It's a little hard to type today since I've been practicing piano, preparing for a recital on Sunday.  I'll be playing "Your Cheating Heart" and "Cold, Cold Heart" by Hank Williams.  It's not exactly Mozart, but both songs are really fun to play in a sad bluesy country sort of way.  This is really making me understand the difficulty of constructing simple melodies and the genius of Hank Williams.

 

This will be the third recital since taking up piano at the ripe age of 37,  and I am much more nervous than my 14 year old, also on the bill.   This may be because my first two recitals were both abject failures.  I played Bach at both, and at both I lost my place in the music and froze like a deer in the headlights before somehow recalling how to play the final few measures.  There is no silence like the recital hall when the audience is holding its collective breath, wondering if the frozen preformer will finish, cry, or both. 

 

I'm usually confident speaking before audiences, but as soon as I sat at the piano to play the Bach my hands began to shake uncontrollably.  I took a deep breath and calmed myself, but I wasn't more that six measures into the piece when the notes on the page became undeciferable.  It was as if I was trying to read Chinese or Russian.  I couldn't even make sense of the written music.  

 

Not to fear, for I had planned for this contingency.  The piece was in G major and I could just resolve to the tonic, a big beautiful G major chord.  Hopefully the audience wouldn't realize that I edited out the middle eghty measures of the piece or that the piece really shouldn't be only twenty seconds long.  But just as I couldn't read the notes on the music, in my panic I couldn't find the G on the keyboard.  So I sat there in the frozen pin-drop silence staring at the ivories and hoping that lightning would strike and put me out of my misery.

 

My husband and daughters were in the audience and they told me afterwards that it was the funniest thing they had ever seen.  Apparently I started, stopped, sat in silence, started and stopped again, skipped the entire middle of the piece and somehow played the last sixteen bars after the repeat.  The audience was hugely appreciative.  The applause were quite loud.  I even smiled a huge relieved smile and bowed before the friendly audience.  I think they took pity on this terrified woman and were as relieved as I was when I finished.

 

So on Sunday I play Hank in recital.  The pieces are coming together, in fact "Your Cheating Heart" is almost memorized.  Just in case, my escape route is mapped--F major chord for "Cheating Heart," G major for "Cold, Cold."  I am confident (kind of) and excited (terrified).  And Mike, my husband, swears that for this recital he  definitely will not forget the video camera.   

This week is final exam week for my high school daughters.  I miss final exams (really!).  I liked the cramming, the all-or-nothing intensity and focus of the tests, and equally intense sense of relief after they were finally over.

 

My girls are more lassiz-faire about the exams.  They don't study, they stay up late the night before, and they ace all the exams.  They must have gotten this from their father.   And now their mother is now feeling anxiety for them.  It's all I can do to restrain myself from hovering over them and their open textbooks compelling them to cram, cram, cram.  I look at their report cards, B's and C's, and tell myself that these girls must push themselves if they are to ace their exams. 

 

Au contraire.  Apparently these girls are pacing themselves, saving their energy for the exams.  Or at least thet's their explanation.  They walk through the semester, turning in the homework when they feel like it and doing the minimum on their projects.  But they are learning, because when exam time comes around they set the curve.  And on every standardized test they score in the 99th percentile.  Last year Mara read "The Brothers Karamazov" on her own time while neglecting her English homework.

 

Yes I am frustrated.  These kids aren't me.  And I guess that makes me very lucky.       

I haven't had a perfect day since my last post, but I'm still open to one.  The problem is, the more I think about the perfect day, the more unattainable it seems.

 

I neglected to add, in my perfect day, time for writing and reading, reflection and meditation.  Thus my lack of a post in the last nine days.  I must have been devaluing this activity, writing, which helps me kep things in perspective.  And what about time to talk to my girlfriends or sister or even my mother?  That certainly helps me to stay connected, not to mention humble and grounded.

 

It seems that I was focusing on activities that would result in a perfect day.  Work, dinner, exercize, sex.  I need all of these, but I also need--is there even a word for it?  Passivities?  Time alone to reflect and measure what I take in.  I need silent time.  I need friend time.  I need time to write. 

 

Perhaps perfection is something best experienced in small doses.  Maybe perfection is the hummingbird.  Here one second and gone the next.  Or the final notes of Mozart's "Requium."  Or the end of a productive work day, a glass of wine with a dear friend, my husband's laugh, a confidence from my daughter.  Sunlight on my bare skin is perfection, as is the smell of spring rain.  A well wrought sentence, a fresh insight, an aesthetic ecstacy-- all  are as ephemerally perfect and as elusive as a rainbow or a shooting star.   

