tollipop

hello

It's been recital central these past few weeks.

Also, I broke my yellow streak.

I'm feeding the girls a leafy surprise.

And last night Izzy brought tears to my eyes.

 

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Dear reader, my apologies for such a pathetic rhyme.  I'm tired for some reason. And it's a blustery day.  The effects of wind plus fatigue upon an already scattered mind equal bad poetry every time.  

It's a scientifically proven fact.

You know, I often wonder who you are. Who is reading Tollipop?  Every now and then I get an email from someone who reads this blog, mentioning she's been reading it for awhile yet never left a comment.

If you are such a person, I'm interested to know more about you!  Won't you please introduce yourself?  Tell me your favorite book, your favorite treat, your favorite color.  Tell me how things look in your corner of the world...

Lately I've connected or reconnected with some kindred spirits who've contacted me through Tollipop: a sweet high school friend, a wise and luminous girl from my newlywed days, and a woman living in Wales who has the very same name as I do (prior to marriage) plus a daughter named Izzy, the same age as mine.  

Saying hello is a lovely thing.  

It makes this little tea party one of the bright moments of my day.  

wishing you a lovely weekend

Late last night I was working at the piano when Izzy wandered into the room, picked up her violin and started to play...which was clever of her, given she knew she'd incurred my displeasure by not being in bed.  

 
I recorded this little clip, which she asked me to send to a few of my friends.  I was touched that Izzy feels she has a friendship with my friends, meaning over the years they have taken the time to express an interest in her whenever they cross paths and as a result, a connection has blossomed.  

Isn't that how life should be?  Being friends with people of all ages?  

Beyond that, the desert is still beautiful.

Caroline is still sleuthing with a fellow redhead.

Sophie may still be found in the gym.

My husband is still making brilliant pizzas.

And I'm still thinking about rabbits.  Pillowy soft rabbits who take everything in, who have a quiet, knowing way, and by their presence make you feel calmer, quieter, as if you are okay and everything is going to be all right.

track record

The season of recitals is upon us, dear reader.  So far I have forgotten only one event and shown up for another exactly one week ahead of schedule.

In other words: business as usual.

And you?  

How would you rate your job performance these days?

all is well

A word about singing, dear reader:

1.  Singing is hard.

2. It takes about seven lungs to do it.

3. Singing is like being on a highwire, only you don't plummet to your death if you lose your balance.  You just sound like you did.

4. My sister, who is a singer, told me you have to train your vocal muscles to remember how to sing each new song, and for some reason I find that to be a fascinating thought.

5. When I am on a trail run and not pretending to be a spy, or thinking about words, languages, or t-boning wild burros, I often hear the most amazing music in my mind.

6.  The human voice is my favorite musical instrument.

7. One of my favorite things to sing is hymns, because the language and moving parts of hymns are so rich, pure, and dimensional--it's like giving my brain new school supplies, a piña colada, and a tiny talking turtle.

8.  I'm not a singer, so this post puts me out of my box.  Way out.  But I am the type who thinks everyone should sing.  I'm not the type who things everyone should sing and post it on their blog, per se, but everyone should definitely sing.  

9.  Along those lines, if you want to join a choir, I know of a good one.

10.  This is an arrangement I made of one of my favorite hymns.  You can listen to it by clicking here: all is well

sounds like home

It's funny what makes me feel at home.  Without taking you on a panoramic tour of my thoughts, I'd say there's not a lot that delivers the feeling of safety and security for me.  An actual house does not deliver that feeling.  Our new house is lovely, but I suspect I will always admire it somewhat like a tourist.  I've seen too many things disappear from my life to make any material object the resting place of my heart.

But, music.  

Music makes me feel at home.  

Music lifts.  It beckons.  Music reaches deep inside me and tells me there is beauty that transcends every care and sorrow, there is a higher plane.

And lately there is music in our home again.  Pure.  Sweet. Achingly familiar.

