Transitions

Audrey finished her performance of her recital piece and stood up. It was the performance class the Friday before the fall studio recital and all the kids were practicing their prepared pieces. “What did you think?” I asked her. “How did that feel?”

Audrey is nine, with curly blond hair and glasses. Her recital piece was a fast toccata-like number, full of running passages and sharp turns. She shrugged. “I need to work on my transitions.”

I need to work on my transitions. Over and over, kids said this as they assessed their performances this fall or gave feedback to one another. Many times every single kid will announce that they need to work on their dynamics. Usually they do. But this time around, it was all about the transitions.

I fear my students are simply mirroring my life, because I could certainly use some attention on my transitions too. Reeling from one project to another, I am struggling with sudden rhythmic changes in my routines and practices. “I need to be smoother,” the kids will say, meaning they need work to iron out their technical and musical bumps. Yep. I can totally relate.

The truth about most of our lives is that there is very seldom real balance. It is very often too much or too little, equilibrium is a state rarely achieved. We don’t manage our days or hours smoothly or gracefully. We function in defense mode, reacting to what is thrown at us, putting out fires rather than igniting our own direction and intention. At least I do.

I am reminded of a breath exercise we sometimes do in yoga class called Sama Vritti. We breathe in for four counts, pause for four, exhale for four beats, pause again for four counts before beginning all over again with the next inhale. It is designed to encourage perfectly symmetrical breathing, like 4/4 time, but everything about this breathwork feels completely unnatural. Most days, I cannot force myself or my breath into a square. I feel misshapen, asymmetrical, unbalanced.

This season of the year is inevitably a transitional time around here. The Fall Studio Recital is behind us, my first round of concert sets is done, nothing but clanging bells and sugar plums ahead. It’s a sort of in-between time, the free-fall of the holiday season, sandwiched between the noble intentions of the beginning of school and the anticipation of a fresh new calendar year before us. It would be easy to write this glittery, busy time off, expect nothing, ignore our bumpy shifts between work and play. The couch beckons.

But then I remember what the kids would say: I need to work on my transitions. And trust me, there are possibilities for practice everywhere. In the early morning hours, I add ten minutes to my yoga routine. I clean out closets and repot plants. I wash windows and laundry curtains. I sort through writing files and half-written essays. Outside I fill birdfeeders and shovel in the top layer of the compost pile.

In the studio, we leap ahead into new material and repertoire. I teach arpeggios to a mid-high student and minor five-finger-positions to a little one. I drill pieces from our Name that Tune list. I ask for more sight-reading in lessons and demand less polish on weekly assignments. I remember that quantity is a pedagogical quality too. We gorge on etudes, small pieces, multiple variations with our scales.

At the piano I practice repertoire that has no real deadline or end goal. I work on Bach and Shostakovich preludes and fugues. I read through new teaching material. I sight-read open scores and tenor clef exercises. I know the real practice is showing up. I show up.

Sometimes when I am overwhelmed and feeling the too-muchness of my schedule and routines, I fantasize escaping it all and retreating to a remote cabin somewhere, where I could practice solitude and silence. I entertain myself by designing a perfect retreat-like day of writing and walking, meditation and music, yoga and reading, all in equal parts like a four-count breath cycle. And then I remember: oh yeah, my day already includes those things, imbalanced and misshapen as those practices often may be. What I need to learn to do is to retreat within my life, not retreat from my life.

Because if we are paying attention, we all have in-between transitions that we could claim differently. I can whine about not having time to add long restorative poses to my yoga practice or I can use that random 20 minutes that showed up unexpectedly this morning and get out my mat. "Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon," said English author Susan Ertz. We all have rainy Saturday afternoons.

In the end, the recital last week went smoothly. The kids managed their transitions, or at the very least, managed to play through any rockiness or bumps, which is a practice too. “Miss Amy,” several told me later, “it’s hard to play soft when your hands are shaking.” It’s true. So maybe we sacrificed the dynamics for solid transitions, a fair enough trade. My studio is young these days, having reached a significant historical marker where we now have the same number of alumni students as current students. In May, I graduated the last of what I now realize was a long, nearly 20-year chapter of older, more experienced students. “I miss the big kids,” a younger one will sometimes tell me. I do too. This present group of kids is green, enthusiast, and rather wiggly. It’s a transition, and in the meantime, Zoom, Zoom, Witch’s Broom will co-exist merrily next to Chopin on our recital programs. Someone will forget to bow. And no doubt about it, despite all my specific directions about performance etiquette, a Little One will climb awkwardly over the piano bench in their excitement.

Maybe that is the practice this holiday season: to pay attention to the transitions, the clumsy in-between times, and learn to find some grace inside these awkward spaces and empty Saturday afternoons. Retreating from the world for an hour here, an hour there, I bask in the silence and watch the leaves fall.