The Cheerful Crossing Guard and Bill's Challenger

Welcome to winter.  We knew it would come.

God bless the cheerful crossing guard at Deerwood Elementary.  I don't know her name, but I know her nonetheless, from waving to her each day for the last six years.  She is always, always smiling.  Yesterday twelve below zero: smiling.  Today blowing snow: smiling.  God bless Mr. Highum--fifth grade teacher--getting the kids out of their cars: smiling.  Cars are backed up and parents are late for work and cutting in line gesticulating.  He's smiling.  It's a brand new day!  So--I'm smiling too.

I was reminiscing about when I was 14 in Iowa and learning to drive on my grandparent's farm.  I drove the pickup right through the back of the machine shed when I hit the gas instead of the breaks.  I met my grandpa walking half way back to the house with tears in my eyes.  He was laughing a big old belly laugh. It took him three days to fix the shed but he didn't have anything better to do anyway. As for the new truck--what are bumpers for anyway--to keep people safe.  He was always so cheerful.

Speaking of cheerful--I haven't had a chance to talk to Bill much this week, but I know he reads my blog so I thought I would write him a little note--you don't have to read it if you are busy.

Dear Bill,
Before you get back from New York tonight at midnight I just want to give you a little update.  Yesterday it got really cold.  As often happens when it gets that cold the tire pressure in my Pacifica car tires went dangerously low.  So I stopped at a gas station to fill them up but I had no change for the air machine.  Lucky for me, this cute guy was just coming out of the gym next door.  He was obviously exhausted from his upper body workout but he was kind enough to stop and loan me the change for the machine.  Thank goodness for the kindness of strangers.


But, after he left, I couldn't get the cap off the tire tube things.  At twelve below they are really tricky and even with freezing cold bare fingers I couldn't budge them.  So I drove slowly home.


Now, I know you wouldn't want me driving the kids around with dangerously low tire pressure, so I went ahead and took them to school today in your Challenger.  I know you have the insurance turned off for the winter months but I was really careful.  In fact, I drove right behind the salt truck just to make sure it was okay. That mixture of sand and salt that those trucks spray way up into the air is very effective.  Oh don't worry, I could still see clearly, it comes off the windshield when you run the wipers.  By the way. . . your wipers work.  You probably never tested them. 


The Deerwood circle drop off was a little slick with the blowing snow we're having.  I know that practicing a high horsepower car clutch in traffic on ice is probably not the best but all's well that ends well.  I mean, pretty well. I didn't hit any KIDS. By the way. . .the antilock breaks work too. . . you probably didn't know that either. Since I was already out I needed to stop at Target.  Eight-thirty is a great time to shop because the only folks in the parking lot are moms with little kids.  Too bad everybody in Eagan doesn't brainwash their kids to be careful of door dings like our family does.


It didn't take me long and I was loading the groceries into the trunk.  I can't believe they aren't more careful these days to make sure the lids are on tight on their gallons of milk.  I'm sorry about that.  Milk will smell next summer, but at least it won't leave a stain like red wine would have.   


A kid in a monster truck was spinning circles in the parking lot on the ice and made a "challenging" gesture for me join him.  One little spin out won't hurt--I thought. But then I had to get home and clean up the milk--what I couldn't get with toilet paper-before it froze. I've read a mixture of baking soda and ammonia works well--but that smells a little like cat urine to me. Well.


Since we had the driveway fixed last summer there isn't that little bump to let you know when you are pulling into the garage, and I just brushed the front bumper corner against the utility sink.  I've seen those sinks at Home Depot and they are not expensive.  I'm not too worried.


Well, have a safe flight.  Oh--don't worry, I can still pick up the kids from school--the Challenger still runs. Mary is bringing home all her big glittery art projects today--she's excited. . . . tomorrow you can put air in the Pacifica tires and I'll go back to driving my own car.  


