Bring it on, October.

October is one one of my favorite months. I like the brisk weather (although it's still pushing the 90s this week, bleh), I like the bright colors, I like wearing jackets and sweaters . . .

This week I get to play with Edgar Meyer, the world's foremost double bass virtuoso and one of my favorite musicians of all time.



I'm pretty excited about that. Tuesday evening my teacher is playing a recital. Thursday night I'll be going to hear Ralph Kirshbaum play the Elgar Cello Concerto with the Dallas Symphony, which will be tasty. I'm getting to be so musically spoiled!

Meanwhile, life just keeps on keepin' on. These days I don't really know where it's headed, but I'm enjoying the ride. I was thinking of my experience at BYU, and what it has meant in my life now that I've been out of it for five months(!). I'm really grateful for the experiences I had, both good and bad, and for what I've gained from them. It wasn't necessarily an easy journey, but I learned a lot about myself and dealing with different types of people. I made some priceless friendships and some arch nemeses (well, one at least) and had some experiences that couldn't be duplicated under any circumstances.

Now, being here, I see how some of those less-happy chains of events have helped make me more capable and ready for things that lie ahead. It's a mixed bag, I guess. I think I'm seeing now that maybe some of those trials were not things that I was supposed to learn from at the time I was experiencing them, but instead that I would be able to look back on and say, "Oh, so THAT'S what I did wrong."

By the way, I think it's really cool that God knows me well enough to know exactly how to teach me best. And not just me: you, your best friend, the kid who hears the voice of the Lord in Obi-Wan Kenobi . . . and I'm being sincere. I remember one of my friends wrote me while on his mission about how he realized the Atonement meant not only that our Savior understands our pains and sorrows, but also our joys and passions. I know that's true, because I see how He fits my life lessons around those passions.

I'm so blessed . . .

All is well . . . !

Ah, life is treating me kindly these days. I was stressed out about this morning, with an 8am quiz and a 9am sightreading in an Instrumentation class (how the prof tracked me down to ask me to play for it is a mystery to me--I've barely been at the school a month, and it seems already I've been branded as a music slut), and an 11am lesson . . . but everything went surprisingly well. Especially the lesson--I feel encouraged again! Hooray.

And now, this week that has already been so long and scary should definitely be much easier from here on out. Hallelujah!

I get to hang out with my favorite four year-old on Friday morning (actually, come to think of it, she may have had a birthday this month . . . five?), and I'm excited about that. I tell ya, getting paid to play with little kids is where it's at! And this will be a piece of cake, too--usually, I watch her AND her two brothers (ages 7 and 9 or something), and together, the three of them can be quite a handful. Having just the little girl will be a cinch.

I am happy about other things, too, but at the risk of sounding cryptic I venture that this is not the venue to share. Suffice it to say that I am looking forward to the weekend. :-)

So, I am happy. I'm getting used to being back in Texas, I'm making friends, I'm figuring out (again and again) how to better manage my time (by the way, blogging doesn't help), and I'm just smiling. 'Cause, you know, life is good.

Life is good. :-)

An Instrument in the Hands . . .

Last night, I had the opportunity to go to a recital and hear Bion Tsang (currently teaching cello at the UT Austin) and UNT's own Gustavo Romero playing the two Brahms cello sonatas. Now, aside from the fact that I love Brahms so much that I continue to swear that he and I are soulmates, and if we'd lived at the same time he would have given up on Clara altogether, I enjoyed the recital quite a lot.

The thing that struck me about Mr. Tsang's playing was how deliberate everything was. Each note was played with a specific part of the bow, on a specific part of the string, with a certain stroke . . . every detail was thought out.

In my church, we often talk about becoming an instrument in the hands of God (in fact, it's the theme of the visiting teaching messages this year), but I wonder if we really consider what that entails. Yes, we know about the power of the Master's touch, but do we really understand what that means?

There are a few things that struck me:

1. The instrument is completely incapable of creating anything by itself; it is the Master who creates beauty and meaning and breathes life into the instrument.

2. When I play my cello, it has its own ideas sometimes about who is in charge. The challenge is learning to get it to submit to my will rather than have it tell me what I can and cannot do.

3. GREATNESS TAKES PLANNING. This idea admittedly caused me problems, because I am not much of a planner. I like to fly by the seat of my pants. Especially where major life junctions are before me, I am not one to know where I am headed. My realization, though, was that it is not my duty to know. If I am the instrument, it is the duty of the Master to have planned everything out--and He has.

While I'm on the topic of music metaphors (a favorite of mine; I could go on all day), there is something else I've been thinking a lot about lately. I'm a pretty tough critic when it comes to expressivity in musicians. Rarely do I find players who can truly move me, who can conjure up emotions from the depths of my soul. I'm a very emotionally sensitive person, which is a blessing and a curse, but it means that I can sense when people are holding back, and I don't find it convincing at all. I've heard it said before that it's not what you give that gets you to heaven, but what you hold back that condemns you. I think the same is true for music.

At its best, music is a completely personal, vulnerable art. However, I think people don't often invest enough of themselves to make it so. I'm not talking about hours of practice or anything like that--I'm talking about people's SELVES. When you watch a person perform who strips themselves of the pomp and to-do about performance and presents him or herself for you to accept or reject, THAT is moving.

