Does it ever get any easier?

I have been asking this question since college. Life just seems to get more and more complicated, and I keep thinking that there must come a time when things sit still and get simpler. Right? Uhhh... maybe not.

It's not that I don't like what I'm doing right now -- teaching is good; I wish my high school students were a little less out to lunch, and I wish the keyboards at City College actually worked, and that there were enough of them for all the students, but other than that it's not so bad. What makes me miserable is... I don't know, my own lack of time management skills, or something. I feel chronically unprepared. But I feel like no matter how much time I spend preparing, it's still not enough.

Of course, the real dark, deep, shameful truth is, my heart is not 100% in my work these days. I see it as a way to earn money to pay for my wedding. That's about it. Musicians are supposed to be 150% passionate about their work all the time, they're supposed to love every minute of it and not even care if they get paid! Well, I'm sorry to have to say that sometimes it's a grind, like anything else. If I didn't have to work right now... well, I still would work some anyway, but I'd probably cut out half of what I'm doing. And yes, I feel guilty about that. But I just can't do it all. I don't want to anymore.

The Life and Times of a Hack Pianist

I'm listening to the recording of the recital that my tenor friend and I gave last weekend (exactly 1 week ago!). The very first section of the very first piece was really hard for me, and it sounds pretty rough on the recording. God, I hate orchestral reductions! Hate them, hate them, hate them!

Anyway, there were some really nice moments in the recital -- quite a few, actually. Then there are a few places where, I have to admit, I hosed it up pretty good.

Over the past few years I have been doing a TON of accompanying -- mostly choral accompanying, and mostly in pretty low-stress settings. I've gotten so used to playing in front of people that I hardly get nervous anymore. In fact, I think I'm a little too relaxed in front of an audience. I have gotten a bit sloppy. One problem is that I'm paid by the hour for rehearsals and performances, but NOT for my own individual practice time. I schedule as many hours as I can in order to make something resembling a living, and the result: very little practice! I spend more time rehearsing and performing than practicing, for sure! That can only have a negative effect on a person's technique.

I didn't get serious enough soon enough about preparing for this recital. It has been sooo long since I gave one, that I was unclear on the concept. I could have gotten pretty terrified down toward the end there, but I kept reminding myself to relax, breathe, and enjoy playing. I knew it wouldn't be perfect; I no longer pressure myself to be perfect. I feel it's an accomplishment that I got through it without any major trainwrecks.

Overall, I'm really glad I did this, because next time I'll know what to do to prepare. Like I said, I won't be a neurotic perfectionist, but I would like to challenge myself to be more polished and more on top of things sooner. Now I know how to do that. I am actually a very good musician... I just spend too much time doing the musical equivalent of waiting tables. But as of June 2007, no more!

After having turned a corner

I was in a weird place when I started this blog. Lots of confusing emotions. The blog quickly became a place I turned to when I needed to vent frustration and process the confusion. So the fact that it has been 7 weeks since my last post indicates that things have been going very well!

And they have. I'm engaged and I'm very happy. That doesn't make life perfect, and there's still plenty to process. But this doesn't need to be my little confessional corner so much anymore. Now it can just be a place to record my thoughts and reflections, because I don't want to lose them. Today I was going over the timeline of my relationship with B, trying to remember exactly when certain things happened, and I wasn't sure. That's when I said to myself, "I really need to journal more regularly, because there are memories I don't want to lose.

So to start, here's a brief history of me and B:

Nov. 2005: Email correspondence begins.
Dec. 2005: We plan to meet for brunch the day after Christmas, but I cancel after reconciling with the LB; email correspondence suspended.
April 2006: I email again, post breakup from LB, hoping B won't tell me to piss off; he responds positively
April 30: First in-person meeting, for brunch and a walk on the beach. I decline to call it a date.
May 21: Another brunch non-date.
June 3: Dinner and another oceanside stroll. B asks if he could hold my hand, I say yes. I consider this our first real date, though I didn't say so. Still in grief mode.
June 15: B sends me email declaring his intention to "court" me.
June 23: Our first official date -- dinner and dancing. He takes forever to kiss me but finally does.
Late June/early July: B wants to spend his summer break with me. I get overwhelmed, freak out, and send him home, but invite him back later. I feel like it's too much too soon. I'm so used to being neglected and taken for granted that I mistake genuine caring for smothering; I panic and almost sabotage it. B keeps his cool.
Mid to late July: I get over it.
August: we start looking at rings and talking about where he'll apply for residency programs. B decides to switch specialties from OB-GYN to Emergency Medicine, partially in response to my concern that I'll never see him if he's an OB.
September 8: We get engaged!

