Renewing the Commitment

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about the priorities in my life. The conclusions I've reached are pretty simple, on the surface, but scratch a little, and the hard truth about matching our intentions with our actions become apparent.

At the end of March, a fellow Suzuki violin teacher and I organized a workshop for our two studios of students. This is an annual tradition, one we both look forward to, since it not only inspires and recharges our students, but our own teaching as well. One of our guest teachers is a woman from Quebec City. She lives and teaches and raises her two young daughters there. She and I went to school together, and took Suzuki Pedagogy courses together in grad school. From chatting with her during the week-end, some things became clear to me about what is important in our relatively short time on Earth. This woman has a 3-year waiting list for students, she also teaches her own two daughters violin, something I swore I'd never do... but wait... the day after her departure, I started teaching my 2-year old. We've practiced every day for a month now -- no exceptions -- no matter how tired, run-down or impatient I felt.

Back to my epiphany. I decided to make a list of what is really, REALLY important to me. Here it is:
Music (making music, teaching music and finding happiness, employment and fulfillment through music)
Exercise
Healthy food

Absent from this list? TV, facebook, doing housework. Well, it's not like I won't ever watch TV, check in with fb or do laundry, but, if I don't keep what's REALLY important at the top of the list, the other, less fulfilling items will creep in and take over my life.

Hence, the violin lessons began with my young daughter, the morning after my colleague hit the road for la Belle Province. I've also made a commitment to be more involved with the musical groups I play with. I had been feeling overwhelmed with the job of being a mother, and had been somewhat neglecting my involvement with these two groups. While my daughter will inevitably come first most of the time, I can also make the time not just to practice, but to be truly involved. Also, I've been selecting pieces to practice on both my modern and Baroque violins. Keeping up my chops between concerts feels good, sets a good example for my daughter, and is fun! (Now, if I could only practice during nap time, without waking her!)

doing things vs. getting stuff done

Sometimes I feel like I go through my day doing a LOT of things. I do laundry, return e-mails, pick some berries, do more laundry, change several diapers, vacuum... But, at the end of the day, what did I accomplish? How do we measure a day's accomplishments? I used to measure the worth of a day by how much violin I practiced -- really. It was a source of pride for me if I'd practiced at least 5 hours. Now, just to get an hour in (usually in small chunks) feels like a huge accomplishment.

I'm trying to measure the worth of a day by its smaller accomplishments: spending time with my daughter: reading, playing, singing, taking a walk, eading a book for ME, playing my violin, preparing my group classes doing work for my teaching job.

This is a new way to look at my daily life, and it will likely evolve.

Accordingly, I will check off another accomplishment for today (on top of the list of household chores, socializing (!!) and playing with my daughter: making baby food from scratch. A wise person once said: "small steps". Small steps indeed.

PS: One thing I want to do MORE of is IMPROVISE on my violin. But, finding the time to do this will have to be a topic for a future post.