Dear Reader:

Although I feel like midsummer's eve has come and gone, it really isn't that far past the official start of summer is it?   But, as this week started, I had my inevitable feeling of sliding downhill (maybe on a waterslide?  Sure.  Let's make this slide fun, shall we?) towards the end of the summer and the beginning of a new academic year.   Maybe it's because my summer class is starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Or maybe it is because I looked at my July calendar and see that I/we are traveling quite a bit during the next month.   Or maybe it's because my favorite part of summer (before it gets ridiculously hot, muggy, and clearly the setting for a Tennessee Williams play) is coming to a close - I do love the months of May and June.

In any case, I found myself with some thoughts that I am anxious to blog about today.   It's always a relief when I have thoughts that demand to be worked through on this page, because that means that I can feel myself moving toward something that will, eventually (I think!), do me some good.   Some days, those thoughts and words come easier than other days.   So, today I want to ramble on about friendship, patience, struggle, and how everything that I've learned about these things really can be related to everything that I've learned about piano playing!

First, I need to tell you, dear reader, that I sometimes feel overwhelmed by gratitude for the friends in my life.  Actually overwhelmed.   Like I sometimes feel like there can be no way that I actually deserve the wonderful friends I have.  And, honestly, this feeling almost overpowers me.  And, it doesn't always happen after one of my friends says something or does something for me that resonates or instructs or soothes.    Sometimes, I just look at them or think of something they've said in the past or just think of how beautiful they are, and I am submerged by a wave of gratitude that they are in my life.   Luckily, this doesn't happen all the time or I would never get anything done except for feeling gratitude ad nauseum, which is delightful but might become a bit annoying for the aforementioned friends.    Today, I received a series of texts from a friend which just reached down, picked me up, and pushed me onto a wave of happy energy.  And, later in the evening, a new friend spent some time with me and I had the lovely feeling of mutual personal revelation where you can see that you are with a kindred spirit who is feeling as happy with a burgeoning friendship as you are.   And, this friend (BONUS!), has a child that is developing a lovely friendship with my children.    My kids have had lots of playmates and classmates, but the quality of the friendship that they both have with this boy is different. I feel like I'm watching Jem and Scout and Dill from "To Kill a Mockingbird".   They are quite simpatico.    It is truly lovely to watch.  And, how much more delightful to feel as though their mother and I are also developing a similar comfort in our friendship.

I am also grateful to call several former students friends.   One such person, who I will be visiting for a few days in July, wrote a fantastic blog post this morning which really jumpstarted my thoughts about patience and struggle.   Here's one of the money quotes from her blog entry:

"Everybody is full of surprises.   Unperceived beauty.  Unexpected poetry."

Truth.

She discussed the idea that we can have disagreements with people and struggle over issues and work, and that we often fail to recognize the beauty or poetry or possibility in a situation and refuse to be surprised by it.   She talked about practicing for her senior piano recital when she was studying with me:

"Through ripped pages in the practice room and long, slow hours of methodical work, I loved them all.  Even when the work wasn't working.  Even in my frustration."

There it was.   Another truth.   This made me think about how I expect to have struggles when I practice a new piece or even a familiar piece - the struggles are different for every piece but they are always there.   I know that I will have to repeat sections over and over and over and think about them and deconstruct them and turn them upside down and take them apart and put them back together again.  And, I've gotten to the place where I actually have some sort of perverse enjoyment of the process.  Because I love the music.  I love the music that I'm working on even when I am cursing its elusiveness or its difficulty or its challenges.   And, this brought me (bear with me, dear reader, I know it can be a challenge to follow my train of thought sometimes!) to thinking about patience.

I am struggling to find patience in some situations in my life right now.   And, as I've mentioned on this blog, I always thought that I was a patient person until having children increased the bar for me.  And, now that I am getting in touch with and acknowledging, through this blog, some of my struggles with body image and self image, I find myself thinking that maybe I was wrong.  Maybe I am not a constitutionally patient person.   There are situations in my life right now which are causing me to feel challenged, emotionally.   They are full of struggle.   But, I got to thinking today that it might not be that I'm impatient with these situations.  It might be that I am now honestly able to admit and acknowledge my struggles with various issues.   Dictionary.com says that patience is "the capacity to tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset."   Here is where I have a problem with dictionary.com.   The "without getting angry or upset" part.   I think that's too limited a definition of patience.  Wikipedia discusses the role of patience in various religious traditions and the Buddhist idea that patience involves "the endurance of a difficult situation without acting on anger or other negative emotions."   Now, that's more like it.    When I am deep into practicing a piece of music, sometimes I am truly annoyed with the piece or the passage that is causing me trouble.   Sometimes, it makes me feel like giving up or doing something to resolve my feelings of inadequacy (remember, dear reader, how I LOVE to try and "resolve" situations, even if they are not ready to be resolved?).  But I have practiced, over the years, how to either put aside or channel that desire for resolution into an objective, methodical, non-judgmental approach to working through the difficulty.   If one was to relate this to my body image and relationship with food, I think it becomes clear that I can try to work on taking the frustrations that I feel about myself and turning them toward healthy choices.  And, in my relationship struggles, I can stand in the middle of my feelings of stress and be attentive to what is going on without acting or trying to fix things for myself or for anyone else.   I don't have to pretend that the "better person" would not have those negative feelings.   Everyone has them, Lisa.  Just as everyone is "full of surprises" and "unexpected poetry"!   Who knows?  I might even surprise myself.

Today, I did 30 minutes on the elliptical at the gym - 318 calories and stole some recipes for a healthy fried brown rice from a magazine in a waiting room:   rice with red pepper and almond, rice with snow peas and peanuts, rice with mushroom and pine nut, rice with zucchini and walnut.  Smoothie obsession - move aside.  There's a new obsession in town - RICE.    Yes, I am an obsessive personality.  Why did it take me so long to admit this?  :)

Thanks ever so much, dear reader, for spending your precious time reading my self-indulgent rambles.    I hope they get you thinking the way others' words get me thinking.   I will now leave you with some pretty/funny pictures:

You are welcome!