Love you,
Sara

The Sound of Silence

These are the kittens my mom got.  I'm so jealous.  They are cousins of my cats Rosie and Garfield.  Bill assures me that if I were to get another cat he would buy some old clunker Cadillac to fix up. Enough said. I have another allergic friend who would certainly disown me as well.  So I'm adopting vicariously through my mother.  I take full credit for suggesting to her that these were possibly the two cutest cats I have ever seen in my life.  Plus--when you lose your husband and your mother in 15 months--like my mom did--you get a free pass to adopt as many pets as you need.  Especially fuzzy ones.

Back to the blog.  Well--almost--the top one is a girl and did you see those blue eyes???  The bottom orange one is a boy.  Jeepers his eyes are blue too. I'm in love.  I'm thinking "Dolly" and "Sunshine." Any better names floating out there?

Truly back to the blog. . . .

We've have a heck of a ride on the Polar Express.  We are just now exiting back into January and normal life.  This weekend we have nothing.  Nothing.  Nothing.


Bill is gone this week and next week and come to think of it he was gone last week and the week before.  We knew this would be a crazy month.

Nothing.

He took me out for my birthday Monday night and gave me the sweetest gift.  Cash.  That is because he knows me.  He knows that in January I am in purge mode.  I don't want anything. I want to rent a dumpster and throw heaps of household stuff into it.  I need space.  Wide open space.  He also knows that come April those little pansy faces will be calling my name and I can greenhouse hop with very little guilt--using my birthday cash.  Thanks Bill.

Wide open spaces.  Silence.  Solitude.  You can't find any of these on the Polar Express--the proverbial Christmas train that we've been on since pre-advent.

Bill and I cleaned off the CD shelf this weekend.  Hasn't been done since I was pregnant with Calvin when we moved in.  He's ten.  It will be our 14 year wedding anniversary in March and I guess the marriage is going to work out and we can safely purge all the duplicate CDs from when we were single. One James Taylor greatest hits is enough.  All one hit wonders? Transferred to itunes.  I'm okay with working toward cyber music but musicians throwing piles of CDs into the garbage is still a tough pill to swallow. We were dirt poor when we bought those little gems. But, we did it.  We cleared space.  One small step toward mental health.  Next step: VHS tapes.

Space.  Silence.  Solitude.

We fill our lives and our shelves with music and conversation.  Sometimes we need to purge.

This week, when I have been in the car alone--after dropping the kids here and there and driving to meetings--I've kept the radio off. Feels funny. No "Holiday Traditions," no Christian contemporary, no Mahler Symphony, no talk radio. Silence.

How much I needed this--I didn't even know until I heard it.  All by myself in the car. Silence.

How quickly my mind turned to prayer.  And breathing.  The muscles in my neck and jaw relaxed--those ones that flair up when I let them.

Nothing.

To everything there is a season.  Here's to beautiful music.  Here's to conversation. Here's to the sound of silence.  

Warm and Fuzzy Down in Austin

Thank you to the Heart of Texas Suzuki Organization for inviting me to teach at their weekend workshop again this year.  I got to teach 20 Book One and Two students masterclasses each day and give two parent lectures.

Lecturing feels so strange to me, because there are more than a few moments each day when I could use my own parent guru and there I stand the babbling idiot in front of fifty parents seeking insight. Getting it on the table from the get go--that I'm still looking for the answers myself, and that more than once I hauled my child off to his room screaming and kicking during practice (not lately--he's too heavy) and we have survived--is very liberating. We haven't just survived--we've come out of the room whole.  You can take a break but you always come back. We are in this for the long haul and we're going to have to learn from each other how to make it work.  I guess that is an important message.  You can screw up and still be in love with your kid and have him love you back. Perhaps that is why the parents at the parent lecture still took notes in spite of all my confessions.  Either that or it was free babysitting for an hour.

Teaching Book One and Book Two masterclasses is both easy and hard.  The goals are easy--get set up correctly at the instrument, have a little fun, and find the message in the music.  Implementing them in 15 minute snippets is hard. I've said it before--it feels like the final exams of teaching: here's the kid--show us what you can do. But thankfully it isn't an exam, it isn't about me, it is only about the child. Perhaps if we lessen our expectations from trying to give them some life altering information, to just trying to share a new game or idea, we will feel more successful.  Sometimes all you can do is plant a seed.

