Keep it real.

I haven't really been on the intertrons since last Wednesday because of:

1) Endless off-site staff meetings on Thursday and Friday.
2) Crappy internet connection at home.
3) Bluh.

I have important and thoughtful e-mails to respond to, tons of work, and I just got back from disposition court to take care of that effing registration citation. I also bombed at L's master class yesterday, it was fabulous. ::snirk:: I'm sure there's good stuff I could talk about, like the turkey sandwich I made myself for lunch on nice bread and the inspirational consultation I had with my chosen artiste on Friday evening... But I'm unhappy and morose and meh. It happens.

I'm not sure what I would do without Lovely and Natty and Pepper, without S, without RH, without J (my boss), without L, even. It looks like such a short list, but that's exactly how I like my lists.

Not sure what happened yesterday at L's master class. I think three factors were to blame: Nerves, over-caffeination, and Last Man Standing Syndrome. S and I were originally last on the program for the recital, since L listed her students in order of advancedness to avoid intimidating newer piano students. But because we're an ensemble and she wanted to mix things up a little bit more, she put us a few slots earlier - but we still have to wait a good hour, and a LOT of thoughts can run through my overactive imagination in an hour of listening to other people's nervous performances.

False Start 1 - I somehow placed my right hand an octave too high on the keyboard of L's sexy, persnickety Bösendorfer. Oof. It was such a stupid thing to do that I'm not even going to berate myself for it.

False Start 2 - I just sucked. Period. I couldn't abide the crappification. RESET!

Success - This was heralded by an exasperated look from S (it said: "C'mon girl. You're the best one here. You can play this perfectly. WTF?"), followed by the exhortation, "Watch me." We hadn't even gotten to his part yet, so I'm sure he was getting frustrated, listening to me resetting over and over. I played the correct notes this last attempt, that's all I can say. There was no warmth, no investment, no love.

I was so disappointed in myself.

As L said in her gentle way, it wasn't a piano!fail. It was just an experience. No matter how perfectly you can play at home, whatever emerges when you perform is what was supposed to emerge, no more and no less. Performing = playing + dealing with nerves + expressing on the fly and publicly + all of those little things that make performing different from practicing in the living room. S has bombed so much worse than that in his singing career. I hope I get all of my bombing episodes out while playing in front of my sympathetic peers. If this is what it takes to be a successful performer in the future, I'll take it, and more.

It's taken me a long time to realize that the origin of all of my internal turmoil lies in my struggle to be real. If being real means failing, giving myself permission to be terrified, I've been successful. I think I've spent too much of my adult life being a graffiti-filled subway tunnel.