In the struggle that is this perseverance to hold onto the self that is present in the piano playing, I find myself needfully sensitive to what enables and what undermines my ability to hold and extend this attitude.
It sometimes surprises me how much very small things can have a disproportionate power to boost or to drain. In these days of waking already a little on edge, my very ordinary morning rhythms have an almost mythic quality, so much do they stabilise me on waking. Likewise beautifully written texts, an autumn leaf in the sun, kindness whether to myself or witnessed to others, my favourite tea, perfectly brewed, candlelight.
Anything that jars me looms larger, as an enemy: a minor breakage, yet another lie ushered by a public figure, an angry voice, whether to myself or witnessed to another, not finding an outfit that expresses some highly precise inner feeling, taking longer than expected.
This sensitivity attracts old shame: ‘making a fuss’, ‘overdramatising’, ‘self-absorbed’. Yet it is an expression of something deeply mattering to me, of a kind of protectiveness of a treasure.
There is a high level of personal exposure in my life and artistic practice, modest as it is, in that I try to live very true to what is happening, not numbing myself with the usual hiding places. I can see from old seasons and many acquaintances, that much of life is often lived muffled, a blur. It is easy to lose oneself in Responsibilities, Children, Scrolling and Series.
The tools of my work are the very sensitivity I am protecting, to joy, fear, nuance, significance, tone, mood, gesture and language. And beauty, love, tenderness, mystery and grace.
It is good to remind myself, to strengthen up that I have chosen what I am doing and living, and I embrace the entirety of that choice.
Then also it is only wisdom to address the depletions and accentuate the replenishments, looking out for them as I live the day.
extraplorer 