The Journey to Fearless

"Mama, what is my thing?"  I want to be really good at something.  How can I be really good at piano when we always have these breaks?

These words out of the mouths of babes.  

Bill got Mary a DVD for Christmas, Taylor Swift's The Journey to Fearless.  It has live performances, but also interviews and footage of a little girl Taylor playing guitar and singing.  It says things like "she couldn't put the guitar down" and after she sang the national anthem at a big sports event the kids all made fun of her at school the next day.  It tells how she didn't have any friends because she was too busy practicing guitar.  

Then it flips to footage of her in the middle of the enormous arena singing in her sparkly dress with her sparkly guitar.  You get the point.  

You could just see the wheels turning in Mary's head.  A light went on.  Whatever it is that I want to be good at, I'm going to have to work very hard.  "Mama, I want a guitar."  We have a children's guitar upstairs, Mary, and you can pick it up whenever you want.  Mama I want to practice piano everyday.  Mama I want to see that concert live.  What she meant was:  Mama I want to be that good. . .. 

Nothing comes easy.  Not for Taylor Swift.  Not for Mary Ray.  Not for Sara Kotrba.  Everybody has to find what they love and work at it.  It is easy to be discouraged.  Bill took this short video of Mary trying to play guitar a few weeks ago.  Notice that she is having a great time, right up until the moment she has to change chords and she doesn't know the next chord.  Then she gives up.  Also notice that she had the right chord and she gave up anyway.  

The journey to fearless happens in very small steps.  Baby steps.  Learning one more chord.  Committing to practicing everyday for a month.  Making the steps doable and easy.  

Don't worry Mary, we're not giving up.  We'll will teach you the G7 chord so you can make it through Jingle Bells next time.   And I will do better at not taking breaks with piano, so that you can be your very best piano player too.  Starting today.

youtube link:  Mary's Guitar Medley

Another Year Has Gone By

I can barely believe that I have been blogging here for a year.  I have made 171 posts, and had 6500 visitors.  Writing here was one of the best parts of 2011 for me.  I thought I would write about scales and group lesson ideas and tips for having a great hand position at the piano, and while I do enjoy writing about those things, what I have loved the most is writing about my family, my faith (or lack thereof at any given moment) and the ups and downs of life.

New Year's Day in Texas was always a blue day for me.  The holidays were over and I missed my family and more often than not there was some disappointing Texas Dance Hall New Year's Eve gig hanging over my head.  The general routine was for me to be alone on stage at midnight playing Auld Lang Syne while the guys in the band all went out and danced with and smooched their sweeties.  Then --pack up, get in the car and get the heck out of there before the drunks figured out it was time to go home. For the six years I lived by myself in Austin--New Year's Day was a lonely day.

Fast forward thirteen years and now New Year's Eve is spent with treasured friends--talking, eating too much and watching our kids play.  Smooching my own hubby at midnight.

New Year's Day 2012?  Could I have a moment alone. . . . please???  Ten minutes alone?  What I wouldn't give to shower without interruption in my lonely Austin apartment. . . the grass is always greener.

Not really.  Family life is infinitely greener than living alone.  I'm thankful for the interruptions.  Oh the blessed interruptions. . . I'm thankful for my family and friends near and far, and I'm thankful for my husband, even when he interrupts me when I am trying to write. . . . ahem ahem. . .

For I have learned in whatever state I'm in to be content.  That might be Texas, or Iowa, or Minnesota.  It might be alone or it might be during the 20th interruption while I try to dry my hair.  But, today, New Year's Day, I'm thankful I'm not alone.  Here's to you Bill. . .

So many 25th's of December

Just as many 4th of July's

And we're still holding it together

It only comes down to you and I

I know that you can still remember

Things we said right from the start

When we said that this could be special

I'm keeping those words deep down in my heart

Another year has gone by

And I'm still the one by your side

After everything that's gone by 

There's still no one saying goodbye

Though another year has gone by

Recorded by Celine Dion--written by Bryan Adams and Eliot Kennedy. . I notice it came out in 1998--it was a very good year. . . here's a youtube link:
Another Year Has Gone By

"Forgive Us Our Christmases"

Having had three nights in row of nine hours of sleep I am a little slap happy.  Giddy.  Spent ten hours today making doll clothes--which I must say turned out to be the cutest things I have ever made.  My mom and I cranked out three outfits complete with scarves and hats and accessories.  I was getting the giggles over the pom-poms.

