Notes from a musician's journal.(Marking Time)

I am in a foul mood. It is a full week of teaching after a break, and I am being pulled in a million directions. All of this, admittedly, is my fault. I have over-committed myself for the next few months, and now I am paying for it. I am teaching more than I had ever intended: several years ago I vowed I would NEVER, unless I was starving, teach more than seven lessons in a single day. So now I regularly teach a minimum of eight, which tells you something about my mathematical ability to be sure. I am playing several recitals this month, which aren't in themselves causing stress, just requiring faithful good practicing on my part to prepare. But the rehearsal schedule, especially the one involving five other busy colleagues, is making me want to scream. I dread checking e-mail, because every day it involves a whole host of messages about when someone can or cannot do a rehearsal. It makes my head spin just thinking about it. On top of this, I am under several writing deadlines and am trying to put together arrangements for an upcoming workshop. I have a couple difficult situations in my studio at the moment, including one family whose mother was in a horrible accident. Several new students are taking more than the usual amount of energy to get off the ground and onto my page. The fact that all this is taking place in the days after I have had two weeks off, including three days in a secluded cabin in the Pecos Mountains east of Santa Fe, does not mean I am tackling all of this with good humor and full of energy. Quite the contrary. Instead, I am anything but characteristically good-natured. And tonight I also have a migraine, which is doing nothing to improve my mood.

I am not only overwhelmed by the sheer amount of time that I will need to be "on" in the next two months, but also by the outrageous amount of music and papers and books now littering my studio. This, in spite of my good intention to get better organized over the recent break. But my break is over, and any extra time with it, so I am stuck with my lot for a while. It's not that my stuff is particularly messy; it is just that there is so much of it all. So many good teaching concepts and so much music; so many books with so many brilliant ideas. I love the idealistic notion of traveling lightly in this world and not being overly burdened by possessions and commitments, but even thinking about this makes me laugh scornfully. I am a pianist. How much heavier could my load get? It's hard to travel lightly with a piano on my back.

Julia Cameron, in her many books on nurturing the creative life, talks about learning to "rest in motion,"' which I take to mean finding strength and energy in the very act of doing our daily work. It's a lovely idea, but I am failing miserably. "In motion" is the general state of my world; I am all too good at multitasking, I am afraid. I talk on the phone to my mother while I clean my house or walk to the store. I read poetry while blow-dry my hair. I never watch a movie without my knitting project. I actually hate this characteristic, both in myself and in other people. I hate having coffee with a friend only to have her answer her cell phone or text while we are talking. I hate being so busy that I find myself justifying the need to multitask just to stay on top of my life. I hate that my attention span might have shrunk to such a degree that I would find myself multitasking just to entertain myself.

So the "in motion" I manage all too well. It is the "rest in motion" that I haven't yet learned. I am anything but restful tonight. I am tired, cranky and am ready to trade all this for any other life. What I really need to do is to come up with a coping strategy for the next six weeks, one that will get me through the fact that I am working the next five weekends. I need to learn to "rest in motion." And fast.

"You know what I wrote in my journal for school?" young Emmy asked me. "I wrote that I wanted to be a pianist when I grow up." "You know that you are already a pianist," I responded with a smile, "What do you think a pianist does anyway?" Well, a pianist is someone ...