Can I just say, that coming back to Austin is such a blessing to me.  It feels a little like a This Is Your Life episode.  Virtually every college teacher I had is teaching at this workshop as well as my own Suzuki trainer Doris Harrel.  Again and again (mostly while watching the faculty recital) I have asked myself what the heck I'm doing here.  Why do they want me to teach next to these gods of collegiate teaching?  I don't feel worthy to make small talk at lunch.

Suddenly (again during the faculty recital) my value, my function, my role became clear to me in a little phrase of vocabulary:  perhaps I am their translator.  Perhaps I can take their musical message and translate it into pictures and words a child can understand and express.  I had these teachers under the pressure of full faculty juries--I know what their message is.  Young children deserve to hear that message and they can totally get it.  It just needs a little translating.  I can do that.

Back to the this is your life--my Austin student Kristen was there too.  Except she is all grown up and graduated and teaching Suzuki piano. She has fifty students and is hoping to get her own place soon. Congratulations Kristen!

She was my very first Suzuki student.  She and her brother Brian (who also showed up very tall at the dinner and is studying architecture at Texas A&M--to my feigned chagrin) were five and three when I started them in my apartment in Austin.  Whatever mistakes I made and I'm sure I made millions, she ended up loving it enough to make a life of it.  I consider that a success.  Love covers a multitude of mistakes and we don't have to be perfect to be of great value.

Thank you Mary, Janie, and the gang from HOTSO, I'm so thankful for y'all and your friendship.  Thank you Doris, Betty, David and my other teaching heros. Kristen, good luck and don't get a roommate if you can possibly afford it and don't teach piano in an upstairs apartment.  Brian, I'm fine with the architecture thing--but did you have to be an aggie?

I love you all.  Without you I would still be a girl with a boyfriend--playing in a rock and roll band.

Calvin Feeds a Child for a Year

We are wrapping up Christmas around here which includes finalizing Calvin's CD project.  We made and distributed around 60 CDs.  Some were gifts and some he sold for $5.  He collected $90 which he is donating to Feed My Starving Children.  According to their literature that will feed one child in Africa for twelve months.  Probably not Stonefield Farms organic yogurt, cantaloup and Pepperidge Farm's cinnamon bread--Calvin's foods of choice--but nonetheless.

Congrats Calvin!  Bill is going to take him over there (to the Eagan FMSC warehouse--not Africa) this weekend to hand over the cash in person.  Well done.

Fine print: In 2012  employees of Calvin's media are seeking union representation as their work rights around the holidays were infringed upon.  Future union negotiations will include a deadline of November 1 for the music to be recorded and December 10 for all production to be completed for distribution. If this deadline is not met the CEO of Calvin's Media hereafter referred to as John Calvin Kotrba will have to cut, fold, burn and laser copy his own CDs.  Signed: Mama and Daddy, chief operating officers of Calvin's Media.  

Lead Us Not Into Temptation

I am not tempted to commit adultery or murder or steal.  I am periodically tempted to compare myself, my children and my family to others.  Close friends are not immune to this.  There is always going to be someone working harder, in a better program, at a better school or on a more exclusive team.  Deal with it. After visiting with someone and learning how great their kids are at this and that and how advanced they are at blah blah blah, my knee jerk reaction is to come home and kick my own kids into shape.  So and so is doing such and such--you better work harder!

Lead us not into temptation.  I know better than to think this way.  I still have to stop and reflect.

We are born with only one obligation--to be completely who we are.  Yet how much of our time is spent comparing ourselves to others. . . This is encouraged as necessary in the pursuit of excellence.  Yet a flower in its excellence does not yearn to be a fish, and a fish in its unmanaged elegance does not long to be a tiger.  Yet when we compare ourselves to others, we see neither ourselves nor those we look up to.  Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening, pages 11-12.  

