Tag: time

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Big Ambitions

Having twice recently heard Franz Liszt’s gorgeous “La Campanella,” said by many to be the most difficult piano piece ever written, I decided I would try and learn it. Why not?

All of Liszt’s “grande etudes” are notoriously difficult virtuosic pieces. This one has right hand sixteenth note jumps that span two octaves or more, a fourth and fifth finger trill lasting four measures, and left hand jumps of three octaves. It is fourteen pages of technically demanding gorgeousness. Fun!

Oh sure, Liszt had great big hands with long, slender fingers. He could reach 12″! I can reach 7.5″. Back in the day, he and other pianist/composers reportedly cut their finger webbing, in order to improve their reach. Aiyiyi!! Now that’s crazy.

Liszt was a huge sensation as a performer in his day, like Elvis or the Beatles.

Having twice recently heard Franz Liszt’s gorgeous “La Campanella,” said by many to be the most difficult piano piece ever written, I decided I would try and learn it. Why not?

All of Liszt’s “grande etudes” are notoriously difficult virtuosic pieces. This one has right hand sixteenth note jumps that span two octaves or more, a fourth and fifth finger trill lasting four measures, and left hand jumps of three octaves. It is fourteen pages of technically demanding gorgeousness. Fun!

Oh sure, Liszt had great big hands with long, slender fingers. He could reach 12″! I can reach 7.5″. Back in the day, he and other pianist/composers reportedly cut their finger webbing, in order to improve their reach. Aiyiyi!! Now that’s crazy.

My father, who admired my mother’s piano playing but never took piano lessons himself, wanted to play Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag.” He worked at it for years. As I recall, he learned a page or two but not the whole thing. But he plugged away at it. So maybe I’m carrying on from where he left off.

At 71, I am seeing the limits of my time on earth and I want to fill what time I have with everything and anything rewarding and wonderful while I can. Why not? Whyever not?

“Until you value yourself, you won’t value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.” ― M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled

“It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.”― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

“A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.”― Charles Darwin, The Life & Letters of Charles Darwin

If you’re looking for my cards or art, you’ll find all of that on my website. If you enjoy these letters, feel free to forward this one to anyone you think might like it. And if someone forwarded this one to you, you can sign up here to receive the letters right in your Inbox. Finally, you’ll find past letters and poems here.

Thanks for listening,
Kay

P.S. MerryThoughts is the name of my first book, out of print at the moment. The word is a British one, referring both to a wishbone and to the ritual of breaking the wishbone with the intention of either having a wish granted or being the one who marries first, thus the “merry thoughts.”

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Winter Solstice

The older I get, the faster time rushes. And there seems to be nothing I can do about it.

Winter Solstice is upon us. In just two days people in the Northern Hemisphere will celebrate the shortest day of the year, the lengthening of the days and the return of spring. And in just two weeks 2022 will end and 2023 will begin. But didn’t we just start wearing sweaters and hard pants? How are we here already? Time is going by too fast for me.

I don’t care if it’s longer days, longer nights, or equal days and nights. I just want my twenty-four hours and I don’t want them to zoom by in a flash, like they seem to be doing, now that I’m an old lady.

I just heard a meditation teacher say that our physical bodies tend to lean forward most of the time, due to our brains’ natural tendency to think about where we need to go, what we need to do next, what’s next on the agenda. And this is why so many of us have trouble sleeping. What’s next? What’s next? What’s next?

Instead, we should be fully participating in what’s happening right now.

So let’s celebrate the seasons, the turn of the calendar page, the natural changes that happen in our world. These things are momentous and magical. Let’s mark those occasions. But let’s also celebrate the morning and the day, our cozy beds, etc., and try not to keen towards spring from now forward. Maybe in that way we can slow the passage of our days.

“A man [or woman] who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.” ― Charles Darwin, The Life & Letters of Charles Darwin

“Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its brevity.” ― Jean de La Bruyère, Les Caractères

“Sometimes I feel like if you just watch things, just sit still and let the world exist in front of you – sometimes I swear that just for a second time freezes and the world pauses in its tilt. Just for a second. And if you somehow found a way to live in that second, then you would live forever.” ― Lauren Oliver, Pandemonium

If you’d like to see my new paintings online, go here. Be sure to click on the thumbnails to see the whole picture! If you’re looking for my cards or art, you’ll find all of that on my website. If you enjoy these letters, feel free to forward this one to anyone you think might like it. And if someone forwarded this one to you, you can sign up here to receive the letters right in your Inbox. Finally, you’ll find past letters and poems here.

