In reality, cherubs, I've been biding my time a bit, getting ready for my next and final and most demanding semester. To facilitate this process, the night before my first day of classes, I decided I would achieve fuller zen if I clocked my head against a brick wall and took a trip to the emergency room. Seriously. The fresh wound on the back of my cranium completes the scar triptych I had begun at the age of 5 (when I expressed my dismay at someone changing the TV channel by flinging my head against a wall and smashing my barrett into the skin) and revisited at the age of 13 (while ice skating, I learned that a mild concussion is an effective way to come to a complete stop).
But after trauma and drama, kindness from strangers, my cut and my face bathed in salt water, eight staples - that's right, staples, not stitches - plugged into my scalp, I was cared for and brought home with a tenderness that made the distress evaporate, and let me sleep dreamlessly.
Besides that excitement, I have also been figuring out how to make good on my New Year's resolutions. I was considering posting that weighty list for your amusement, but I felt too embarassed. Really! After sharing all sorts of inner thoughts in this space, it just seemed like too much to broadcast my innermost insecurities. I have a few sundries to offer, and then, I will tell you a few of my resolutions, which I decided to phrase as Quaker worship queries, rather than the customary list of commands.
Top 10 things I like about Boston:
- It's not too far from New York.
- You occasionally run into New Yorkers.
- The pizza, transportation system, provinciality, lackluster restaurants, limited culture, cold weather, and eerie lack of diversity make me really appreciate New York.
- In their heart of hearts, Bostonians want to be New Yorkers.
- When I say I'm from New York, Bostonians occasionally look at me as if I had just said that I am from Heaven.
- Civic life takes place behind closed doors.
- Like New York, you can talk to yourself on the streets (in Boston because they're so empty, in New York because they're so crowded!)
- The backwards ways of doing things reminds me of Europe. (New York isn't European
at all.) - New England apples are just as good as New York apples.
- Although it's more difficult to meet friends in Boston than in New York, once you do meet them, it's easier to keep them.
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Read this and write. The rightfully hyped Orhan Pamuk describes in his Nobel acceptance speech his singular motivations for writing, and gives a glimpse into the experience of creating art using only yourself. I found some parallels to the study of music, and it made me want to be more diligent about my writing as well.
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A little while ago I steamed up some artichokes. My Chinese roommate, unfamiliar with the plant, peeked into the pot and thought they were little animals!
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This month's break from the conservatory treadmill has been a relief. I had become too deeply conscious of the negative concerns of performing and studying: competition with others, proper deference to instructors who might eventually be career builders, self criticism at the expense of any self praise, etc. For various reasons, I am beginning to rediscover a love for the art itself, a passion that is easy to lose sight of.
With that, here are some questions, musical and otherwise, that I want to think about this year:
- When I perform, how do I want the audience to feel?
- What would happen if I trust that my technique is strong enough to allow me to be musical?
- Do I believe that the composer's intent is still clear, even if the performance isn't perfect?
- What kind of character do I want to be? As a performer? As a friend? As a person?
- What is my role in this city?
- What traits do I hold dear, and which I could cultivate in myself and others?
- How would it feel to perform without doubts or questioning, but instead with pleasure and empathy?
- What if a lifetime is long enough for a dream or two to become reality?
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