Friends make me feel at home.  Yesterday a whole bunch of them came over to help us move furniture and lend their expertise as to the proper way to assemble a table.  In case you're worried there was an excess of brainpower for the task, I can assure you they tapped it completely.  

And I am grateful, if also unable to resist a little teasing.  

Cookies make me feel at home.  Or, to be more precise, the feeling there is something good to eat.  Something warm.  Made with love.

So do candles.  My little brother who lives in D.C. sent me this candle from Amish country.  It smells divine.  

He actually sent me two with the understanding I am to give the second to my sister-in-law. So...I guess will.

Our friends moved the piano into our home.  This is the first time in over a month I've had a chance to play it.  A piano is a luxury, so I would never say I rely on one in order to feel at home.  But knowing it's there makes the house feel warmer.

This morning my family joined me to sing some hymns--between the five of us there are sopranos, altos, and a bass.  The sound soars in this house.  It fills the air.  It is rich, full, and vibrant. 

This sounds like home.  This feels like home.

This is where I want to be.

odyssey

One of my favorite moments each week is taking Izzy to her music lesson.  We arrive with time to spare and sometimes we walk to Starbucks for a quick after school snack.

She still likes to hold hands, my twelve year old girl, and this simple gesture takes me back through all the days of her life: remembering her as an infant, a toddler, a three year old clutching her tiny violin.  How did her hand get so big and strong?  How is it she chatters away about John Wilkes Booth while I am still trying to recall kissing her pumpkin cheeks and breathing her baby soft scent?

We walk and we talk.  There are homeless people along the way.  It is a helpless feeling to pass by such unfathomable sorrow.  How did so much go so wrong?  How?  Sometimes I look into their faces, sometimes I don't.  But either way I have them fixed in my mind, either way I wish I could go back through their lives and find the moment that would have made the difference, either way I wrestle with walking past fellow beings in irretrievable despair.  

And then we are here, five minutes and eons away from the people on the street. We find a table and listen to two businessmen, emboldened by caffeine, assert what they wish they would've said in a meeting earlier that day.  Izzy looks at me, wide eyed, as they are breaking emergency swear vials right and left.  We smirk with the secret understanding emergency swear vials are to be reserved for the extinction of chocolate, holiday lines at the post office, and kids getting stung by scorpions: these guys don't know anything.

Lessons are starting.  It's time to go. 

Not everyone can pull off such an exit.

You need yellow boots.

And a dose of moxy.

We retrace our steps, ten feet from the people sitting, staring, a million miles away. It is a beautiful day: the elixir of life is in the air, the sky is soaring blue, the sun casts long shadows.  

The journey is over.  Izzy goes to her lesson; I go on my way. But these things stay with me--lovely, bemusing, and deeply troubling.  I wonder if I can ever make enough of a difference someday.

itzhak perlman

Last weekend Izzy and I attended a performance by Itzhak Perlman.  

Can you find her in the picture?

I love live musical performances...there is something about the experience which goes beyond plain listening.  There is something intimate, energetic, and unpredictable about the moment.  There is something magical.  At some point in the evening I usually look at the people sitting behind or down the row from me (not in a weird, conspicuous way...only in a weird, inconspicuous way).  Their faces glow, they lean forward.  They appear to be spellbound, like children on Christmas Eve--younger, open, believing.

When I saw the program, however, I will admit my shoulders slumped.  

What I'm about to say next should be put into proper context: if we were to compare the world of music to the ecosystem of a pond, for example, then my knowledge of that subject demotes me to the status of tadpole.

But franchement, dear reader: the sonata...?  

It has to be one of the most cerebral (and I don't mean that in a good way) forms in all of music.  With few exceptions, there is little about the sonata which endears itself to the common listener.  Rather, it over-intellectualizes, it wrinkles its nose as if it smells something less brilliant.  There is no heart to the piece, and where there is no heart, there is only poorly guided logic.