My mom has a ton of those cute little keepsake Christmas books lying around the house.  Titles like "500 Ways to Keep Christ the Center of Christmas" and "101 Ways to Simplify Your Holidays."  Those I made up--but there are some sweet ones--and I laughed until I had tears in my eyes from this little anecdote from The Greatest Christmas Ever which I don't feel the need cite because it was published in 1974:

The story has been published of a little girl caught in the pre-Christmas swirl of activity, all of which seemed to be coming to a head on Christmas Eve. Dad, loaded down with bundles, seemed to have an even greater number of worries. Mom, under the pressure of getting ready for the great occasion, had yielded to tears several times during the day. The little girl herself, trying to help, found that she was always under foot, and sometimes adult kindness to her wore thin.
Finally, near tears herself, she was hustled off to bed. There kneeling to pray the Lord's Prayer before finally tumbling in, her mind and tongue betrayed her and she prayed, "Forgive us our Christmases as we forgive those who Christmas against us."

I'm still laughing aloud. When I was about ten-years-old I was reading one of my mom's little books and feeling a little holier-than-thou.  I decided to confront her.  I accused her of over materializing Christmas.  All the decorations and food and gifts were overshadowing the true meaning of Christmas, in my little eyes.  What a little snit I was--or maybe I was spot on--in any case--I was probably a little high off church camp.  Mother, I take it back--you always made Christmas special.  I'm sure I'm only a year away from Calvin giving me the same lecture.

My mother probably heavily considered taking back all my gifts and using the money to feed the poor.  She didn't.  I mean she did go feed the homeless--just not with my Christmas presents. To this day she and my niece Savannah carry on her tradition of taking food and supplies to the soup kitchen. Apparently you can make family Christmas memories and still contribute to society all while keeping Christ in Christmas. I digress. . .

So--forgive us our Christmases--however we commercialize and materialize Christmas--I hope that the love we put into it and those around us blesses beyond the gifts and the decorations and the cookies.  Amen.

So Hallowed and So Gracious is the Time

Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes

Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,

The bird of dawning singeth all night long

And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad,

The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike,

No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,

So hallowed and so gracious is the time.

This is Frederick Buechner quoting Shakespeare's Hamlet, in Listening to Your Life, page. 335-336.  Sometimes time seems elastic.  Sometimes the days fly by. Madeleine L'Engle wrote so often about the differences between cronos--our chronological time, and kairos--the sacred timing of events or moments.

I have felt aware of this kairos a few times. Hallowed and gracious times. Times waiting for my children to be born. Time spent with my grandparents and my dad at the end of their lives.  The moment when my husband proposed. Other rare moments in between where that lining between us and God becomes thin and we are truly present, in God's presence. Holy moments.

Christmas is hallowed and gracious to me.  It is just so hard sometimes to sort the grain from the chaff.  I have filled it up so full that it overflows and spills all over and I can't even taste it.  The actual days go by so fast--after all our preparations and planning.

Buechner has another useful quote on page 332:

What deadens us most to God's presence within us, I think, is the inner dialogue that we are continuously engaged in with ourselves, the endless chatter of human thought.  

I might add the endless chatter of family life and even music makes it difficult to find those holy moments. Sometimes being involved with church and having the kids involved with church makes it difficult to find those moments in worship as well--there are logistics front and center in my brain, instead of anything too holy.

I did have one particular holy moment of kairos--God's time--this season--it was at church--during the last verse of Hark the Herald Angels Sing--when the sopranos came in with their beautiful descant and the organ pulled out all the stops and the lights came on brightly in the sanctuary.  I felt that holy feeling and remembered deep in my heart why we are here and why Christmas is Christmas.

Hail the heaven born prince of peace

Hail the Sun of righteousness

Light and life to all He brings

Risen with healing in His wings

Mild He lays His glory by

Born that we no more may die

Born to raise each child of earth

Born to give them second birth

Hark the herald angels sing

Glory to the newborn King. 

One clear moment to remember the sacred, hallowed and gracious time.

Christmas Love

Today we had Christmas with Bill's folks and his sister and her husband.  The kids gave a very nice program--reading the Bible and playing piano, ukulele, and singing. We always have a very special time there.  Bill's mom gave us a new needlepoint stocking with golden instruments and piano keys all over it.  I can't imagine the hours she spent creating it.  Thank you, Mom K. It is priceless.

Yesterday we Christmased here at home with my mom.  Santa didn't bring a bunny and he didn't bring an ipad--but he did go a little overboard.  He brought Mary a gymnastics mat and little practice beam and he brought the family a new 88 key digital piano.  It was the same type of keyboard I saw out in Colorado at the Colorado Suzuki Institute.  I have always wanted an electric keyboard for our family for the basement, computer music and for gigs.  It is a good thing Santa brought it since I would never have spent the money.  It was almost exactly the same amount of money I made out in Colorado last summer which of course was income I wasn't expecting and had I bought it there the money would have gone to a very valid musical instrument charity, but thank goodness Santa took care of it for me.

