Kindness ~ the 6th Aspiration

Mary Sewing Masks

Calvin's Freshman Recital at Home

The boy. . . 

The Audience

Saturday we had one guest and kept her socially distant

The cats LOVE the new sofa

Bill works the live stream. . .

Oliver likes the new pillow. . . a little too much. 

Post Recital Hike around Lebanon Hills

Here we are. This weekend was Calvin's recitals, his optional Freshman recital for the University of Iowa School of Music. We had no guests on Friday, we had one guest on Saturday. Other than that it was Bill, and Mary and I, we are after all, Calvin's biggest fans. We had to eat all the brownies ourselves.

Here are the links. . . the edited video will be posted when we have a chance. The video from Saturday is more smooth.
Friday: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCzPUQksXM0
Saturday: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oT9Q3Vz0Gbo

Thank you to everyone who tuned in for the live streams. It could be that more people were able to watch it live than would have been able to attend the recitals, even in Iowa City. What is live music without an audience? I especially loved the Beethoven. The resilience of the human spirit. Beethoven says what we are all feeling.

You have no idea how hard the man behind the curtain worked to make it happen. Limited band width, computer batteries, camera batteries, limited file sizes on the Nikon, new applications to learn. . . myriad challenges, but for the most part Bill made it happen.

Mary is making masks for the Minneapolis hospitals. These calico masks are not front line masks, but for the other workers in the hospital. They are asking folks to make them and drop them off.

The sixth aspiration of my ten aspirations is to be kind. Compassion is not my first virtue. It fell closer to my sister, who teaches junior high special education. She is the most compassionate person I know.

I know compassion and kindness are not the same thing, but they dance together well. Maybe compassion is the feeling and kindness is the action. What do you think?

True compassion sets boundaries. For example. . . is it kinder to be very strict about bedtime for a few nights, or for your kids to argue and struggle against going to bed for their entire childhood, especially when we know that proper sleep enables all learning and other functions? Boundaries are actually a form of kindness. I probably live that to a fault.

Still. . . kindness is probably the secret of life. Being kind and compassionate does not equal a free for all. Doing your kids laundry their whole life is not kind. Teaching them how to do their own laundry is kind. Once they know how to do their laundry, doing their laundry during finals week is kind. Get it?

I guess we all have to follow our own instincts. I'm trying to look at life through the eyes of the person in front of me. . . but it's not easy. I'm balancing that voice that wants to tell the other person to "just buck up" all the time. I'm afraid if I'm too compassionate it will make the people around me weak. Compassion and kindness and boundaries are a dance.

It can be the hardest thing to be kind to the people we are the closest to. During this quarantine we really, really need to be kind to each other. Give each other some grace. Guard our tongues. Ask ourselves if what we are saying is kind. My childhood pastor Bohlman used to tell us to filter our words with:

• Is it kind?
• Is it neccesary?
• Is it true?

The greatest of these is kindness. 

Lord, 

Here we are in this pandemic. We know you are right here with us. Help us to be patient and kind to each other, always. Help us to set boundaries that are kind and compassionate. Be with all the healthcare workers and send us all your peace that passes all understanding.

Amen 

Aspiration Number Five ~ to Limit Screen Time

Suzuki Association of Minnesota Piano Graduation

Mary and her Book 7 Trophy

Warm Fuzzies All Around

Teacher's Purple Dress Code

Peter performed Bach so beautifully 

Spring Break Brunch

My newest piece

22 Years and Counting--the love of my life

The show must go on. . . 

Well. Here we are. It's Calvin's spring break. Mary's and my official spring break is next week but it's really all mixed up. COVID19 is enabling the sky to fall and we are all cozying down in our social distancing. For people like Bill's folks who live down a country road cul-de-sac in northern Minnesota, social distancing is not too hard. Sometimes a car comes down their road and sometimes it doesn't.

After the obvious victims of the actual illness, my heart next goes out to all the young people and all their spring plans. All the student musicians, and athletes and scholars. All the seniors celebrating the end of high school. So many, many disappointments. Calvin's first recital at the University of Iowa, the SAM Strings graduation. . . proms. . . weddings. . . the list goes on and on and on. We are all just having a giant sad exhale.

Our Sunday family bullet journal meeting where we go over all the events of the week and all the details about rides and rehearsals? It was very short this week.

Everything is cancelled. Calvin will still have his recital runs this weekend--Friday at 5:00 and Saturday at 1:00.  Please check his YouTube channel to catch it live or watch the video. Here is a link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8eTT-pv5u9eEwjlOSquYjg
Or search Calvin Kotrba Piano on Youtube and you will find it. His other Youtube channel is train videos. Don't get confused. I will still serve brownies with a side of hand sanitizer after the music for the die-hards.  We will sit six feet away.

