I've spent large portions of the last couple weeks feeling sorry for myself. I've allowed myself to think that I chose the wrong path somewhere back there, when I was still able to choose success or mediocrity. Several things have happened to trick myself into this useless negativity: the double stresses of two recitals, each of which involved music more difficult than I'd ever performed before; the incredible success of my boyfriend, who has been touring and enjoying America's best cities while I've been punching the time clock and having little to report but what I had for lunch; and this continual aging and mulling.
Yesterday's discovery—that a music friend I knew sixteen years ago is now a Juilliard graduate and active vocal coach and collaborative pianist—brought me to the lowest point, which was useful at least because it left me no place to go but up. (It was also a low point that finally ended my time with a psychologist. I realized that crying through an entire session was useless and not the way I wanted to be.)
These were some of my thoughts: What went wrong? He and I were on similar trajectories back then, though different in our approaches to piano. He had a carefree joy and abandon with the instrument; I aimed for sensitivity and precision. He was chosen to play a fast jazzy solo from Rhapsody in Blue; I was picked for a Bach Brandenburg on harpsichord. If anything, one might have predicted I would go to Juilliard, and he would have found a career more in line with his wild ebullience.
In fact, he's the second wild pianist from my past to achieve great success. The other, who appeared in my small town during high school and unseated me as the city's Boy Pianist, had little regard for the composer's intent (I say with some remnants of my teenage snootiness) but great facility and charisma. I later heard that he won a national award and performed John Corigliano's difficult piano concerto.
Interestingly, I had crushes on both of these pianists. I spent a lot of my teenage years in crushes and in love. The first pianist was irresistible, with his lion smile and constant goofy good cheer. And the second: I had heard that a fantastic pianist around my age was moving to Peachtree City, and I thought, "Ah, this is the kindred soul I've been awaiting."
It is still a theory—and the subject of a fable I've told myself
here—that I chose men over the wood-and-ivory behemoth. I've also blamed my teacher (whose insightful cruelty is fictionalized
here). Maybe I didn't love the piano enough; maybe I wasn't good enough; maybe I was lazy; maybe I was a quitter. I did not share the wild, blind, confident, carefree joy of these two.
When I think about the last couple years, though, I have to be happy. I am a wandering jack-of-all-trades. I hope that humans always come first—what they do, what they smell and feel like, and what they create and leave behind them. I have created more than ever before these last years—written words where there were none, trained my fingers and brain to do things I thought they couldn't do, created sound and music where there was none. I no longer feel silly thinking of myself as a writer and a musician, though I still struggle to feel like I'm creating something the world needs. The last is less important, though—the last is worldly fame and success, which is when the world "picks you" and demands from you exactly what you offer.
I know I'll feel sorry for myself again later—when I'm struggling to learn some sonata and no one seems to care, when I've written a story that no one wants to read—but for now I'll rise up, remembering that I'd rather be trying than giving up, that I'd rather be struggling than dying, that I'd rather be creating than destroying.
Listening to King Arthur reminds me of Mark Morris's recent production. Why, oh, why must moments end?