Because as any musical peon will tell you, a cerebral composition left to its own devices, abundant in genius yet lacking in heart, is going to end up sounding like some self-important boor rehashing the minutae of his weekend, fascinating only to himself, while you sit there having no interest or place in the conversation.

But don't tell Itzhak Perlman I said that!

Because he was amazing.  He was warm and accessible.  He played the violin like you didn't even know he had a violin.  The instrument seemed like an appendage, so familiar to him you practically forgot it was there.

And the audience loved him.

Here's what it's like to be Itzhak Perlman, here's what it's like to have world renowned, musical prodigy cachet: whatever you do, everyone's going to think it's hilarious.  You know?   Be careful if you lick your finger to turn a page of music--you just might bring the house down.

At the end of the concert, Mr. Perlman played several encores and told the following joke, which got more laughs than all the episodes of Seinfeld put together, plus all its reruns:

Tchaikovsky had a friend in Russia who was convicted of a minor crime and given a very harsh sentence.

(At this point people were already laughing, as if crime and punishment is a running gag in Russia, as if the punchline was superfluous...)

They hoped the punishment would be reduced, but he was forced to serve the duration of the time.  In condolence, Tchaikovsky composed a song for his friend and called it "Chanson sans Paroles."

C'mon.  You have to admit.  That is pure comedy gold.  

Although I've been telling the joke for days now and all I get is a blank stare. 

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p.s. Sorry if I offended anyone with my indictment of sonatas.  Remember what I said about tadpoles and the pond...

journey within the journey

Last week was a blur of practicing, lessons, rehearsals, recitals...all leading up to Izzy's performance at the MTNA competition on Saturday night.

Izzy's amazing teacher coached her through the entire experience.  

 

There were late nights.  A weary girl.  A tree in the room.  An indifferent cat.

The competition consisted of performing twenty minutes of repertoire for a panel of judges who hailed from across the country and even around the world.

It involved the hasty removal of blue nailpolish on the way to the event.

There were last minute warmups, waiting, gloves, and a good book to calm the nerves.

And then it was time to play.

How small she looked out there!  How alone!  

And yet I watched as my timid girl put the violin to her chin and set it on fire.  

She played with every ounce of passion that was in her body.  She brought every bit of hard work, of endless preparation to this moment.  She stood there and played like a lark soaring through the air, like a swan.  She took my breath away as she always does, she made my heart ache.  Watching her was like being drawn from the room and floating away with her beautiful, mesmerizing sound.

But she did not win.

She did not win because she was in a league that eclipsed any other competition she's ever experienced. 

Izzy was very good.  But the other musicians were astounding.  And they were better.

Forgive me, but that is the truth.  Parents who cannot be objective about their children make me nervous.

However, to me she was a true winner.  I watched a transformation occur in her playing and performance over the past several weeks.  

And I watched her accept the defeat with crestfallen grace.

I don't know how other parents navigate these moments, but it touched me deeply to see how much the competition mattered to Izzy.  She did not shrug it off or get over it immediately.  There were tears and requests for an explanation.  After a fun family dinner there was sitting on my lap, a good cry, and more requests for an explanation.  

Tears the next morning, too,

I guess I am realizing that sometimes, after all you can say and do, you are going to have to let your child experience some heartbreak.  You are going to have to watch her want something badly and not get it.  Or maybe she will.  Either way, you must understand while your support is essential, she is growing and reaching for things beyond your realm and sometimes all you can do is watch it unfold and wonder at the beauty and pain and the magnitude of it all.

my little swan

The season of recitals is upon us, dear reader.  Well, it is mainly over...although I think we have still a few unplanned performances up our sleeves.  

I so enjoyed attending Izzy's recital.  It is always a delight to see the other students perform, to feel almost parental pride in noting their progression over the years.

They are amazing.  

 

And Izzy takes my breath away.  No matter how crazy the day has been, no matter what else weighs upon my mind, when I have such a moment to watch this girl perform it's as if every care melts away.  I am lifted by her serenity, her openness, her fire--by her spirit which contains all these elements and which finds such beautiful expression through her music.

