Hyperactivity

It dawned on me a moment ago that the reason I've not posted in awhile is because the thinking I do that leads to wanting to write occurs during horn practice.

What's up with that? For one thing, I am in the habit of allowing my mind to bounce of the walls when I'm meant to be paying attention to what I'm doing. At all other times, my mind is flooded with outside influence, be it music, Harry Potter, the teachers in yoga class, the computer or my cell phone. So being still at all, whether during practice or otherwise, doesn't come easily.

For this reason, it's great for me to continue to practice. It's good for me because it is difficult.

When allowed to flow freely, my mind thinks of the silliest things. For one thing, I find it very easy to wonder why I bother at all, because I never really play in front of anyone anymore. It's not like I'm an active freelancer, or have a group with whom I play regularly. Practicing for its own sake is strangely out of the question. Why is that?

I feel as though if I could learn to value the time I spend just playing, everything would be a whole lot more enjoyable. Among many other mental habits I've adapted during my tenure as a horn player, I have definitely learned that I always need to be practicing FOR something, be it a gig, just a rehearsal, or to receive compliments from whomever hears me. It hasn't entered my consciousness that I really can just play simply because I want to.

I wonder what practicing could be like if I allowed it to be about meditation, and about developing mental focus on the task at hand. If I could add a yogi's focus to practice... if I could let horn be a natural extension of my yoga practice, perhaps it would calm this strange sense of impending doom that I've somehow mixed in there with Kopprasch and cross-finger exercises. Relief from that feeling certainly would be welcome!

It's interesting to note that we can train our synapses to fire in pairs. I think I've trained my horn synapses to fire along with my worry synapses. Undoing that will be the real trick.

This Is How We Roll

The computer systems at work were down for a significant portion of the day. So how did we at B&H spend our time? So glad you asked!
By visiting Southpark, CO, of course!

And also Springfield, USA.

Photo Essay: My Vacation So Far

p.s. Sorry about the size difference in these two photos. It drives me crazy too.

Rite of Passage

Any one who has lived in New York City long enough has suffered through subway rides in which some moron has spilled liquid and left the floor all sticky, or all wet, prompting you to ride seated with your feet hovering above the floor.

Yesterday, I became one of those morons.

On the way to a BBQ, I stopped off for some Corona on the way to the train. Just as I reached the platform, a Manhattan-bound 7 was just arriving, and a slew of people exited the car. In my haste to enter the train in a timely fashion, I entered the car quickly and maneuvered around that pole they conveniently place right in the middle to either be held on to or navigated around, centripetal-force style. And just as I did...

the plastic bag containing my six-pack of glass bottles slipped out of my grasp and fell to the floor, inducing the sounds of breaking glass and a gasp of astonishment from 50 or so passengers. I picked my bag up from the pool of beer that was forming at my feet, which became more of a long, fragrant river as the train accelerated.

Within two stops, I tired of being the-girl-who-spilled-beer-on-the-train and exited to the grocery store to buy more beer. Meanwhile, the suddenly Corona-soaked train drove off into the distance, only to travel back and forth on the 7 line, annoying thousands of travelers with its sticky floors and tavernesque aroma.

Back from Vacation

As I walked down the gente slope to my NYC apartment door, I felt the all the stresses of living here reaccumulate with each step. It was lovely to physically and mentally get away, and these reemerging signs of needless worry reminded me to value the interconnectedness of our experience as whole. My brain has intergrated being this space and time with feelings of mild panic -- which relate to my feelings of unruhe regarding finances and the lack of a solid income from exactly half of this household. I remind myself that finding work (especially finding work in a field so unrelated to whatever it is you've been studying for 7 years) simply takes time, and it WILL happen...

But in the meantime, I'm wishing that the waiting wasn't so destructive.

Alas, it needn't be! I was reminded in yoga class last week that our experiences are inherently impermanent. Our feelings float into one another, and it is the attachment to any of them that create anxiety. I've been working to remind myself to LET GO and surrender to each moment in time, to look for the good in each of them.

I had naively thought that a short trip to visit family would help me to integrate this message into my being. After all, a trip to Buffalo is nothing but an exercise in going with the flow. It seems to me as if my opinions matter very little, and it is best for me to keep quiet and get into the car when necessary, be driven wherever it is we need to go, hang out at a relatives for however long, and leave when I am told it is time to leave.

Fortunately, the message I revisited in yoga class was helpful to me then. But, upon my return I find only that time has passed, circumstances have changed for the worse, stakes are higher and we are trapped in this strange in-between zone, waiting for others to determine our fate. The realization has also set in that Buffalo was merely a distraction rather than a time to face the challenges I have during times of uncertainty.

Happily, it was a suitable, well-timed distraction, and I had a good time. The highlights?

--Being greeted most favorably by my six-year-old niece, who remembers me solely on the fact that she received a hand-me-down (yet new) stuffed bunny in a pink dress
--Drinking Yueng Ling in a hot tub
--Biking along the Niagra River on a rented bicycle whose brakes I feared would fail at any moment
--Eating at a roadside hot dog stand that offered both veggie burgers and veggie hot dogs!! Along with my veggie burger that came blissfully stacked with a literal slab of onions, I ate delicious curly fries and a wonderously thick vanilla milkshake!
--Making my grandparents happy just by showing up and hanging out with them

I'm preparing myself for next week's well-documented trip to Illinois. This will undoubtedly render me a well-informed traveler, as I will have the experience of getting myself to LaGuardia airport, while this past vacation offered me the chance of traveling to and from, in and out of JFK.

Vacation Time!

I'm (finally!) taking a slight break from NYC. For the next few days, I'll be visiting family in Buffalo, NY. Maybe I'll post from there, maybe I won't. Only time will tell.