I have time to blog. Lot's of time. Trips are cancelled. The drawers are already pretty clean. Sorry if that makes this entry too long.

The next aspiration of my ten aspirations is to limit screen time. It's not really great timing as I see my screen time is up 137% during the first two days of social distancing. Eventually we don't need anymore shoes on sale and we have seen all there is to see on Facebook and we know the hourly play by play on how many confirmed cases are in our counties.

Still screen time is a big deal to me. My mom limited our screen time growing up. We could only watch 30 minutes of television (remember network TV?) per day. That meant if I really wanted to watch Little House on the Prairie on Monday nights I had to save up a day. And it took all week to earn Bob Newhart and Carol Burnett for Friday night.  Sometimes if only my dad was home he wouldn't notice me nonchalantly slink down behind the coffee table and watch Charlie's Angels invisibly behind his back. He was doing double media with a Louis l'Amour novel anyway.

It was only universal karma that my own kids should have even stricter limits. They didn't even know there was network television until they were ten and seven. Bill and I were able to carefully curate every VHS tape that made its way into our library. On Saturdays and Sunday mornings before church Calvin and Mary could put the tapes in and watch to their hearts content. This allowed Bill and I to sleep past 5:30 a.m. We collected archival Sesame Street, The Wiggles, The Bear in the Big Blue House, Teletubbies (they were weird, but that is where Mary's nickname baby sunshine came from) and as they grew we added Loony Tunes and others.

It was never, ever only about screening content, though that was an important side effect. It was about that which you are NOT doing while you are plugged in. You are not reading. You are not playing with trains and dolls. You are not putting together puzzles and playing games. You are not going outside and playing in the snow. You are not listening to your Suzuki recordings and other music. For music, the kids had a jam box in the living room and in their rooms, and we made copies of all their favorite music disks so they could listen to whatever they wanted whenever they wanted without worrying about damage to the CDs or asking mom and dad to play their disks. We also had a full set of CDs for the car. There were no limits on music.

We were blessed to not have any smart devices until 2009, when I got my phone. Each of the kids got a smart phone when they were 13. And they have computers and school and personal iPads now too. I don't limit their time now. Calvin is 18 and that would be very weird. That train has left the station. Mary is pretty self-governed as well. We are all probably a little too plugged in, but honestly, I worry more about myself than about them. They are mostly super busy with school and rehearsals and practicing and sleep. Mary loves crafts and pens more than video games and Calvin has his own array of stuff he does, like writing a fantasy novel in his spare time.

Of course, here in corona virus land, they are both playing Minecraft together at the kitchen table while I write this. We are not some kind of monks. Still it's creative and they are in the world of blocks together so I'm not too uptight. And they are 15 and 18 years old.

Back to me. . . my temptations? Facebook. Youtube content, some musical and valuable and some junky like capsule wardrobe ideas for spring and how to keep your skin looking like you are 25. I also love watching hours and hours of productivity videos. That is a joke. However, I have gotten a lot of valuable ideas about calendar blocking and bullet journaling which have honestly been very inspirational. Still, remember, it's not only about content. It's about what we are not doing while we have screen time. We are not practicing. We are not reading a book. We are NOT WRITING A BOOK. I repeat, we are not writing a book while we are watching someone else's YouTube video about how to write a book.

I also know that I'm not listening to my loved ones as carefully while I'm on my phone. See aspiration number two.

So, I asked the kids how to set limits on my phone. They were able to show me right away. Now any lack of discipline I have is at least shown to me after 20 minutes.

I'm a little long winded on this today. I always feel like there is a lot at stake about how we spend our time. Writing this reminds me how I want to spend my time. . . with family and friends, practicing, reading and writing. And gardening when the snow melts. And, I like cooking sometimes. We have enough food here in the house to cook for several horses. Socially distanced horses.

Best wishes everyone~stay well and be kind to each other. There was only ever one tattoo I considered getting and it was on my right forearm and it read This Too Shall Pass. But the feeling passed.

And, this too shall pass.
Amen.

Where You Lead, I Will Follow

Mary's First Quilt Top

Where you lead, I will follow. Mary bought me a key chain for Christmas a year ago, it has those words from the theme song of the Gilmore Girls show. Mary and I watch this show when we have a chance. The characters are unrealistically snarky, (read: life is not a sitcom, we are not a comedy act) but it is a show about a mother and daughter and a grandma and their relationships.

A while ago my mom commented~ your kids are just like you and Bill. Mary is doing her bullet journal and sewing and Calvin likes trains. Both kids like piano and traveling.

