A Festival Of The Soul

It's Thanksgiving Day and I'm enjoying a day of rest.   Most of us are starting to gear up for the holidays and after the festivities of the day, will rush right into Black Friday.  I have friends who have already decided to put up their christmas tree.

I almost did.

I've been preparing for my Portraits of White concert for so long now that I feel like putting up a tree is too miniscule.  My insides have dug so deep into reflection that the little plastic tree I normally put up seems fake and trite. The makeover of my soul through this process seems to call for a complete makeover of my decorations too....but that won't be happening. I wouldn't even know how to express my soul in the way of ornaments and trees.

My decorations will show up in every note, lyric and thought presented on the night of December 12. It will be a festivity of the soul guised in the garb of music.

I've been practicing for months, but mistakes never disappear it seems. They are like little gophers that pop up out of their hole at the most unexpected times. As soon as I get one conquered, another appears. My mode of retaliation is to "hammer down" - a pun that fits the grand piano well.

It always puzzles me how a person can work so hard and long on something and still have it go awry. Like a skater who's jumped perfectly thousands of times but falls during a competition.

I experienced that recently at one of my concerts. In the midst of a piece I've played countless times, I completely lost my way.  The only payoff in practicing, in that moment, was that I pulled myself together and kept going.  The ability to keep going was my only success in that moment. Or at least it felt like it.

I walked away feeling like a complete failure. One hour of music - lyrics remembered and all, but all I could think about was the 5 seconds of faltering.

I'm reading a book right now that a singer friend recommended.  I knew the instant she told me about it that I needed to read it...and SOON.  It arrived last week. Today I'm reading it and I feel like I've visited a doctor who has been able to prescribe medicine that will relieve my pain and I thought you might like it too.

It doesn't matter if you are a musician or not - the tendency to remember the ONE mistake you made over any successes you had is common to all of us.  The writer tells of a cello student she had who was quick to point out his own mistakes but never mentioned when he did well. He considered any good performance an "accident".

She encouraged him to speak his successes out loud, not just his mistakes.   He went on to tell his teacher, "I guess I feel that way about a lot of stuff in my life. I sort of shrug off all my successes but get preoccupied with possible failures. Pretty dumb, isn't it?"

I stopped right at that paragraph and put my book down. I reflected on the recent "failure" where I lost my way in a song. All I could remember from that night was the 5 seconds of disarray. I gave about an hour concert and everything else went very well.  In fact, there were moments when I felt like I was giving some of the best delivery ever.  But I don't remember those moments now...or at least I didn't until I read of another human being's struggle to remember the successes.

I'm thankful for this reminder to focus in on the good things. The successes, the opportunities, the blessings we have been given. I suppose that's what this day is really all about.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Tracing The Marks

Skaters make marks on the ice with the edges of their blades. The ones pictured above came from a skater who showed up one morning and focused solely on one particular jump.

I've watched coaches trace the marks in front of their students to point out the fault in their attempt at accomplishing some feat on the ice.  My coach has done it to me.  When I was learning the "three turn" weeks ago, I couldn't figure out why on earth they call it that.  It seemed more like one because you start out facing one direction and end up facing the opposite all on one foot.   When I asked him, he simply said "because when you do a three turn, it makes the figure 3 on the ice".  I went back out on the ice and did a three turn and sure enough, I had created the number 3.

Thus began my lessons in "figure skating".  You can tell what you've done by the marks you leave on the ice, good and bad.

What kind of marks are you leaving by the life you live?

I have watched a mother yell so loudly at her child (from the side of the rink) that even I could hear what was being said.  "We pay a lot of money for you to do this.  Every minute you waste is money wasted.  Now get out there and skate if this is what you really want to do."  My heart sank.  I could see his little spirit crumble and he barely skated in response to her reprimand.  Even I felt ashamed and I wasn't the one being rebuked.

Now it's not that I don't think children (or adults for that matter) don't need encouragement to do better and an understanding of the cost of something they want to pursue, but the little guy is only 9 years old and shaming him in front of everyone doesn't seem to be the way to go.  What kind of marks is she making on his little soul, I wonder?

I determined that I would try to encourage him whenever I can.  Living on the edge (my new theme these days) has spread further than just putting on ice skates.  I want to be a cheerleader to the other skaters, especially the young ones.  I found the courage one day to tell him he was doing great when our eyes met as we passed on our way around the rink.  I asked him if he had a competition coming up and he quickly perked up and said he just had one and he placed second!  I congratulated him and made a big deal over it.  He beamed and his eyes seemed to sparkle with pride.

We have the ability to leave marks in the souls of other people.  I want to be a person who says the kinds of things that leave good marks.  You might not think that what you are saying means much, but somewhere down the road, someone will point to the marks that were left by something you said. Make it something worth noting!