Sure do enjoy a good cup of coffee in the mornings when all is quiet and the world appears peaceful. While sipping on the coffee, I write, peruse articles, read the news, study the stock market, plan the day, and indulge in grand dreams for myself, my family, and my profession. With a great variety of interests, it can be both difficult and joyfully exciting to focus on any one area for very long. This makes a type of mental attention deficit disorder that is fun when nobody is around and distracting for others when surrounded by people. Just an area of weakness for me I suspect.
Horn playing has been and continues to be an important and valuable part of my life since picking it up at the age of 12. But horn playing has simply been a musical expression of myself similar to playing piano or composing or conducting or even listening to music. My horn career has included solos, orchestras, bands, chamber groups, churches, concert halls, tours, and everything in between. I love playing the horn and every time I pick it up, it feels like a best friend with whom I can share my secrets, my fears, my sorrows, my joys, and all the emotions in between. Yet I must admit that horn playing and I are not getting along as well anymore. Not sure why. Could be the slight beginning of arthritis in my muscles or the lack of consistent practice or some kind of air and embouchure disagreement, but I am just not playing at the level I once did. This is difficult to acknowledge and disconcerting in many ways. I have many horn playing friends in administration who have given up playing due to the time constraints and the inability to maintain a high level of playing. But I know other administrators who have kept playing and receive great satisfaction from being an active musician. Not sure where I will land on the spectrum but suspect there will be a time when the horn will be permanently set aside.
Books are disappearing. Libraries continue to reduce their physical collections and replace them with digital resources. Bookstores struggle to pay the bills and I rarely see people reading books. In London, book reading remains active and as many people hold a book in their hands as hold an e-reader but in our country most reading seems to be on a device of some kind. I prefer to hold a physical book in my hands. I am not quite ready to give in to the forces of the digital age and continue to prefer to buy a book and read it. The 1,000 books in my personal library can attest to my love of books of all types and, aside from the wear and tear on the back from moving them, they provide me with significant emotional and cognitive satisfaction. Yes this makes me a dinosaur but somehow I cannot let go of the joy of holding a book in my hands. But similar to horn playing, I can feel the change coming where I let go of physical books and begin to use an e-reader. Saves space, allows for ease of research, generally less expensive, lighter, easy to hold, and certainly quicker to receive, e-readers are now part of our culture's norms. Am I ready? No. Will I give up my books? Not yet. Will I begin to move toward this idea? Yes.
For years I got up every morning and started my routine of 300 jumping jacks, 100 sit-ups, and 100 push-ups. Then one morning my shoulder disagreed with me and said no more push-ups, causing me to take up running. Never being an avid runner, I had trouble imagining running more than about 1/4 mile at any one time. A friend recommended the marvelous book "Born to Run" which led me to believe I could actually run a mile or two. Now today as I write this blog, I just finished 3 miles and feel great. In the summers when I have more time and the weather is cooperating, I will run up to 5 or even 7 miles at times but in the winter months I reduce that to 3. I run nearly everyday and take a different path each time. It is usually dark when I run but I keep some pepper spray in my pocket in case a dog or something wants to have a discussion. I will not be winning any races and am not averse to walking occasionally nor sitting for a minute to remove a pebble or catch my breath. But I love the outdoors and the euphoria that accompanies adrenalin and muscle development. There will be a day when my body will tell me to stop running but that day is not today.
Such concludes this brief and boring essay of sharing my thoughts on coffee, horn playing, books, and running.
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