with these broken wrists i have moved from a whole rest to a quarter rest. i have made progress playing my piano and my broken-wrists have told me when to be silent. in the silence the earth keeps spinning, we trek around the sun, everything keeps keeping on. but for a moment, i rest.
we are each granted rests upon entrance into this orchestra-of-earth. sometimes they are chosen, sometimes they are not. always they are necessary. it is in your quiet that others make noise, that others speak, that other timbres color the muted. the hush is yours to own; the rest is yours to take. the silence both sometimes frighteningly deafening and sometimes a grand relief. the metronome really never stops.
(a reprise of paragraphs from 8.13.2015 post): at 1am, we walked to the lakefront. away from as many lights as we could get away from, we laid on some old steps, bricks and mortar digging into our backs so that we could gaze straight up, watching the night sky for the meteor shower.
the streaks of white light across navyblueblack make us draw in our breath. i’m wondering how far away this meteor is…how it is that we, here on earth, can see this amazing sight. such a big sky. such tiny bodies in contrast lying on the ground, waiting for the symphony to start, waiting for the downbeat, the symphony that has been continuously playing, the downbeat lost in centuries upon centuries of time gone by. like any good piece of music, it’s the rests in-between the notes, the rests in-between the meteorstreaks, that build the anticipation, that create the emotionflow, that bring tears to your eyes. each burst, each streak of whitelight is a miracle, a tiny moment exploding in time, so far away, in vast vastness.
time stretches out in front of us. and behind us. we are tiny and we are big. we gather in the moments, we breathe them, we rejoice, we worry, we ponder, we move. there is no downbeat and the symphony is already playing, has been playing and will continue to play. always. it is magical. and it is vast.
i don’t feel as much in-a-boat as i feel that i am relentlessly treading water. but there was no handy treading-water bitmoji and i remember the exact moment that this bitmoji showed up on my snapchat mapping…in the middle of a lot of treading.
treading, treading. guessing at why what-is-happening is happening – in wide concentric circles around us, tightly close to us.
and today, both valentine’s day and d’s birthday, i want to express gratitude for this man who is standing in the water with me – waves crashing over us, undertow threatening to pull us down, riptide ever present – and holding my fiberglass-cast-encased hand. the person who is equally as perplexed at this time, who takes turns with me being alternatively flabbergasted, philosophical and soberingly pragmatic.
he continues to zip my jacket, buckle my seatbelt, paste my toothbrush, carry my music, pepper-mill my breakfast and dinner, put the ernie straw in my coffee. he has learned the fine points of where-on-the-head to place hair conditioner, how best to tie plastic bags on my arms, what stool will work best at the piano, which wine glass i can pick up at the end of a day. he has watched me learn how to hold mascara with two hands and pull up girl jeans by the belt loops. he has been treading water with me as we look to the horizon.
maybe this watershed is the thing that elicits change. at the end of 2019 i could feel it coming. and i can now, with all authority and certainty, say that the change is not that i will, smack dab in the middle of middle-age, become a professional snowboarder. nope. but there may truly be things out there i just didn’t see or consider. perhaps the things that are vexing us, stunning us, deeply disappointing us, are just the things that will propel us. ah, if that just didn’t feel so pollyanna-ish.
this life is bigger than anyone can ever live it. that includes us. treading water in the watershed might be a time that forces dynamic change. like everyone, i wish i had some prescient inkling of what’s-out-there, what-will-happen.
my perceived lack of control is maybe a misperception. maybe that which has taken away control is conversely granting control, granting the creativity that comes with grabbing onto flotsam and jetsam in a sea that seems to be swirling. maybe the grasping-at-straws is grasping-at-ernie, a touchstone that seems flimsy and unimportant, but which actually is grounding, rooting, and gives voice to more solid footing, less wave-action, more direction-choosing.
the watershed is here. moment by moment we stare at it. we roll our eyes, we yell at the angst-y details, we shake our heads in confusion, we stop and stand still and, yet hyperventilating from treading, we wonder. we try to breathe, to center, to be in the eye of the storm.
holding hand-cast, we look forward and we guess that this ain’t the last watershed on the horizon.
download WATERSHED from AS IT IS on iTUNES or CDBaby
two broken wrists. there’s not much that can stop me, but two broken wrists has done it.
it is profound what you do in daily living with at least one hand. really everything. this is my fourth day on this hand-less journey and i know there’s a long road ahead. i am not a good patient and the inability to perform the simplest of tasks has been world-stopping. i had to teach david how to ‘properly’ wipe my mouth, put on girl jeans, comb out wet hair. he has to hold my coffee cup (and yes, a wine glass or two) with the infamous sesame street ernie straw, feed me every bite, help me sit up from laying down, open doorknobs, pick up my cellphone so i can voice activate it, wipe my tears as i cry in frustration. the list goes on and is only limited to your imagination.