 
I also can't help but think of her from the beginning: my ferocious, wide-eyed baby who seemed to watch me through the night.  How I wondered what would become of her and her unconquerable will, and yet how sweet she has always been.  Her name means gift from God and that is exactly how I would describe the feeling of being around Isabella.  Like something which fills you with gratitude, wonder, amusement, like something unexpectedly familiar, like goodness beyond what you could ever imagine and which fills you with the best and deepest sense of being home. 

ulterior motives

One of the admirable tenets of the church I attend is the notion of an unpaid clergy, meaning the organization is staffed voluntarily (and I use that word generously in some cases) by its lay members.  Admirable, that is, until the practice trickles down to a personal level and you are asked to do something you don't want to do. 

Like conduct the choir, for example.  

That's been my new gig for the past several months.  Please don't assume, like everyone else does, that just because I have a musical background it naturally follows I'd take to waving my arms to music like a duck to water.  

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Instead, follow the assumption that a girl who has been at eye level with the redwoods since before she ate solids might have acquired a certain aversion to attracting attention over the years.  Assume that when people stare at her, she immediately thinks something is on her shirt, her shirt is unbuttoned, or she's not even wearing a shirt.  Assume that the practice of waving her arms to call attention to herself is, in her mind, akin to being drawn and quartered and slightly less preferable than being cast into a lion's den.

At any rate, what's done is done and I'm making the best of my nervous breakdown one week at a time.

That's not even why I brought this up.

What I really wanted to tell you was when I was five years old, my mum enrolled me in a ballet class taught by a woman who had missed her true calling in life.  She was much better suited to be a world tyrant, but with the mild Canadian political climate being what it was, she must have run into all sorts of red tape launching her coup and therefore ended up in the ballet studio instead.

It was misery, I'm telling you.  And I think she had a special dislike for me since I had more the physicality to lift ballerinas, not be one.  She actually made the girls who performed poorly line up against the barre at the end of each class and get swatted on the derrière.  

Is that even legal??

Anyway, you can imagine which line I frequented.

But in spite of my tearful implorings, my mum refused to let me quit.  And I'm sure it had less to do with the possibility she'd already paid for the lessons than it did with the fact my mum refused to let anybody quit anything, ever.  Not to put too fine a point on the matter but if my mum had wanted to launch a coup, she wouldn't have ended up in the ballet studio, I can assure you of that.

She did, however, consent to letting me retire my ballet slippers once the year came to a close.

But.

On the very last day of class, our teacher took us to the Dairy Queen.  

What is that?  

Doesn't that, like, obliterate some international convention for the treatment of young, impressionable prisoners?  

Curse you, Dilly Bar!  Curse you and your waxy chocolate coating! Curse you and your underlayer of vanilla ice cream which struck me with the worst case of Stockholm Syndrome since I had a boyfriend who was mean to me and I liked him anyway.

I went home covered in chocolate and begged my mum to sign me up for another year.

Yes, I did.  

And yes, she did.

And yes, it was every bit as traumatic the second time around. 

All of which brings me to my main point, or at least gets me that much closer:  

If you would've been standing in a certain line at a certain grocery store yesterday, you would have overheard a conversation between a man with three pineapples and a woman with a cart full of Ghiradelli chocolate, wherein he made fun of her for being so greedy until she pointed out someone buying three pineapples clearly has his own issues to contend with.

What I couldn't tell him was I was launching a coup.  A sneaky, psychological coup.  Because I figure if I offer these treats to the choir like the great villains of yore--like the White Witch and her Turkish Delight, like Willy Wonka (not a bona fide villain, per se, but still sketchy) and his promise of infinite chocolate, like my ballet teacher and her insidious Dilly Bars--I will secure a momentary Svengali-esque hold which causes them to forget the horror of watching me struggle with 2/2 time and commit to another year of whatever it is we are accomplishing when we meet together to sing in the choir.