After college, while I was doing my Suzuki training, I was also improvising for classes at a ballet school in Austin. The wood floor, the beat up point shoes, the snagged tights and leotards--it all looked so romantic. The dancing was beautiful and the ladies made it look easy. I thought to myself, I would like to learn to dance. I arranged a trade out with the school--for an extra hour of banging away on the upright piano for the company--I could take an hour of beginning ballet for adults. It didn't go so great. When I got my toes pointed my arms drooped and when I fixed my arms my head was turned funny. I could never get all the motions together at the same time. I wished for Suzuki ballet. If I could just have a semester to get my arms right, and then move on the the feet, if I could just do one thing at a time, like I try to do with my students--then I could learn ballet. The teacher was not into that. Life goes on.
This weekend was a work weekend at the Kotrba house. Bill and I agreed that some maintenance needed to be done down at the lake. Maintenance that required a chain saw and trees. In my mind's eye I saw us headed down the hill at 8:00 a.m. Saturday morning, coffee in thermos, chain saw and loppers in hand, with frost in the air and leather work gloves on our hands. I was wearing my Grandpa's denim barn coat, ready to go!
Then I thought about previous chain saw work days. I decided to try the Suzuki principle that I talked about last week, recommended to me by an anonymous blog commenter: I lowered my expectations.
Bill tries to channel the spirit of his father-in-law, my dad. My dad had several chain saws of differing sizes and torques. He kept them in hard cases like precious violins. They were well-oiled with extra chains, sharpened and ready to go, hanging on the shop wall.
Bill got his first and only chain saw for Christmas several years ago. A couple years later when it would no longer run he decided to take it down to the hardware store for some help. He asked me for something to carry it in that wouldn't get wrecked with gas or oil.
When he showed up at Ace hardware with the small saw in the pink rubber-made bin, the guys were not impressed. To his credit--Bill is actually quite comfortable rebuilding all sorts of small motors, but this was a new creature. We learned along the way. It needs a new spark plug. You can't let the gas freeze over winter. You have to sharpen the blade every time you use it. It needs a special oil. It has a personality.
So, I was on the right track, to lower my expectations Saturday morning.
When he went to fill it with gas the plastic gas cap busted off. He looked at me with apologetic eyes. It was gonna require a trip to the hardware store. I didn't flinch. I smiled and said, I'm so glad we have a Steel dealer here in Eagan. . . I headed down the hill at 12:30 p.m. by myself, with my loppers and he returned 45 minutes later with the vroom vroom of a functioning chain saw. As we worked--I assumed that every task would be the last--before the little saw kicked the dust again. On the last stump it ran out of gas. I thought--it's okay if that stump is here, sticking out, on the sledding hill all winter. He poured the last drips of gas from the can and made it through the stump. We cleaned up and went to dinner, marriage intact, forest maintenance done for the year. The saw is back in it's happy pink house.
All because I lowered my expectations.
Perhaps this works in other areas of life? I should have lowered my expectations when my babies were born. I assumed I could still be the highly productive perfectionist of childless days. Not.
All four of my grandparents lived to be ninety--or very close to it. I never dreamed that my dad wouldn't live to be seventy. Friends I know lost their parents much earlier and would view the time my children had with my dad as a gift.
I guess when you lower your expectations, everything is a gift. Time is a gift. Productivity is a gift. Progress at the piano is a gift.
A pleasant surprise.
A delight.
Maybe along the way something else happens as well--we become a little more content where we are.
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