I guess we do have a lot of interests in common, but Bill and I would say that actually the kids are not like us, they are better than us. We are often inspired by them and motivated to be more of our our best selves. I think eventually all parents learn from their children. At least that is the plan. The hope.

A few years ago, well. . . 2014 to be exact. . . I purchased a book titled The Life Changing Art of Tidying Up, by Marie Kondo. The spark of joy book. This scratched a big itch. There are several old blog entries about it. The problem for us OCD sparkers is that we really want to spark it all. Our own stuff. Our pets' stuff. Our neighbor's stuff. Most of all. . . our kids' stuff.

Calvin is no saint, but to be completely honest back then it was Mary's stuff that haunted me. Trinkets. Hundreds of Trinkets. Books. Doll clothes. Little collectables. Craft supplies. Objects of nature. Birthday gifts from twelve girls. Every year. Actually probably thousands of trinkets. Candy wrapper collections. Sacred papers. Stuffed animals adopted from every corner of the world. And their babies. You KNOW what they say about rabbits.

I blamed myself. After all, as her mother I bought her most of this stuff and the rest just multiplied and became part of the early childhood museum that was the overstuffed hopelessly cluttered 12 foot by 12 foot stacked to the ceiling twilight zone called Mary's room.

Ms. Kondo is very firm. You can't spark other people's stuff. Not even in the middle of the night when you know there is no way in God's green earth she will miss some of this stuff if you silently slip it into a black hefty big and stealthily heave it curbside. I would never do that. Just saying. I never did that. I swear.

Kondo recommends just setting the example. So, Mom and Dad's room, just across the hall became an oasis of calm tidiness, almost mimicking a Marriott Courtyard without even a pen on the nightstand.

The transformation didn't happen overnight. I would say it was a slow and steady wins the race kind of change. First her desk started looking functional. Trinkets started making their way toward the garbage bin. Games were sorted. Collections were culled. I can't exactly pinpoint the moment of lift. I think it was when the dandelion fuzzy collection met its maker.

Now, at 15, Mary's room has nothing under the bed. Clothes hanging freely in the closet. Books are on the shelves. Only the top 200 stuffed rabbits made the cut. They are settled in sweet hanging planters on the wall. Baby quilts came down. Travel souvenirs went up. Little by little she grew up and cleaned her room. She made it her own place.

Having a messy room is not necessarily a character flaw. My point is that no amount of nagging and trying to help or pestering ever made a difference. Eventually she just drank the spark of joy Kool-Aid. Marie Kondo was right. We set the example. She followed.

How many other things in life are just like this. We can pester the daylights out of the kids, but eventually they just end up following our lead. In their own time and space.

Our best parenting technique may well turn out to be just being our own very best selves.
Where you lead, I will follow.

It won't be long until we are following them. Maybe even by eighteen. This is what we wanted.

This blog? A long-winded way of saying most things turn out okay. Give them a little time.
God bless. . .

The Aspiration to Speak Love

After the Advancing SPTG Recital Selfie

The Girls Performed Mozart and Bach

Minnesota Winter Survival

My Parent Party Treats

Mary's First High School Jazz Concert

A House for A Cheetah

A Throw Back, Complete with Keyboard, Vocal Mic and Tambourine, Taken at a Club in Steamboat Springs

Posing for Publicity

Summer Practice Partners

Last weekend was my parent party. We had a good turnout. We get our drinks and visit and then get our desserts and find our way to the living room. This year we watched a piece of Calvin's Italy audition. (The Italy festival, unfortunately has been cancelled due to the virus in China.) Still Calvin got a lovely video. Here is a link to his own YouTube channel and video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuuxGkdw8Jk. Then we watched a snippet of his Book One recital complete with side long glances at me after purposeful mistakes. That little four year old face. It's a long and winding road, folks. After the videos the parents went around the circle and shared highs and lows. This year the highs and lows took two and a half hours. There was a lot of pride and also a few tender tears. There was honesty.

We all need to vent. We vent to our inner circle. Some vent to Facebook. I vent to my mother and my husband. We need a safe place to let it all hang out. Yet, there is a dance to it all. When someone vents to me, it could be my child or a friend or a studio parent, it comes with the responsibility of discernment on my part. Is this something I need to help fix? Or is this just a necessary release of feelings.

When we are hurting we need someone to listen and be with us. Darling, I love you and I'm here for you. Our presence can be a gift to the other person. A hopeful blessing. Now and then there might be some actual words or actions needed to be of service.

