Perhaps the most grueling task to date: not just the emergence of thoughts, but the recognition, observance, and immersion in them. Playing music can be both fantastical and soul crushing.
But not at the same time.
The elevation draws you into the fantasy–a high, so to speak, before sending you soaring far down into the dismal pit of reality. The achievement comes from experiencing shifts, being disappointed by it, then going to face it again.
Maybe this is all too vague. Let me just be straight.
I’m practicing again. Hoorah is in order. But now I have to face what I have been able to separately, but (somewhat) safely co-exist with: myself. My childhood is so tightly intertwined with my musical upbringing that practicing and playing music is no longer simple or therapeutic. So as I turn my attention to music, my mind loses focus.
One moment is hopefully forward, the next, desperately dreary. And my mind likes it that way. Since eighth grade, I’d spend 5 or more hours each day focused on the musical trajectory…of music. Not myself. Why take any attention away from the only thing that mattered?
Today I pay for it as my own mind suffocates me with my own thoughts, angry that it never got the time to develop nor the effort to be realized, and demanding that it be paid attention. I concede because, really, what options do I have? As it has proven that I cannot survive without it, I delicately step back when it roars, waiting patiently until it has had its time to prowl. I’ve learned not to cower in fear, but most times, while I look it squarely in the eye with broad shoulders, I internally feel like prey.
Only in the practice room am I so exposed. Vulnerable. Weak. I won’t get stronger until I face it.
Look: Evolve 