It's really strange, some days I feel like time is speeding by, and other days it seems to crawl. It seems like we've been engaged for more than just 3 weeks. And it certainly seems like we've known each other longer than 5 months. Everything else that's going on makes the weeks fly by; on the other hand I can't wait til June, when we'll marry, move, and start a new life.

Entreaty

What is it, my soul?
What unhealed grief
holds you hostage?
Pours concrete
where you would sow seeds?

Why do you hide from light
and shrink from joy?
Love calls your name,
but sleep remains your refuge

Where did you learn
that trust is for the weak
whom the strong betray?

Alone so you can't be abandoned
Lost so you've nothing to lose
Drinking poison for the hope of immunity
Wearing thorns so no pain can shock

But listen, weary one,
tearful girl,
there's no more safety in darkness than in light
and yes, love carries loss in its shadow
But just as all things die,
life begins, and begins again
for you
fear or no fear
you are safe
and the way out
is forward

On the Shore

“Go to the beach,
Go there alone and listen.”
Something in me resisted
As sometimes we revel in our stuckness
Cling to our burdens while cursing their weight
But the heat spurred me

At the first shiver of a spent wave at my feet,
I wanted to wade, let the saltwater bathe my skin
But even more
I wanted to walk
As far, as fast as I could
At the edge, where calf-deep water couldn't slow me

Walking stirred what had been stagnant
Love, anger, desire, confusion
layered like sedimentary rock
Running from something
Deluding myself that I knew
what I was running toward

I watched a man
lean over to take the hand of his tiny daughter
who feared the tide
Something broke open inside me
Recalling myself as that little girl
daunted by the sea's immensity
Envisioning myself as her protector
If I could find my way

I walked until an inlet blocked me
watched it deepen with the tide
wanted to jump in, swim across, walk on
to be stranded on the other side
Waves pooled at my knees,
as a man waded past me
to the waist, the chest, the shoulders
then looked back and waved

I turned around.

I wanted to walk
I was not yet ready
to cross.

Appetite

When we miss someone, what do we really miss?
The person, or
How we feel with them?
My God, how we use people.
As pacifiers
security blankets
pain relievers
vanity mirrors
vibrators
We are animate lumps of appetite
Barely held back from
eating ourselves and each other alive.

One Year Ago Today

One year ago today
On the beach on Coronado island
We lay side by side on the sand
With tears of joy and emotion in your eyes
You said to me:
"I've realized
that I'm very much in love with you
and I hope to be on this beach with you
next 4th of July."

You are a liar.

I don't know if you were lying then,
or later when you said the things
I wish I could forget.
I don't think you know the truth yourself.
I know I'll never understand.

You don't know what love is.
You know nothing
of commitment
of compassion
of consideration
You know only how to gratify yourself.
You care for nothing but your own immediate comfort.

I wasted my love on the desert of your empty heart
And now my heart is barren
I was blinded by your shallow beauty
And my vision is still poisoned.

I want to wash my heart clean
I want to burn you out of my mind
So that one year from today
One year ago today
Will have no hold on me.

Temper Tantrums

As children, we beg and whine
wail and cry
hold our breath, pout, stomp down the hallway
slam the door to our room

But when we grow up
We learn to be polite
we find other ways
we numb ourselves
Drink, drugs, food, sex, work.
We still throw the tantrums
But in slow motion
In the thousand little ways we flagellate ourselves
In the thousand little slights and hurts we hurl
at whoever is nearby

We are still children
aching, disappointed
stunned to find cruelty where we expected comfort
Returning to look for it
again and again.

What's my fucking problem?

Why the resistance? Why is it so hard for me to get myself to do what needs to be done? Am I not eating enough Powdermilk Biscuits? I get so tired of fighting with myself. Is my brain just shot through like swiss cheese from too many years of depression? Why can't I just be a good girl?

I don't know what to do with this feeling I'm having. It's an ache, a tingling in the pit of my stomach... I miss someone, I'm not even sure who, maybe someone I've not yet met. There's a candidate or two, but I can't yet say for sure. I'm not fooling around anymore, I'm playing for keeps, so it's not as simple as just picking up the phone to quell this longing. I'm just now getting used to being with myself, being content on my own, but the feeling of wanting something more creeps back in automatically and without warning.