paisleypiper's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- mature stuff like thank yous and patience One Positive Step I was so upset by the horrible neighborhood association meeting last night, that today I was tense. And perhaps I would have been tense anyway, but I was extra tense. All those emotions zipping around my body felt toxic. So I decided to do something positive. I sent an e-mail to the vice-president of the organization and thanked her for her vision, energy and enthusiasm. Honoring only her work was difficult�because I wanted to tell her how livid I was with Citizen Gerta, the Professor and Phil�but I focused only on saying thank you and showing my appreciation for her leadership. It turns out that she had been replaying the meeting in her mind, wishing she had been able to step in sooner, doubting herself a bit. I felt better focusing on the positive aspects of what she and the other younger residents are doing for our neighborhood. Their hard work inspires me. I let the inspiration displace the anger and frustration that held my thoughts and feelings against their will. I learned a long time ago to thank the leaders I admire, especially on the grassroots level or the organizational level, because they have thankless tasks and are greeted mostly with criticism. Some deserve complaints and pull it down upon themselves, time and again. Others want to do their part. When I recognize that I thank them. I thank my teachers and professors after really great classes. I thank committee members who respectfully disagree and offer a different perspective. I have even thanked people I do not like. But I only thank people when they deserve it, never when it is not genuine. Appreciation This evening I was a few minutes early for my guitar lesson. As the student just ahead of me was packing up, Patient Guy invited me in and we chatted. Mr. All-Psyched was just before me -- a beginner who had met Quinn last Friday at her lesson. When Mr. All-Psyched asked Quinn why she started with Patient Guy, she said it was because of me. And so Patient Guy introduced me as Quinn�s friend and told the story. I could tell he was thrilled that I recommended a student to him by his big smile, little suppressed chuckle. He is incredibly thin and sometimes stands with his hand over his mouth when he has a little suppressed chuckle or when he is being pensive. It is easy to tell the difference between the two emotions because his smile is wider than his hand. We chatted while Mr. All-Psyched ran back to his car for his checkbook. I asked Patient Guy how his recent performances went with his wife (she plays the flute) and he told me a few tales about the homes of the incredibly rich where they have been playing. Most recently a large home with a big beautiful pool that looks out on a big beautiful lake with a dock. As they set up by the deep end and serenaded the wealthy dippers and dabblers, Patient Guy could not get over the fact that someone would build a pool by a perfectly good lake. A few times, back about eighteen years ago, Patient Guy and his wife filled in for my father and his duo partner at the coffee shop at a fancy hotel. For years, my father had this gig. The coffee shop had a fountain with a granite slab across it, just barely big enough for two guys and two stools to play the guitar. On more than a few occasions, they fell into the fountain when adjusting their stools, managing to keep their guitars up in the air, out of the water. (It is amazing what musicians can do for their instruments� kind of like mothers with babies�.). My father has a great soloist ego so this was a hard gig � playing for all of these people who would have preferred muzak every morning of his life when he was not on tour. Once, after playing a new arrangement of a difficult piece, my father and his partner heard a noise coming from across the coffee shop. They were so excited that perhaps someone was clapping. When they looked up, a bit eager, their hearts sunk with the realization that their greatest fan was trying to get ketchup out of a bottle. Patient Guy spends so much of his weekend supplying atmosphere for the wealthy. I asked him how he feels about it and he said �everyone ignores you, and that is the preferred state because sometimes the guests can get obnoxious. I have to be thick-skinned.� It is hard for me to imagine how anyone could be obnoxious to Patient Guy and his wife�. They seem incredibly serious to me about their music gigs � all of the music gigs. My father and his partner used to play all the �A� parties of the founding families. I think they took those seriously. But at the regular gig, they used to play medleys and use those medleys to poke fun of the guests. Really goofy people would get an interlude of �Send in the Clowns� for example. When I would go there sometimes to meet him on his break (I worked at a nearby shopping center) the first person to see me would play �Ice Castles� which is the song I hate most in the world. And the dinners would just continue their meals � heading back up to the buffet. Sometimes handing them a slip of paper asking for a guitar version of �Volare.� Consequently, I know Volare quite well. I had to sing it many, many times while my father arranged it as a folk guitar hit. I am reading four notes at a time, all stacked up, now. Testing the Patience of Patient Guy and he has never let me down, once. He seems to like teaching me. For a while I thought it was going to be all about my father, but it isn�t really any more. Today we told stories on him a bit and I found myself enjoying talking to Patient Guy about the musician gig. And he asked me about how Milton is going and extended one of his pep talks from music to Milton. Sometimes I just want to give him a big a hug, he is so sweet and considerate. And well, so Patient. But I think I need to thank him for being such a great teacher. Last month I told him �I practiced an extra hour on this piece to thank you� and it just made him grin. I grew up with the guitar having such a charged state in my life that I am finding it an incredible experience to really learn to play it and learn the theories about it. Patient Guy told me �my father was a photographer and it was my job to go in the dark room and cut down the paper. I also went with him to weddings and held the flash. I didn�t know why I had to do things a certain way, they were just tasks and had steps. Maybe that is what it was like for you.� If I could really thank Patient Guy for what he means to me in my life, I would thank him for helping me make peace with my incredible love for music. I would thank him for helping me stop feeling haunted and tortured by the guitar and just start playing it again. And I would thank him for letting me be where I am � for not expecting me to have my father�s talent, for knowing that I am doing a lot of other things, and that this is about making steady progress, learning that it is all right to learn and struggle in front of teachers, and just enjoying guitar music. Maturity> Citizen Gerta I did not thank this evening. I told her, very calmly yet with intelligence and eloquence, exactly what I thought and felt from last night�s meeting. Quinn was quite amazed at my skill in managing this difficult discussion. To me, I was amazed at that I accepted the difficult line of speaking civilly and rationally and trying to be clear and concrete. When I think about my notion of my self, this ability of mine to have the difficult and honest conversations without blowing a gasket, seems like something borrowed or stolen. My self-concept has not kept up with my increasing emotional maturity. Every now and then, I think I must be someone else. Is this the ever-awkward, ever-insecure paisley piper? The nervous, fidgety, self-deprecating girl who sits on her foot all day at work and then is irritated when it falls asleep? The person who just a while back could not shake her self-loathing feeling? I still get in my own way and am too hard on myself. Probably I will always be this way. But it feels great to have those moments where I am able to both have the insight to know what to do and the courage to do it. 11:44 p.m. - 2002-09-11 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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