The Repeat
During a recent lesson with a precocious five-year-old, I decided halfway through her playing of Mozart's Allegro that I didn’t want to hear the repeat. When she got to the end of the first section, I prompted her, "No repeat." She immediately proceeded to repeat anyway. "Kiddo," I said, "no repeat. I don't want to hear the repeat." She continued playing. At the end she turned to me and said, "I like the repeat."
Truth is, I like the repeat too. I like playing Mozart twice. I like the pedagogical process of spiraling repeatedly over the same concepts until we really understand something. I like relearning old music, revisiting the pianist I once was, as I reconcile the past with the ever-changing present. I love the regular practice of 108 sun salutations, finding to the rhythm of my breath as the sequence of yoga poses repeats over and over again. I love the rituals and routines that each season brings: the darkness and the light, the cold and the warmth, the short sunlit days and the long starry nights. I love the bareness of the empty branches and the carpet of crunchy leaves that lies underneath. I love the garlands of dried cranberries strung with white lights that will grace our mantle this month, the practice of sending out holiday cards to folks we love, the familiar carols and songs of the holidays that accompany our hours and our days for the next few weeks. I love the Christmas cacti that bloom this time of year, and the annual task of buying paperwhite bulbs for forcing inside and greenery to hang around the front door outside.
Every December I make a list of what I want the month to hold, what I’d miss if the season passed without a particular ritual or practice. Every year it’s simple really. I want more candles and more silence. I want evening walks to view holiday lights and to maybe catch a glimpse into the cozy rooms and precious lives of my neighbors. I want hot baths and a bed with flannel sheets on cold nights. I want to eat less sugar and to clean out drawers and closets, making room for the new year, or at least a new pair of socks. I want more time with friends and with Matt and less time in front of any kind of screen. I want to make pots of soup and pots of tea, both. I want to be saturated with holiday choral music and plenty of Ella Fitzgerald and Vince Guaraldi. I want to have endlessly fascinating conversations with students about their family traditions: the Hanukkah candles they light, the weighty choice between colored or white lights for their trees, the cookies they bake. It’s not scales or music theory, I know, but it’s all practice.
I love that for the first time since 2019 there is a familiar rhythm of work and play to our lives again. After a whirlwind fall, we had a Thanksgiving week that was not just a pregnant pause, a welcomed rest, but stillness and quiet with a long fermata over it. There was time for lazy afternoons on the couch with a book, candlelight dinners with a bottle of wine, drinks with friends and long walks at dusk. We went to two movies. We made soup and apple-cranberry crisp. We watched the latest season of The Crown and roasted vegetables. I went to two yoga classes. Time. What a precious word.
Here's to not just the repeats, but the Da Capo of our lives and practices.