Left unchecked, the next step is to make ourselves feel better and the quickest and easiest way to do that is to diminish the object of our comparison.  Really--their program isn't that great--look how those kids are turning out--there must be something we can find wrong with them . . . see. . . they have pimples! 

I remind myself that I am the perfect parent for my children.  Our family experience is completely unique from any other family's experience.  As it should be.  As every family's life is. Yes, we can reflect and tweak our values from time to time, but the big picture is under control.

So, when we reflect, let us take motivation from the best of those around us, but lead us not into the temptation to compare our children.  A flower may not go to Harvard and a fish may not be a concert pianist and a tiger may not be a college athlete but let them be the very best flower and fish and tiger as they were created to be.

Claim Your Idiosyncrasies

Paster Sarah used this phrase at the end of her sermon on John the Baptist yesterday:  Claim your idiosyncrasies and use them for God.

I was really moved by those words.

A couple months ago I was visiting with someone about some random thing and off the cuff she said--Sara you know you're really weird.  She was totally joking, but still somewhere down deep it kinda stung.

Okay, so I'm really psycho about Mozart and incandescent lights and my house and the laundry. That is the short list. . . dig deeper and you might find that I want a simple life but I keep adding all these beautiful activities and houseplants and cats which complicate things.

How much effort do we and our children expend trying to cover up our idiosyncrasies and blend in.

Claim your idiosyncrasies.  Embrace your weirdnesses.  All the unique little things about us are actually what makes us not just beautiful, but useful.  Not in the same way as our neighbor, our friend, our relatives or our mother.  In our very own way.

What a great reminder.  Be yourself.  Be your very best self.  Claim your idiosyncrasies.  Help our young people claim theirs--and use them!

Getting from Here to There. . .

. . . with grace.

Big or small, there is always something we have to go through.

Sometimes getting from here to there can seem impossible.

The little Mozart doll in my studio is not pleased with the first week of lessons.  How are we going to get from this Mozart to something that is at least a little more like Mitsuko Uchida.  A little more grace.  It is not one student's performance I'm talking about. . . it is a whole crop of high school students who all described their Christmas break as "relaxing."  Obviously.  They relaxed. . .

So how to get them ready for an "honors" quality performance in three weeks.  Little steps and a whole lotta faith and obviously--some hours at the piano, please.  Slow practice.  Extra listening--the Uchida recordings I lent you would be a great place to start--but the key word--is to start!


You have no choice.  You are signed up. The money is paid. Put one foot in front of the other.

To put things in perspective, my friend had her daughter in the emergency room with pneumonia twice this week. When you are the mom and the child is sick, there is no choice. You have to go through it.  You have to get from here to there. Put one foot in front of the other.

And, my first reaction to learning about my dad's terminal cancer diagnosis was--okay--here we go. We don't have a choice. We can't run far away. We have to put one foot in front of the other.  Ditto on the funeral weekend.

So. It's only Mozart. Or in my case this week--loads of laundry, the ghost of Christmas chaos in the house and a stack of deadlines looming for chamber music, SPTG, and SAM.

Here is a radical idea:  perhaps we could do even better than just putting one foot in front of the other.  In her book Simple Abundance Sarah Ban Breathnach lists six principles to help us start the new year with more grace:

Gratitude

Simplicity

Order

Harmony

Beauty

Joy

Hmmm. . . let's see:  I'm so thankful that we have Mozart sonatas to work on. . . it takes a lot of work to make them sound simple. Order, harmony, beauty, and joy?  Those make it worth it to get from here to there.

It's only Mozart, but it is a little bit the same as life.  There are times when you have to get through it--but when you look back--you mostly want to see how grace filled it was--not just a stack of notes, tasks and days to get through.

After writing this, I'm ready to tackle my deadlines and my house now. I've put Mitsuko on my stereo.  I'm thankful I have deadlines and a house.  I'm working toward the other five--hopefully with just a little more grace.