i wanted to have a tiny window into my beautiful daughter’s world. My Girl tells me lots of coaching and instructing stories from her high mountain snowboarding career, but i have never stepped on a snowboard. i wanted to physically experience the board under my feet, even a tiny grasp of how she feels. so we have planned for a long time to take a lesson and surprise her with our tale.
this week was wisconsin ski and snowboard week and for a mere $29 you could purchase lift tickets, rental equipment and a group lesson. it seemed perfect.
and for an hour and twenty minutes it was. a really difficult sport, we stood on boards and managed to learn the slightest of skills. until that little girl on skis was in front of me downhill just a bit. not really well-versed at turning and, clearly, less versed on stopping, i worked to avoid her. the stop and the fall were simultaneous. tailbone down i clearly put out my hands to help my fall, the first do-not-do-this rule. instinct took over; reflexes prevailed. that was step one in this two-broken-wrists tale, this whole rest.
four days ago i took for granted every little thing my hands (and arms) did for me. i could play the piano at any given moment, grab a pencil and jot a lyric, readjust the bench, open the blinds and let the sun into the studio. today the studio is dark, the piano quiet, the pencils waiting.
instead, moment by moment i am aware of every move i make, every single thing i need assistance with. i work each day to gain one more tiny ability. we have slowed down to a crawl and are abiding in each minute, one by one. i appreciate david’s help beyond mere gratitude or words; his commitment to my every-single-movement is humbling. our friends and family have reached out with offers of meals, company, words of encouragement and vast amounts of humor. we are right here in this very moment. presence defined.
i wonder about my piano. i know that my right hand in a hard fiberglass cast is on hiatus. i think that maybe my left hand, which is in a hard splint, might have a beensy chance at a few notes, regardless of the ensuing pain. when i was 19 i broke three fingers on my left hand slammed in a steel church door. they were splinted but i was fending for myself making a living for college as a musician and so i relentlessly started playing with those fingers anyway. this too-early-in-the-healing-process-playing prevented full healing, so i am cautious now. the piano is a part of my soul and so i honor the process of getting-back.
in the meanwhile, in the way that only the universe understands, after these last months, i seem to have needed a reminder of being loved and cared for, a reminder of attending to ‘now’ with no dreaded worry of ‘next’, a reminder of what’s truly important.
barney is in our backyard. he is holding clay pots with our herb garden and some beautiful white impatiens. there are a few candles in glass jars. and he is perfect.
i’m not sure i ever thought that someday i would have a piano in my backyard. barney is a very old upright. about a hundred years old, he is tired and worn from long years, decades even, spent in a basement boiler room, but i can see the life in him as the sun hits him. never ever would i have imagined the idea of wild geranium growing up around a piano tucked into a bed of day lilies, just a few feet away from our little pond. never would i have imagined the idea of water getting on a piano, without dashing to wipe it off. it rained yesterday and i had to fight the urge to run outside and wrap my arms around him. barney’s new life is to feel loved and not ignored, appreciated and smiled at and not relegated to a dark, piano-inappropriate place. he was slated for the scrap dealer.
each morning since his arrival i have gone outside and thanked him for all his good work in the world. i am grateful to have a spot for him to rest. he looks proud. and he truly looks happy.
i really am an acoustic girl. my big yamaha grand has a studio of its own. my growing-up-spinet has a spot in our basement (not an easy place to move it to in this old house.) barney has a place in the backyard.
and so here i am…inside the theatre, watching the setup….but this time it isn’t for a concert…it is for a play – ‘the lost boy’ – opening its world premiere performance in california. (oh, did i mention it is sunny and warm here?)
i was just sitting outside (did i mention it is sunny and warm here?) hand-sewing one of the costume fragments for this play. david is inside with some techs painting the platform. i am running lines in my head. it’s not unlike running my music in my head, and yet it’s totally not like running my music in my head. when you are the composer, you have a bit of a free-rein option (eh…who am i kidding? you have a lot of free-rein.) when you aren’t the playwright, you…umm…don’t.
this process has been…interesting for me. this play is an interpretive storytelling…a story of legacy with poignant moments as well as comedic moments. now, as a performing artist i am used to telling stories from the stage…it is part of every concert i perform, every keynote i speak. but the last time i actually acted (in the truest definition of that word)? well, that would be high school – i performed ‘the effect of gamma rays on man-in-the-moon marigolds’….i can’t even remember one line from that. prior to that? well, you need to skip a stone backwards to when i danced with (the infamous) kenny brook in ‘the sound of music’ in sixth grade. not exactly moments of brilliant acting, but please also refer to my exquisitely-portrayed sister bertha – in the same play – for invaluable experience (ok…that might be an exaggeration.) but it certainly counts that kenny was pretty darn cute and i got to dance with him.
the set is simple. the set is profound.
