Beautiful and Hard

It was a doozy of a week. Bill was down for six days with an awful virus. I had my three hour eye appointment. After careful study of very sophisticated photos of my optic nerves, I'm cleared for yearly checkups again. That's good, but those tests wiped me. Those little notes are sometimes very hard to see after those bright lights.

The kids have yesterday and today off for conferences.

Conferences.

I scheduled conferences with fifteen minutes between my own lessons at home and each kid's conference, with five minutes between to walk from the elementary to the middle school. My mother taught me how to bend time and space, but sometimes I forget the formula. I forget that Mary likes to peruse the book fair. I forgot that Calvin likes to have mini conferences with all his grade school teachers. . .

God, I wish I was one of those relaxed mothers who just plans the whole day for one thing.

Anyway, I didn't take into account that Mary's precious teacher, who was also Calvin's teacher lost her father unexpectedly last Saturday. That conference could have actually taken an entire evening with a bottle of wine and a box of tissues. She's asked me how long it had been since my dad died. I said five years with tears in my eyes. You can't rush grief.

You can't rush conferences. I didn't take into account that the teachers would tell me that Mary has been more scattered than usual this Fall and maybe we need to talk about this a little more seriously. I didn't take into account that Calvin is registering for fricken high school and I need to get him open enrolled yesterday with a four year outline of classes so that he can fulfill all the prerequesites blah blah blah and still take band and driver's ed so that he can get into a college that he chooses and live a decent life.

In fifteen minute intervals.

I'm crying now.

What Mary needs is time and space. Sleep. And a hug every 20 seconds.

For school. For piano. For life.

Then again it just may be that she's gonna chew her food with her mouth wide open forever and I guess I'll love her just the same.

She needs less stuff. And more time and space.

I need less stuff and more time and space. Sleep. And a hug every 20 seconds.

Last night I tried to squash these conferences down and practice my anthem for Sunday, which is very beautiful but one of those. . .

That's actually a good quadrant. "Pretty and hard" I can do. Pretty and hard is worth doing.

We can do hard things. I didn't make that up. It comes from Glennon Doyle Melton and her Momestary Blog. It's one of her mantras.

All the piano kids want to play the hard stuff. They saw the generation before and they want to do that piece. But they don't all know how to do the work. I take for granted when they beg me to play the Minute Waltz that they are actually going to put more than a minute of work into the sucker.

But, we have to teach them HOW to do the work. Beat by beat. Measure by measure. How to you learn? How to you organize your time.

Mary and Calvin have each been putting in an hour and a half of piano every day getting ready for their recitals next weekend. I have to tell you that I'm completely fried. No one is more sick of the Rondo alla turca than me. Spinning song has lost it's sparkle. But there are moments of complete beauty where tears are rolling down my eyes. And Mary has come so far in the last ten days. You think she's scattered in frisbee golf? Try getting a perfect graduation recording of the four page Clementi Spiritoso. You know not the miracle that you witness.

We can do hard things. Folding laundry and cooking dinner can get very tired out too, but I sure do love to put on clean clothes and eat a meal. So. We can do it. At this point I still believe the growth is worth the endurance factor. We only grow by doing hard things. It's just easier when they are beautiful too.

Beautiful and hard. That's a quadrant I can do.

But, I might need a little more sleep and a few more hugs along the way, and. . . in eight days this particular hurdle will be over. It will be a very long time before I assign the alla turca or the spinning song to a student. . . put them into the burnout archives with Happy Farmer and Melody. Tra la la. If you see me, give me a hug.