There is another facet to this which I confess I have been guilty of once or twice in the past. That is, when perhaps we share too much and perhaps with the wrong audience and it crosses the line and becomes gossip.  I see this on social media when piano teachers vent about their students to other teachers. Another form of this which unfortunately is in my Souhrada DNA is the propensity to ruminate on the unjust or just plane irritating thing another has done to us. We can go through it over and over in our mind for days, months, and even years.

Reflecting on this, I made "Speak Love" one of my ten aspirations. It's number four if you are following. Speak love means many things. Firstly it means to only speak lovingly about other people. It has the more important side note of actually seeing the best in other people. Actively looking for the God given light in each and every person we come across. That can and will take me a lifetime to achieve.

It doesn't mean I never get to share my hurt feelings or frustrations. It just means being mindful about it and knowing when enough is enough. Learning not to ruminate. We talk about popping that bubble. Being the boss of your thoughts.

Where there is no wood, the fire goes out; and where there is no talebearer, strife ceases. Proverbs 26:20. 

And this is a quote in my notebook, unfortunately without reference. It's not mine.

Words. You may notice that when we speak quickly, without thinking, or rush to get our ideas across, our worlds don't carry the same power as when we speak slowly and confidently, allowing those receiving our words time and space to take them in. When we carefully listen to others before we speak our words have more integrity, and when we take time to center ourselves before speaking, we truly begin to harness the power of speech. Then our words can be intelligent messages of healing and light, transmitting deep and positive feelings to these who receive them. 

Good grief and good luck. Still, it's a worthy aspiration. When I'm in a hurry it takes everything I've got to listen to the long version of the story (remember I have two verbal children) before snapping in. I guess aspiration number two, to listen, and this one, to speak love, are soulmates.

Everyday is a new chance to practice.

Lord,
Guide the words of my mouth. Help them to speak love at all times. That seems impossible, yet it's worth a try. Help me speak only the best about others, to always speak their name with love. Foster that circle of seeing the best and speaking the best. Help me to not ruminate. And help me discern when my loved ones need a listening ear or when they need active help. 
Amen

Focusing on the Moments or a Moment on Focus

We have been home two weeks. This morning the sun poked through the bleak midwinter. Shout out to Mary who persevered and made it through midterms and finals and lessons and recital preparation and driving practice since we have been home. Shout out to Calvin who had a four hour recording session in the U of I concert hall. And shout out to Bill who as always, takes the storms of life and turns them into gentle breezes taking pictures along the way.

Looking back on eleven years of trips to Hawaii, we have only missed two years, it's easy to watch the kids grow up through the camera lens and of course the sun does its work on the faces of the adults as well.

Our children have all these different stage. I've said before that I loved all the stages. The trick is, you never get to say goodbye to that kid before they become the next one. It's not my idea, it's universal, but you never know the last time someone sits on your lap or builds a sand castle or plays in a Playmobil town in your basement.

I don't know why thinking about memories is such a mixed bag. It was so cold and bleak I tried to conjure up the image of my mom and I walking along the beach in the sun, just two weeks ago. Instead of warming my heart, it squeezed it and a little tear came out.

Everyone says the secret of life is just being in the moment. Really being there.
Breathing in and breathing out in real time.

How do you remind yourself of this?

I always remind my studio parents that you can't make a child focus by telling them to focus.
Telling them to focus actually takes their focus away from the task. We have to draw them in.

We have to draw ourselves into the moments of life. We have to look through the camera lens in real time. Focus the lens. Focus the moment.

Calvin attributes his ability to test well in subjects to his growing up at the piano. Not everyone walking down the street can sit and really focus on something for an extended amount of time. Mary attributes her ability to finish complicated projects to piano practice. Developing focus is a lifetime growth thing. We are all on that path, myself included.

Caroline Fraser always says, the student was focused because the teacher was focused.

Well, it's a busy weekend and I don't have all the answers. I'm going to talk a little about focus at my parent party tomorrow. And a little about just being in the moment.

I'll try to be in the moments as I go through the recital at MacPhail today, a date with Bill, the parent party tomorrow and the social times that go with it all.

Blessings to you my faithful readers. This is my eleventh year of blogging.
I'm glad I can share a few of these moments and a few of my inner thought with you.