Thanks for listening,
Kay

P.S. MerryThoughts is the name of my first book, out of print at the moment. The word is a British one, referring both to a wishbone and to the ritual of breaking the wishbone with the intention of either having a wish granted or being the one who marries first, thus the “merry thoughts.”

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Time

Lately, I’m feeling the reality of being 70 years old. What I mean is, I am keenly aware that 70 years of my life are behind me. The time I have left is limited. Of course, that is true for everyone, at every moment. I have these words of Jack Kornfield up on my refrigerator: “The trouble is . . . you think you have time.” I’ve had it there for a long time and I don’t think of it as depressing, but just as a reminder that we need to not waste any of that limited time.

So, in me, of late, being 70 manifests as wanting to do so many things! There is just so much out there to learn and do and experience–and less time in which to do it. I find myself signing up for all sorts of art workshops, learning about meditation, planning trips for the future (one more hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and possibly cycling the coast of Taiwan with my son!), and always finding another and another cool thing that I want to do while I still can. I just do not want to miss out.

Here is one of the poems I wrote as a result of a challenge I gave myself back in 2010.

“While I still can” are the meaningful words.

One thing that I love to do is accept and/or impose upon myself challenges. There is something about them that lights a spark in me and I usually go all in on them. I set myself the challenge of writing a poem a day for 49 days in honor of my friend Pam, who died at 49. I ended up doing it for over a year–and I loved the discipline of doing that, along with my daily morning writing. (You can find all of those poems here.) Then there are 14-day meditation challenges from Ten Percent Happier, 21-day challenges from Deepak Chopra, and right now a 30-Day Sketchbook Challenge that I have accepted. This is another one of those online art offerings. There is just so much out there that I want to do and learn and love.

Pages from Day 2 of the 30-Day Sketchbook Challenge

I am only on Day 3 of this Sketchbook Challenge but I have already learned or discovered several pretty great new things and each morning I can’t wait to get going on the next one. How cool is that? Very.

So what’s next? I don’t know but I am ready to find out. Oh, well, I’ve signed up for two free online workshops and I might take a third one using watercolor and gold leaf. Now it seems that everyone who has an art or meditation workshop on offer has my number on Facebook and Instagram, but that’s okay with me. Bring it! I want to know.

Think about it. The world and the internet are full of so many amazing things ready to fill you up! You think you have time? Fill it up with all the things. You think you don’t have time? You do.

“Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.” ― Anthony G. Oettinger

“How did it get so late so soon?”― Dr. Seuss

“Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.” ― Marthe Troly-Curtin

If you’re looking for my cards or art, you’ll find all of that on my website. And if you enjoy these letters, feel free to forward this one to anyone you think might like it. And if someone forwarded this one to you, you can sign up here to receive the letters right in your Inbox. Finally, you’ll find past letters and poems here.

Thanks for listening,
Kay

P.S. MerryThoughts is the name of my first book, out of print at the moment. The word is a British one, referring both to a wishbone and to the ritual of breaking the wishbone with the intention of either having a wish granted or being the one who marries first, thus the “merry thoughts.”

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Daylight Savings

We’ve gained an hour people like to say

as Daylight Savings Time has ended.

What to do with mine?

Finish that lovely book

bake a pie

write a poem

loll in bed

or this:

write letters to those I love

enumerating my small and large

admirations one by one to each

a flat out admiring list

Brothers sisters sons friends

even the special ones who’ve gone on.

Nieces and nephews one by one

Friends old lovers (now there’s a trick)

Just a list, a modest, no,

an elaborate accounting

Surely an hour well spent.

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Time Passing

End of a month another month gone

behind us over and done with a month

of my life and yours filled never to

be lived again every day every hour

a lesson in impermanence and yet we

fail to learn refuse to learn even as we

watch the dawn full of magic slip away

into full sun twilight into utter darkness

night again to daybreak the constant

movement of time the earth ever turning

time flowing onward regardless of our

silly slow reluctance to go gracefully

along as if we in our plodding human

ways could do anything about it.