i have spent many, many hours on the stage…as a performer…as a storyteller…as a solo artist…playing, singing, speaking. this project? this is outside of my box. there isn’t a piano here. no mics. no amber fresnels beaming down on me. i feel like i should offer up a disclaimer to the audience…something like, “by the way…this isn’t what i normally doooo. in real life i……” but no. and so now i am challenged with that very thing that i talk about….stepping outside our own comfort zone and trying on new shoes (speaking of which, i get to wear these great minnetonka mocassins for this production!) stepping outside and making a mess. i get to work at something i am not good at….kind of like playing my cello, only a bit more public. and like we all tend to do, i immediately expect a lot of myself; so i must fight the urge to diminish my potential – what i think i’m capable or not capable of – to resist the learning. how many people around me each week are learning something new (in ukulele band? in the choir i direct? in workshops i lead?)
and so, my empathy button is ‘on’ and i see inside me the way we all try to default to the things we know, when the learning is actually outside of those things. especially the learning about ourselves. i, quite truthfully, find that i need to extend to myself some forgiveness for not knowing, and yes, forgiveness for resisting, forgiveness for feeling vulnerable, and grace in that forgiveness to just try. maybe i’m not sooo bad at this. maybe it’s actually fun. maybe i can actually learn something new…just like everyone else…and maybe, just maybe, i can embrace it. even with no piano here. at the very least, i can realize that, just like everyone else, i find comfort in the familiar. and in stepping into New?…well, i just need to take a breath and move full-speed ahead into that path. no regret, no judgement, no fear. just sisu. it’s all good. (did i mention it is sunny and warm here?)
The piano at Northwestern University was a Steinway D…a beautiful old 9 foot instrument, with depths and trebles on which hundreds of artists had performed. The case had seen better days; the bench had raw splintering wood in a few spots, but the instrument itself was rising to the occasion as, i suspect, it always had. Its quiet resonance, its deep voice made it worthy of grand stages. I was exhilarated with the opportunity to record on this piano…I felt a synergy with it. And I was so ready. The energy around a first album is unparalleled. In short, you really have no idea how much you are going to feel..the anticipation, the fear, the excitement, the self-consciousness, the confidence, the pressure of playing, the joy of playing, the retrospective re-hashing of everything you put down on tape, the letting-go of the re-hashing of everything you put down on tape…
We had the foresight to hire an excellent piano technician to be present during the whole process in Evanston. This instrument had some personality – a little curmudgeonly to say the least. Zingers and thudding hammers and some intonation idiosyncrasies were the challenges of the moments there, but our tech was on top of it all. The result, after all those long hours, was a recording of a piano with great history, demonstrating its strengths and sneaking in a few weaknesses. (Hmm….not unlike ourselves, eh?)
I recorded two more albums on Steinway D’s…both in Milwaukee in a studio that didn’t have an air conditioner leaking into the space (although I wouldn’t have traded that experience for anything!) The studio was climate-controlled and quiet and I had no idea if it was day or night as we spent long long hours recording in a space with no windows. Once again I discovered a piano with a few quirks; once again we had our skilled technician with us.
The piano gods of the day were people like George Winston and Jim Brickman, John Tesh and Yanni, Suzanne Ciani and David Lanz. With the exception of George, all of these artists were Yamaha artists. (Many others (who are singer-songwriters as well as pianists) join their ranks: Elton John, Sarah McLachlan, Phil Vassar, Norah Jones, Barry Manilow… ) Many of them recorded on CFIII’s, which is Yamaha’s 9 foot grand, or the C7, Yamaha’s 7’6″ grand, both fantastic instruments.
And by that time I was really honored to be on this same exclusive Yamaha Artist roster. There are a mere 88 contemporary piano recording artists on this roster. I am truly proud of this association; I have had wonderful relationships with the pianos and with some remarkable people. There have been unexpected and warm gifts of friendship. There have been pianos I have fallen in love with. My Yamaha fills my writing studio; it fills me with inspiration…
I have to say that I haven’t encountered a grumpy Yamaha…they are reliable in the studio (and on stage) and have a personality so worthy of this emotional, evocative style of music. Yes, the tech was around, but not 24/7 anymore and the piano responded with the consistency of a workhorse. Each piano that has been transported in for me, each piano that has been housed in a venue or recording studio, that big grand in my own writing studio…these are instruments I am aligned with….that perseverance, that dependability, that…sisu! Yes…these pianos have sisu! A fortitude that is authentic and not high-maintenance, true to its art and not prissy. And ohmygosh, with such a richness…
My sweet sixteen(th) album will, of course, be recorded on a Yamaha. It will be a compilation of songs with an organic layer cake of piano, voice, cello, consonant-timbred stringed instruments, and the kind of hand percussion that you can feel keeping beat inside your body. I feel great anticipation as I write for this album. And fear, and excitement. And self-consciousness and confidence. And pressure and joy. And I will hash and re-hash and re-hash again. But, along the way now, arriving here, I have learned the art of letting go…the art of setting free Art..the moment you say to yourself, “It’s enough. It’s time.”
reverse threading 