Molasses In January In August

How slow can you go?

I’ve taken the last few days off from practicing piano. I think I made two mistakes: 1) tweeking my bench-height again (got too low – I really am that short, and need that much of a boost); and 2) pushing my exercise-and-scale speeds forward too soon. Result: dawning muscle pains, signals from my body to change. Warnings.

Years ago, when I decided that Old Ladies Need Push-Ups, I made a surprising discovery. At first it was really hard to do three. When it stopped being that hard, I went to five. Somewhere between five and ten, my body started to Get It, and I felt my body wanted to increase to the next number. Eventually, and for some time, I did 30 push-ups every night. The surprise was that point where the body seemed to be asking for more involvement. My muscles felt as though they would feel better if I worked just that little bit more.

Sometimes this happens when I am good about regular walking – if I can push past the frontal intertia, into some regular walks, it is my physical sense, not my conceptual ones, that seem to ask for an increased dosage.

I’m trying to create practices – in particular, piano technique – that will allow that sense to happen for my arms, fingers, posture. And that means I have to find the problems that made the recent tension and fatigue, and slow the heck back down. It also means choosing to believe in progress, choosing to hope that, if I take the time (so much, much time!), and listen to my body, it will speak to me of its own accord, it will want a faster metronome setting for my scales, it will enjoy the more rapid passages without a breath of tension. It also means – and this is an area of great mental drama – that until I reach that level of comfort, I must content myself with the tasks, and the repertoire, that are possible to me without causing harm.

As a singer, I learned this better. When working impetuously strains your throat, or your voice, you feel it and hear it and pay an immediate toll.

As an aspiring contemplative, I think I also need to learn this. After years of such aspiration, I should know that I can only fully show up if I practice showing up; can only attend to the movements of such prayer if first I have mastered the technique of stillness and attention. Mastery might be too much to expect.

Will I need to be 80 before exploring Chopin or Fats Waller? Or before really understanding my own heart? It’s a daunting idea. It is the essence, however, of the Beginner’s Mind. I have come to know this much: I may rage, rage against the dying of the light, but the light won’t care. I may think whatever I wish about having so far still to go, but neither thought nor wish will shorten that distance.