For some reason I can’t sleep tonight.
The March schedule was posted today at work. It’s as ridiculous as it has been in the last few months.
The difference is that the amount of radically different shifts in my hours has increased.
For example……I have to be at work at noon on Saturday and finish my shift 12 hours later. Then I have to be back to work at 4 p.m. on Sunday and end at 12:30 am on Monday, only to come back - on the same day - at 7 a.m., to do transports, leave at 11 a.m. and come back - on the same day - at 3 p.m. to cover the desk for a staff meeting.
….my thoughts exactly.
I have started writing a rough ‘menu’ for next week so I at least know what to cook for a few days, when I know that my body will be running on fumes. Not my most creative menu ideas har har.
Someone posted a piano tune at the knitting forum, and it made me go look for Chopin.
Allow me to backtrack………My mother has been playing the piano since she was ten, and would often play while we were growing up. She didn’t have much time to do so over the last few years, but hopefully now that she’s retiring, she’ll go back to it.
Chopin was among her favorites. Waltzes. Chopin’s Waltzes.
Waltz No 3 always takes me back in time. I can picture Mom sitting at the piano, loosing herself in the music.
I remember buying the soundtrack for The Pianist before watching the movie. Yes, the movie’s amazing and all that, but the music. That first time I popped it into the player, slid the earphones on and pressed play. I cried with each piece. The Nocturnes, the Preludes, the Waltz…….oh, it was heavenly. In those days of cultural shock, depression and sadness, the music was a balm for my soul.
My Abuelo Pancho (that’s Grandfather for ya) collected many classical music LPs. My Dad sort of inherited much of the collection and increased it as the years went by. He used to play a classical record in the mornings to wake us up for school. I don’t quite remember why he did it, but oddly enough all three of us learned to appreciate the music in our own way.
Hanna learned the piano and tried out the cello. Frank learned piano and immersed himself in the guitar. I tried the piano, and if you poke me enough I can tell you what the keys are.
Saddly, I wasn’t good at learning any instruments, though I often dream of learning to play the violin. I did sing for the school choir for years and loved every second of it.
Oddly enough, although I can’t play the piano to save my life, music does define a lot of what I do in life. I have to have a certain list of songs playing in the background when I write, specific songs put me on different levels of melancholy, I become absolutely transformed with certain songs. Heck, I remember the song playing in the background when I first made out with my boyfriend *blows a kiss at the Bear*. And I have been known to chant under certain circumstances.
I remember back when I did theatre in school, that Rom - our valiant director - had this session in which he kept a cd of african rhythms playing in the background while we all took turns dancing in the middle of a circle. I remember everybody going with it and I remember that when it was my turn, I sort of went through the motions, but I didn’t feel it.
I was - and still am - a very private person. People find it incredibly hard to believe, specially when I add that I’m also incredibly shy. The truth is, that although I performed with all of these people, I didn’t quite trust them. I knew them outside of the group and knew of some of the things they did, and trusting them was not an option for me. Not deep down.
I have a copy of the cd that Rom played that day. I have played the song again, in private. And I have become lost in the melody.
I will never be a fancy dancer. I will never have the divine grace of those who do this for a living. I doubt I’ll ever be a virtuoso of any instrument and I’ll never have a voice that will charm millions.
But I can feel the music. I can feel the it underneath my skin. I can feel it in my blood.
Sometimes it makes me cry. Sometimes it makes me laugh.
It always makes me live.
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