Laser-Focused
Monthly studio classes often have a theme. Usually, this is not a clever theme of my design, but rather it emerges spontaneously from the group on that day. Suddenly, all the kids will be talking about dynamics, or fixing their transitions, or needing to hold the last note of their piece longer. "Memory work" is a common theme, especially in the classes leading up to recitals. Sometimes the group gets fixated on the “Just keep going no matter what!” theme of performing during our hour together. It could be anything, really.
Last month in the Beethoven Class (comprised of the littlest pianists in the studio), this happened:
Sam played his prepared piece for his classmates. (I think it was “Pirate Dance.”) I invited the other kids to offer him feedback. A dozen hands shot up. (My students always have a lot to say to one another. Feedback is their favorite part of studio class.)
“Yes, Theo, what can you tell Sam about his performance?” I prompted one of the very enthusiastic hand-wavers.
“Well, Sam, you were like laser-focused on the piano and your music. Totally laser -focused.”
Huh, I thought.
More kids waving their hands wildly. “Yes, Emma?”
“I thought Sam was so laser-focused when he played the piano just now.”
Here we go.
Turns out, every single kid was laser-focused that day. Who knew a bunch of six- to nine-year-olds had so much concentration and attention? The morning zazen group of meditators at the Zen center had nothing on this class. We were laser-focused.
Wow. I’m still thinking about this two weeks later.
Because if the kids are particularly laser-focused these days, their teacher is not. Honestly, I’m in awe of this amazing focus and purposeful direction. My practices could take a page from their book.
All this talk of laser-focus got me wondering—not for the first time—about streaks.
Streaks are an unbroken (laser-focused!) chain of some specific thing: a habit, a practice, or a behavior. Teams have winning or losing streaks. We have streaks of good weather. There are streaks of going to the gym, or daily meditation time, or yes, practicing the piano. I think about streaks and how to use them all the time. Yes, I am that interesting.
But then last week I had a new realization about this old theme: The Season of Lent is a streak.
Stay with me here. Lent is the period 40 days before Easter where we are invited to consider making a change or a sacrifice in our lives. Some people give up wine, or chocolate. Some set aside time for morning prayer and meditation. Some fast on Fridays or forego shopping for anything but essentials during this time. Lent is a sort of held space for a spiritually-driven streak.
It also requires some laser-focus. Once again, the kids are onto something. To make any kind of shift in habit, or to deepen a practice, or to change a behavior, means adopting a simple, direct, clear intention. I will take 10,000 daily steps. I will stop interrupting. I will eat a salad every day. I will do 20 minutes of yoga every morning and 15 minutes of meditation before bed. This clarity of purpose is so simple we resist it. Instead, we love drama and complications because they give us an easy out. OMG! I couldn’t get to the pool THIS WHOLE WEEK because my cat is sick! (Although, honestly, that’s a perfectly legit excuse.) We love excuses: We are so tired, stressed-out, over-worked, under-paid. Also: we work for idiots, the president is an idiot, the other drivers on the streets are idiots. Excuses, excuses, excuses. And suddenly a theme emerges: we are spinning so wildly that we cannot focus. Much less laser-focus.
Lately I have been reading about the Desert Fathers while drinking my two shots of espresso in the mornings. The Desert Fathers were laser-focused. So laser-focused that these early Christians abandoned their communities and work and the comfortable trappings of everyday existence to live lives of extreme simplicity and devotion, prayer and meditation in the wilderness. Wow. I think a lot about this.
The Desert Fathers are good company in these wild days of uncertainty and the long streak of craziness that we find ourselves living through. I find myself drawn to their stillness, their steadfast certainty, their constancy of purpose and intent. I want to cultivate a life devoid of drama and self-inflicted angst. The kids would call them laser-focused.
Recently, a studio parent and I were talking about schedules and calendar conflicts and other disruptions to our work together. I found myself apologizing for all the changes, when Sienna interrupted me, “Amy, no worries. Piano is our constant. The rest of the world is exploding, but we’ve got this.”
Piano is our constant. I felt like I had been handed a gift and a charge both. Suddenly it seemed very simple: my job was to hold the space, demand the practice boxes, pay attention, listen hard, stay laser-focused. Piano is the constant, practicing is the streak.
The season of Lent is behind us. Both the Alleluias of Easter and the anxiety of these strange times hold space in our practices and days. Stay laser-focused, friends. We’ve got this.