I'm still thrilled to have a few days of peace before the hubbub of my life continues! This is what December-time means to me...year after year. Variations on a Theme!

A New Blog

My old blog, Music is Change, really seemed to guide me, or even push me, into a new era. The blog saw me through three deaths of people close to me and entreated me to go beyond my old school district and my old town. The blog got me back to writing for myself again...and then...I abandoned it.
Over vacation, several friends asked me "What happened to your blog?" That surprised me, and yet stimulated me to try again.

Yes, music is change. Now I live in a new house. Where I once yearned for privacy in order to grow, now I have the community and convenience that is appropriate for this era of life. Now I teach in a new school. While once I was comfortable as "Senorita", I now thrive with the challenge and potential impact of teaching middle school gifted students. Music is change...and yet, music is constance. I still play piano all the time, and am more comfortable conducting than I used to be. I'm excited about the upcoming show that I'll be music directing, Tintypes. And most of my closest friendships are still linked in some way to music. Music is change, but music is forever.

I don't know what era of life this blog will lead me to, but I hope that I will enjoy the journey that it takes with me!