The kids love the keyboard.  Highlights of the day included the Star Spangled Banner Jimmy Hendricks style with electric guitar patch,  Fur Elise with the accordion sound and Musette in D on bagpipes.  Mary played Arietta on pan flute. . . The keyboard will make it's way to the basement where it can serve as the soundtrack to life in playmobil town.  I hope that eventually Calvin will be able to do his sight reading and and pop and jazz stuff down there, since he can't play the real piano much after school during my teaching hours.  Of course our regular practice will always be on the acoustic piano, but those great sounds on the keyboard spark a lot of creativity as well.

All this and I still ask myself constantly, do we do too much at Christmas?  Is it right to feel so overwhelmed?  The gifts?  The food?  The decorations.  Is this what it is all about?  My friend Michele loaned me the book Unplugging the Christmas Machine.  In my joyful Christmas haste I obviously misplaced it. . .

I love a big Christmas.  I love the traditions and presents and food.  Then, I feel guilty about not keeping Jesus the complete center of Christmas.  Then again,  I don't think Christmas is supposed to be about guilt either. . .

Stuck.

What if it was all just okay?  Okay to overindulge our kids a little with presents.  Okay to reflect on Christmases past.  Okay to get a little overwhelmed in the act of being generous with family and friends.  Okay to bake more cookies than we can eat.  Okay to use incandescent Christmas lights. All for the sake of a little baby. A little baby who as Pastor Kris reminded us--loves us so deeply that He came to us as the Word made flesh.  God loves us.  It's just okay. It is more than okay--it is the best reason I can imagine to go completely overboard.

God loves me even when I overdo Christmas.  Even when I turn two pages at once on the 11:00 p.m. choir anthem and finally realize the choir is not singing the same music as I am playing and fake my way back to them.  He loves me when things go perfectly and when they are a mess.  When I love Christmas, when I am tired of Christmas.  He just loves me.

That is what Christmas is about.  Love.  God's love.  Our love for each other.  Love.

Merry Christmas.

Christmas Wishes

My mother is here and things mysteriously get done.  I turn around and the kids' beds are made.  The tea ring is baking and the toffee reached a hard ball boil before I was even out of bed.  The dishwasher unloads itself.   Thanks, Mommy, I'm glad you are here.

At the Kotrba house Santa comes tonight.  That's the tradition and Santa knows the traditions of each family.

Mary wants a bunny.  A real bunny.  A bunny that would be tortured and killed by three furry cats before the last gift of Christmas was unwrapped.  She thinks Santa's yes trumps Mama's no.

Calvin wants an ipad.  Same hope. . . same futile hope. . .

One year when I was growing up Santa brought us a dog.  Grover.  Grover was a good dog and lived 18 long years.

Dear Santa,
Please don't bring us a dog.  Or a bunny.  Or an ipad.  If you do have to bring the ipad--bring it for me. 
P.S. don't waste the cookies. . . . it took a lot of effort to bake them. 
Love,
Sara


My mother and I took time today to go and get a manicure.  Usually pianists don't waste money on manicures that only last one practice session, but today I went in honor of my grandma.  Every Christmas when I came home from college she would judge the quality of my mental health by the shape of my fingernails.  "Let's see your nails. . . "  Gulp.

Mama--(that is what I call my grandma)--I'm happy to report that tonight my fingers are stunning--little snowflakes painted on my stubby nails--and I'm in just as fine mental health.  Miss you.

Peace.  Shalom.  Angels singing in their realms of glory.

Snowman in the House

I'm sending you a video Christmas card at the link below.  We didn't plan this.  This short video was some comic relief during our family Christmas picture taking session. You know, the one where Bill has us all sit in front of the camera for an hour while he tweaks the settings on the Nikon.  I can tease him, because I love his photos.

There are a couple things you should know before you watch the video--first of all--the ukulele is not--as you probably guessed--Calvin's primary instrument.  Secondly, he wrote this song a few years ago on piano.  Thirdly, be warned, this tune sticks in your head.  If you had Feliz Navidad playing over and over in your inner ear--this is the cure.   The words are hard to hear--she's missing her two front teeth after all. . .

Snowman in the House

Snowman in the House

Snowman in the House

(you get the point about that. . . )

Water everywhere

Melting down the stairs

Mama's going to have a fit

JUST BE-WARE

Snowman in the House. . ..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkNfw6qxY0g



Merry Christmas from the Kotrbas!