spring up, O well, within my soul...and make me whole
Today:
- income tax
- fill out my MP's latest survey (now appearing frequently in my mail) with only 2 sentences: telling him to cross the floor from the Conservative party, and that Mr. Harper should resign.
- roast a roast (what else would you do with a roast?)
- other paperwork
- listen to instrumental music
- practise my piano and guitar:
some improvements to my hands in the last few months, so can now stretch my RH 1 octave apart on the piano again, after a few moments of technic (painful, though, used to be able to easily span 11 or 12 keys); arpeggios clumsy, 3 and 4 note chords improving, tempo adagio - moderato, occasionally allegro, can read lower levels of music correctly again with few errors, brain has re-circuited enough to enable me to read more LH chording notes and apply to RH improv patterns.
Guitar is the hardest to manage, due to the need for much greater strength and stamina in LH, which I no longer have. Stretch is inadequate for most chords, strength inadequate for prolonged effort. Have altered chord patterns to play as semi-broken chords, or with altered fingering, but brain is taking some time to get used to these changes. Single notation phrases on frets is fair-good. RH improving, since a different type of strength and narrower stretch is required for classical technic, and is within my capabilities. Cannot do the usual LH preparatory finger & hand stretches, the pain is too intense (I just about pass out). So...will be spending more time on hammer-ons & pull-offs, glissendos, slurs, practising some old favourites and adding technic touches I can handle.
A workable plan.
I've missed playing my instruments so much in the past few years...only played my piano 2-3 times a year, guitar a few dozen times a year, including lesson-times.
That deprivation alone is enough to almost drive me crazy, if I had let it get to me. But I've tried to be patient, because I'm learning how slow this healing process is.
I used to practise for 7 hours straight, only taking brief breaks, but now it's only for a few minutes at a time, or the occasional hour when I lose track of time because I get so involved in what I'm doing. For the first few years of my illness, my brain was too tired and confused to cope with anything this complex. But as it has been healing, I can think and remember again, and the music and technic is coming back to me; songs I thought I'd lost forever have come back to me again, my memory is returning, and my abilities slowly returning.
But the most important thing that needed healing, and still does, is my spirit and soul, which was also crushed and weakened by my illness.
Thank God, the surge of life and energy, the love and joy of music, still wells up in me, and can overflow in my work.