I've recently come to terms with my complete avoidance of vulnerability. I do think, however, that the only times in my life that I have allowed myself to be absolutely vulnerable have been in performance situations. I may not be able to tell you my feelings if you ask me, but if you ask me to play my feelings, I can certainly do that. Somehow it's less scary that way, maybe because fewer people try to understand you and just want to hear pretty music.

Well, none of you asked for my dissertation on musical expression, but if you ever want to talk about it, it's something I'm very passionate about. Ask anytime, and I'll talk for hours about it.

The Dorky Party Revolution of 07

That's right, I have deemed it my duty to bring dorky parties to North Texas. They abounded at BYU, but around here, people seem to prefer "real" parties, wherein the main form of entertainment is substance. The result of this is that (many, not all) people don't seem to know how to have fun without chemical alteration.

That is about to change.

I've composed a list of dorky party ideas, and I'll be gosh-darned if I don't start throwing them!

There are the ever popular food-themed parties, wherein all you need to do is choose some type of food and ask people to bring their favorite example of that food (ones I've heard of in the past include macaroni and cheese, bread, potatoes, pie, etc.)! There are the film-themed parties (favorite movies to screen include Napoleon Dynamite, Nacho Libre, or Pirates of the Caribbean) where people dress like their favorite characters, and we eat what they eat in the movie! There is, of course, game night (pretty self-explanatory). Bad movie night (not morally bad, but stupid or poorly made). Pizza making night. Ohh, the good times that are about to be had!

If you have any other ideas or suggestions, or would like to secure a spot on the guest list, please let me or another one of our associates know. Time is money, thank you for your time.

Friday Night Live.

So here it is, a Friday night. I'm young, I'm spry, and I'm sitting alone at home watching the Ray Charles movie and updating my blog. Talk about glamour.

Not that it's for lack of options, for once. I don't know, I'm still fighting this sickness, and I just didn't really feel like going out tonight. This afternoon, I came into the kitchen for a glass of water, ended up feeling weird and laid down on the couch. An hour later, I woke up, but I haven't really felt normal since.

This illness has been weird, though. I've had this horrible hacking cough for the past week or so, but haven't really felt bad other than that. Yesterday, I felt really weird, though. I think it was lack of oxygen to my brain or something due to all the phlegm gunking up my airway, but I couldn't decide if I wanted to faint or run around the block. Strange sensation, halfway dead and halfway jittery.

Hmmmm, I don't really have anything else to say.

Perfection.

I lived a perfect moment today.

I was in the car en route home from school this evening. It wasn't a particularly difficult day, but I've been feeling a little under the weather (I think it's a chest cold), and a little nostalgic (having watched the BYU devotional via internet), and a little introspective (just because that's how I am), and more than a little preoccupied with the hopes of friendship and romance (because I like to daydream).

All these came together to form a strange emotional cocktail, and I was pondering on this as I headed home. Then, the track on the CD changed, and my Perfect Moment began.

It was the Good Morning Maxfield (when they were still just Maxfield) cover of "Stars." Somehow, that song existed solely for that moment with me and my weird feelings in my Camry driving down Malone St.

I turned up the volume and soaked in all the goodness of the moment. It was full,
saturated, absolutely perfect. I can't describe why I felt so, but I certainly did. I wonder if there have been other perfect moments in my life that I have missed by being too preoccupied or just not paying attention.

Now that I think about it, I believe this wasn't the first perfect moment in my life:

The time when I cried with a friend in the vestibule of our high school band hall. The time I played stupid Christmas arrangements with a wind ensemble.
The time I rode with that one boy just because he wanted company.
Driving cross-country with my brother in a car loaded with all our stuff.

I guess it just gave me pause to reflect on what it is that makes life worth living. There are so many perfect moments yet to be had.

Here's to perfection!

Backrub, anyone?

I've always liked to give backrubs. For me, the power of the literal human touch is very strong, and there's something about knowing that I'm using my hands to make someone else feel good that I find very rewarding. I think, too, that years of training and development in the fine-motor schools (i.e., the fact that I'm a string player) has helped sensitize my hands, so I've been told I'm pretty good at it, too.

Back in P-town, I had a loyal clientele built up of roommates and close friends. If anyone had a knot in their back or something, they'd come to me to work it out. Here, though, there are very few with whom I've crossed the touch-barrier. I miss being able to touch people! I need that so badly.

I've always been a cuddly one, and I've said before that I'm addressing this from a completely nonsexual stance. For some reason, it's just important to me to physically feel the contact of other human beings--just in little ways, like touches on the arm, or hand-holding, or and arm around me.

I've taken to giving my dog backrubs. She has these two huge knots on either side of her torso that I've been working on for the past few days. She enjoys it--you should see her melt to the ground in a semi-comotose state. I'm glad she appreciates it, but it does kind of make me miss the same kind of appreciation from other humans.

So, if you ever want a backrub, or a backscratch, or a head massage or just someone to let you know that you've got nerve endings on your skin, you all know where to find me.