The Affair

Lately, I feel like I have been cheating. I make excuses not to go to the park with hubby and the kids. I claim that I have too much laundry to do, but they should go ahead to the sister-in-law's to go swimming. I don't get everything done that I intend to, because I keep sneaking in these little trysts. No, it's not another man. It's music.

In the past month or so, I have been playing my flute more and more. Lately, I am completely obsessed. I have been working on pieces that I've loved and played well in the past, Mozart and Bach (J.S. and C.P.E), Gluck and Debussy. And I have been taking my time, slowly working on pieces that have intimidated me in the past, from Boehm, Quantz, and Kuhlau. I've even been doing etudes and studies and tone excercises. I have an "oh, just through this section" mentality, then "oh, I'll just play this page". It's like an addiction, I can't make myself stop. I was even a few minutes late to a client's yesterday, because I just had to play both the Minuet and Badinerie from J.S. Bach's Suite in B minor. With repeats.

The weird thing is, I'm so happy. Not that I wasn't happy before, but now I am just . . . content. I don't think I realized how much I missed music in my life, since I use music with clients on a daily basis. But using music therapeutically for others is quite different than creating it yourself, as I'm finding out. From singing in the choir, to the recorder ensemble, and now back to my flute, I have been rediscovering the joy of music in my life. And loving every second of it. Even the wrong notes. I'm not so worried about those, maybe because I'm not getting graded on my performance.

Although I do still have performance anxiety (in public), I have taken a giant leap (for me, at any rate), and joined the Ottawa Flute Association. I am planning on joining one of their flute choirs. Soon. I just need to make the call. After I play just one more part of this concerto.