 

Be there, be open, be receptive.  Just be.  Perfection surrounds us.  We exist in this moment.  Why not live in and enjoy this moment?  Oh Carol, how naive you are!  What about the flat tire, the angry client, the deadline, the traffic jam, and the bitchy co-worker?   I do share an office with the perfectly bitchy co-worker and I have experienced a perfectly nightmarish traffic jam while driving alone to a formal dinner in a too tight dress.  Those moments are best endured and immediately forgotten.  For we will be blind to joy, beauty, and perfection if we cloud ourselves with resentment and frustration.   

 

A prefect day?  There's not enough hours in a day for it to be perfect.  A perfect week?  My hair, my husband, my work, my period, something will conspire to defeat perfection.  But a perfect moment....  I'm having one right now, thank you.   

  

One of the seminars at the Women's conference I attended suggested that we ll contemplate our "perfect day."  After all, how could we recognize whether we were experiencing a perfect day unless we actually took the time to think about and appreciate it.  I think it has something to do with living in the moment and taking nothing for granted, something I find very difficult to do.  Anyway, I'll give it a try.  Here's my perfect day:

 

I'm out of bed early enough that we can all be calm getting the girls showered, dressed, fed, and ready for school.  The girls walk to school leaving me plenty of time to shower and dress, leaving the house with great hair and wearing an outfit that makes me feel attractive.  I work productively for a few hours at the office before I go out to lunch with my husband.  After work I prepare dinner and have a meal with my entire family.  In the evening I exercize--aerobics with my girlfriend or a walk with my husband--or I practice piano.  Great sex and a good night's sleep would cap off the perfect day.

 

The seminar told us that we would be lucky to experience 15 "perfect days" in a year.  I think I would be hard pressed to have 10.  For where in my "perfect day" do the dishes get washed, the laundry or grocery shopping get done, the dry cleaning picked up, the grass cut, the girls driven to cello practice or the mall or a friend's house?  How unrealistic is this concept of "perfect day?"  Is it the isolated island in the Japanese Garden that cannot be reached and represents unattainable paradise?  Why is this exercise raising more questions than answers? 

 

Maybe the concept of a "perfect day" and the idea of living in the moment are fendementally at odds with each other.  For if I'm focused on checking off these nine steps to perfection, I run the risk on not enjoying each step.  And if I feel that I must achieve all nine steps to have a perfect day, I'm headed for disappointment.

 

At least I've taken the time to think about those individual things that make my day better.  If I exercise, make time for my husband and daughters, sleep, have sex, I'll be happier.  Especially if I enjoy each of those while they're happening.  Now if only I could feel great about my hair and outfit every day....        

 

 

 

 

Last week I attended the Biennial Conference for Women in Champaign Illinois.  At least one thousand women were at the two day conference.  One woman who had been to past conferences said that she enjoyed this year's meeting because the speakers talked about real business concerns and didn't just focus, "On how great it is to be a woman." 

 

We need get togethers of this type.  Just for us.  Something that focuses on our particular needs at work and at home.  Sometimes the seminars were full of fluff.  Fung Sui in the office.  De-stressing your life.  How to make small talk.  But most were focused and full of great information.  "Ethics in business" was surprisingly good.  "Customer oriented service" was great.  Keynote speakers included Pat Summit, Tenessee womens basketball coach, and Carolyn from Donald Trump's, "The Apprentice."

 

The best part of these conferences, aside from taking a few days off work, is the opportunity to meet women from all over the midwest.  My very social roommate met some women from Indiana who joined us for dinner and drinks and a very late Tuesday night.  I think there were a lot of bleary-eyed ladies at Wednesday's seminars.

 

It was great to turn off the cell phone for two days and do something for myself.  And being around 1000 women for two days was pretty awesome.  Of course I was so far behind when I returned to work on Thursday that I had to stay late.  Thus the lack of blog entries.  But now that I'm re-energized and de-stressed and with my fung sui in proper order I expect that the words will flow once again.       

 

 

 

        

So much to blog, so little time.  May is the month of concerts, recitals, and more concerts.  Our refrigerator is festooned with fliers and announcements for a dozen activities.  We need more magnets.  How I long for June when I can safely get my orange juice without fear of seeing a guilt inducing poster.  I forgot WHAT?!?!?!