So. After my lazy half week of laying on the couch and wishing for swift death, I mostly recovered. By mostly I mean that I worked a full day plus at work then came home and did some chores that hadn't gotten done while I was sick and pulled together another hundred "get rid of" items or so to make up for lost time.
My son manages a service learning group at his local high school and they had a huge rummage sale and I usually donate. So Rob and I loaded up probably three hundred items. (I've been counting and packing things away for this fundraiser.) And I hauled it to his school early Saturday morning. But. I think my crazy making up for lost time on Friday did not agree with me on Saturday because I started feeling punk again. I cancelled my violin lesson in case I was still oozing germs and because, well, I didn't want to relapse there. It's rough enough to cry in front of my teacher, I can't imagine vomiting on him. Ya know?
Anyhoo. Dropping the load of stuff I wanted to never see again at the school made me feel a little better, kinda. I'll tell you, the cart and the table next to it had our stuff. And that's just a portion of it, there's been way more leave my premises. YAY!!! Plus his group/club made some decent money so I feel good about donating.
The only, and I mean ONLY negative is that I only have 24 more items to hit my entire year long goal. But I couldn't complete it before I needed to drop the stuff off and I am now at the point where I need to carefully consider whether an item is something I want to let go of.
Not saying I don't have a bunch of stuff I could chuck and never miss, just that I don't want to go all willy-nilly and then wish I hadn't. Case in point. I have this super cool enamelware roaster that was just decorative and I eyed it "do I really need this?" At about the same time I decided I hated a corner of my counter top where we store things like powdered drink mixes, bags of protein shakes, medications, etc and I had them in a big basket that took up too much room. So I just started poking around online to see if I could find the perfect thing that would clean up the corner and make it less sloppy. I found a super cute retro break box that would be perfect I decided. I put it in my Amazon cart but didn't purchase. Fortunately. Because, DUH, my roaster was perfect, and immediate, and FREE.
And while I was doing one more pass through my closet before the rummage sale run I made a final decision about this super cute pink bag. I mean. Use it or give it. So I'm using it. Spring is almost here. And who cares that I may or may not be over fifty sporting a bright pink velvety bag? Do you? Didn't think so.
This violin thing has been going on for two years. TWO YEARS. Granted, there's been progress, lots of it. But part of me feels like I should be symphony ready by now.
It helps when I hear musicians who are talented at their instruments say that they tried violin and gave up because it was so complicated, or that they were certain they couldn't pull it off because the dang thing doesn't have frets.
My last lesson included tears. (Mine, not his. ) Why did I cry? Pure frustration. The notes I wanted to hit would fall short of reaching the goal, my timing got wacky and then the song I was playing didn't even sound like a recognizable song. AUGH!
My teacher calmed me down. Okay. I wasn't ugly crying or wailing, just a few tears. He didn't have to threaten to call someone to intervene. But he said (hope it wasn't something said to crazy people to let them down easy, dang it!) that it's really good that I can hear that the music I'm wanting to make is not coming out of my violin. To differentiate my playing on a scale from really awful to only a few mistakes is a skill. And I'm developing it which means I'm going to get there.
Well, I'm sure not giving up now. One of these days. It's going to click. BTW Blogger ate half of this post. I thought it published this morning but not only did it not, it ate up some of what I had typed. Oh technology!
I spent several hours in a seminar on rewiring your brain on Saturday.
Fascinating.
The speaker gave a word picture. At birth our brains are grassy, pristine, beautiful parks. Just glorious sunshine, blue skies and perky green grass ruffled by the gentle breeze.
Our first experience causes us to walk across the grass. But if it's a one time stroll, the grass pops back up and all is well. But let's say it's a repeated experience like being picked up when we cry, or a smiling face talking baby talk to us, or emptiness when our cries are ignored. We travel that scenario more than once and we create a path. By the time we are adults we have a "park" that looks like a map of mega-sized city streets.
The main streets and super highways represent the thought paths we most travel.
Everything we experience through our senses and every thought we have creates the potential for a street, avenue or highway.
The good news is that we can change our maps by the beauty of neuroplasticity. (Our brains keep regenerating and making new pathways). We can create new roads and change the way we travel and avoid the roads we no longer want to drive the car of our life on.
I can create a new series of main streets I want to travel on. Repetition makes the roads we use stronger.
For example. I've been telling myself I don't get violin. Oh, I'm still working on it. But every time I say that I don't have rhythm and I can't do the fingering, the reading of music and the timing of the notes at the same time I am telling my brain to make that a truth, a pathway for me to travel on. Therefore, my brain makes it so that I don't get it because I'm telling it that that's a truth, that I don't get it. I'm basically ordering my brain to make sure I don't get it. Really???? Augh!!!! This totally resonates with me because I do travel "I don't get this" boulevard. I want to get it, I get so frustrated, and I'm doing the time. I don't want to calculate how much energy and money I've put into this goal because that's going to depress me. All the while I'm plugging away, I'm telling my brain to avoid turning on the musical/math section of my gray matter.
My mom told me she saw a video about a guy who took a decent blow to the head and got a concussion. A few days later he was at a friend's house and they had a piano and he sat down and played for hours. Not Chopsticks, but real, complex music. And he wasn't musical before his accident. If a whack in the head can turn on his music center then I'm not going to tell my brain to keep my music center quiet. "Hey, Kelly's brain, yeah you, ramp up the math/music section of my brain. I have some music I want to play. Got it?!? Good."
My brain is moldable and is making new pathways all the time. And I can and will get this. My brain is going to click and this reading of music, timing of notes and finger placement is going to become second nature and I will be a musician and I will play the violin so well that I can play with other musicians.
How about you? What are you telling yourself you can't do? Can't or won't? Quit ordering your brain to keep you stuck.