Sara

Four Days in Three Days Left ~ Hawaii 2020

A Rainy Arrival

Bill in His Element

Lunchtime Visitor

Bubbles at Lunch ~ Only in Hawaii

Mary made this beautiful lei

A New Restaurant Found

Fancy Salad

Same drink. . . a picture of a picture of a picture. . . traditions

Haleiwa Joe's. . our new haunt

The fanciest volcanic presentation of chocolate cake, ice cream, and raspberry sauce

Kotrtopia 2020

Janel as lovely as ever

The 4:00 meeting of the Piña Colada Club

First date night in a very long time 

Our happy place

Aloha. It's the annual blog from Hawaii. Tomorrow is my birthday. We were here two years ago for my 50th so you can easily do the math. It's good here. Bill and I first came in 2008 and we have been coming back every year. We have only missed a couple when Holy Week was during spring break. This year's miraculous scheduling of a week long trip with all five of us is brought to you by Calvin's winter break and Mary taking the hit and missing four days of high school. We probably won't be able to do that again. 

I woke up today and hoped that today could be just like yesterday. As I took my vitamins I noted that now four days were gone and only three days were left. 

We have our routines here, but we try to do something new now and then too. I think we will hike to Diamond Head tomorrow. We tried a new restaurant this year as well, wasn't that big of us? It's a big risk to give up a sacred meal here. 

Back to the four days gone part. 

Since Calvin went to college in late August my mind, body and soul have been in a constant state of four days gone three days left. I've been trying to balance my glorification of the past, the unknown path of the future and the plan for today. I've been trying to get off the emotional roller coaster of time, but this pattern of getting excited when we will all be together and being sad when it's over is rooted deep in my DNA. Generations of Souhrada and Stephens mothers have paved the way. 

On the last day of Thanksgiving break I was all by myself for the day. Bill was driving Calvin back to Iowa City and Mary was at a day long rehearsal. After the goodbye I put on my pity party music and started bringing up the Christmas decorations from the basement. About three repetitions of the sad song in, I wiped my tears, blew my nose, and turned off the stereo. I had a cathartic angel God moment. It takes more than a little transparency for me to tell you this but perhaps it could be insightful. It was a moment when God snuck into the little voice in my head and actually did not whisper but shouted very loudly. . . 

This is not who you are. You are not going to cry your way through Christmas. You love Christmas. These TOO are the good old days. You will go through your holiday rituals and traditions with authentic joy. You will have joyful anticipation of family times and having Calvin home and Janel here. You will enjoy the times together and anticipate the future but you won't be obsessed with the reality of it ending. You have been given a spirit not of sadness but of happiness. 

From that moment on I felt happy. Content in the moment. A real sense of peace. A deeper notion of who I am and who I'm not. Perhaps occasionally it's easier to figure out what you don't want to be, than to feel the pressure of figuring out what you do want to be. I did not want to be that mom stuck in the past, guilting her children for growing up. I was not a depressed person.

So here we are. Four days in and three days left. Monday Calvin goes back to school, Janel goes home, and I will teach. I will do the January and February things. I will be putting my renewed identity to the test. 

The kids have a whole set of plans for 2020 trips. There will be recitals and cabin trips and music camps and hopefully a little time for creative renewal. 

Dear Lord,

Thank you for this last month. Thank you for a joyful reunion, a lengthy and lovely Christmas. Thank you for last week when I practiced with Mary in the morning and then got to listen to Calvin practice as I did my morning tasks. Teaching was a joy. And lastly, thank you for this week in Hawaii. Thank you for the rhythm of beach days and eating beach food and even drinking beach drinks now and then. Bless the rest of our week and bless our return to the routine next week. Help me remember that these are the good old days TOO. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Amen

My hub-a-dub

Winter Recital Day 2019

Saturday was our Kotrba Piano Studio Winter Recital Day. It's one of my favorite days of the year. Yes, it's a lot of preparation, I have to thank my husband Bill and Mary for all their help to get the house and studio ready. And I'd like to thank Lorie and Isabella for staying after the first recital to help turn the reception around for the second recital. To me, it's all worth it.

These kids. . . they worked so hard on their classical selection and their holiday piece. My heart is just so full, they played with musicality and poise, many of them used the pedal for the first time and added a lot of rubato to their pieces. Duets and duets with parents are always a highlight and I got to accompany Mary on clarinet.

Congratulations to everyone!

I have so much more on my mind to write, but life with one less kid in the house and no choir is actually a little more sane this year and if you are a mom or dad who is pulling the Christmas train through the midnight hours, please feel free to read some of these blogs from when my kids were littler. I was there too.

December 2011 Blogs

Calvin comes home Friday, with my mom. The Christmas train has left the station. I put the Peanuts Christmas sheets on his bed. I'm making the Christmas food. I'm wrapping a few less toys now-a-days but there will still be gifts from me and Santa.

Here are links to the recitals, they are unlisted, you can only get to them with these links. Enjoy listening while you wrap presents and bake your cookies and may you have a blessed Christmas.

December 14, 2019, 1:00
December 14, 2019, 3:30