Jean-Yves Thibaudet made me cry

Yesterday beautiful music made me cry. I was so touched and moved by Jean-Yves Thibaudet's piano performance of the second movement of Ravel's piano concerto in G (Adagio assai), that my heart and soul were so full of emotion, that slowly the tears were just meandering over my sunny face.

We had spent the day at Tanglewood for the Boston Symphony Orchestra's All Ravel program under the direction of Emmanual Krivine. As always, our day started with a bit of stress to get ready - I have high expectations what a proper picnic looks like and therefore put a lot of effort into it - and a grumpy child had not realized it was an all day affair and had to say no to a spontaneous pool party invitation. Her bad mood lingered on for a few hours, but the special atmosphere on the lawn at Tanglewood slowly soothed her mind enough to be bearable. Two Shrewsbury friends hooked up with us on the lawn, which was wonderful and changed the dynamic of our group and made for nice conversation.

Tanglewood is rather special, the huge music hall called shed opens to the fantastic old park with beautiful trees and a wonderful lawn. Hundreds of groups of people scatter over the lawns with their chairs, blankets and gourmet picnics. We got a very nice place close to the Koussevitzky Music Shed and had a much better sound experience than prior visit (sunburn included). So imagine all these people hanging about on a lovely Sunday afternoon, surrounded by the gorgeous Berkshire mountains, having fun and conversation. A few times the old bell rings and all of a sudden the concert starts and amazingly, from one second to another, it is dead silent. You could hear the grass grow.

The program started with the Mother Goose Suite and I had forgotten how much I love The Fairy Garden and it transported me far away into my dream world. The suite was followed by the concerto and well deserved standing ovations and repeated appearances of Krivine and Thibaudet. The amazing concerto for the left hand (very interesting story!), which I could not even do with both of my hands and the Bolero finalized the concert.

The piano is a magnificent instrument, but it is not very often that a pianist just completely blows me away and touches something so deep inside me, I have no words to describe it. Maybe too often it is perfection and mechanics and not magic? I had known Tchaikovsky's piano concerto No. 1 for many years as a teenager and never cared for it that much. Then I heard it played by Ivo Pogorelić and I swear, it was an utterly different piece and I had to listen to it three times in a row and again and again for many days. It was a revelation and so was Thibaudet yesterday.

I think it is very interesting how the same piece of music / same score can be so different in outcome depending on the orchestra and director. I remember when CDs were still newer and I would listen to every recording of a piece to see which one spoke to me. Karajan for example never spoke to me, strange, I cannot even tell you exatly why. For years I could not find a recording of Schubert's 8th Symphony that I liked. I once heard a recording of Dvoraks New World Symphony that hit me so deep, I pulled to the side of the road and sat there, tears streaming down through the whole symphony and it was like nothing else existed at that moment.

When everything is right and the interpretation speaks to you in all your depth, something amazing happens inside you, connecting heart and soul and rationale and whatever else lingers inside us. I am extremely grateful that Thibaudet mad me cry tears of beauty, to remind me again why I love Ravel so very much and also fling back into my life the one thing that always helps me in more difficult times: the magic of music.

Nothing exists without music, for the universe itself is said to have been framed by a kind of harmony of sounds, and heaven itself revolves under the tones of that harmony.
Isodore of Seville (c.568-636 AD) archbishop and saint

A new approach to un-clutter

I hold on to too many things.

For one I always have ideas what I could use things for and I have so many things in the first place, because I have so many ideas. I have spent money on them and maybe I find time to use them one day for my many great ideas, in theory.  Meanwhile, I am running out of space, have less and less time to actually turn my ideas into something tangible and even if I do, I am not as good as I used to be, since I have a general loss of patience and peace. My sewing, carpentry and art skills were definitely at a better place before my brain got fragmented due to living a life in quarter hour chunks. And then there are the boxes and boxes of material and product of my sort of defunct company, since I want to devote myself to writing, which is the purpose of my existence actually. But I have a hard time really saying goodbye forever to my company.

Then there are mementos of my former life - too many, even though I reduced them greatly before filling a container and shipping it from Bavaria to Los Angeles in '96. I had figured that great memories will stay in my head and it was a moving ritual to burn old love letters in the fireplace one by one - that was before I had mommy-brain-dementia. And then there is my first laptop, a whole lot antique kitchen things from ancestors long ago .... I get a headache just looking into that corner and my gaze moves to the boxes of decorations - Halloween and Easter quite manageable, but Christmas? O Gosh. I could go on and on with this list, but I assume it is already rather boring.

The thing is, it all ties me down, makes me crazy, leaves no room in a tangible and spiritual sense - I need to free myself. But how? I have been trying for so long and it just does not get better - or should I say less? It is not that I am a hoarder, we donate a lot, happily give things to friends and family, Freecycle and Craigslist things away. Still, the pace is not right. So I had an idea.

Having been so utterly unhappy with my existence as a whole - happy in some fragments though - I have been creating this parallel dream world that I escape to. Partially it came out of real dreams at night, which makes the people, the place, the voices, the scents and sounds very real in my head. This all is happening in England, an old, charming country home. So I asked myself, if this would be true and not a dream, what would I take with me? What would be important? Voila, I have my angle. I imagine I am preparing for a move in a couple of month and I picture myself with I-will-not-name-who-I-dream-about and our oh so harmonious and wonderful life and guess what, it makes it SO much easier to let go.

I wonder if we can take little pieces of our day dreams and turn them into something real, some small details and bigger ideas as well. Dreaming and hoping are incredible forces if they are not tethered onto expectations I think. I have to do a lot of sorting, 14 bins and boxes of paperwork from the kids are my start (some huge Rubbermaid storage containers), surely a few drawings and little stories they wrote and some cards they made are enough to come with me. Even if I really not going anywhere.

claymation camp

The girls went to a claymation camp at the Worcester Art Museum and this is their first movie: I think it is very cute and I hope they do more!

Vicious cycle of pain, depression and desperation

This is a serious rant about the state I am in and I am not sure if this is something I should even post here in this public place of my blogosphere.... but then again, life is not always sunshine and cupcakes and smiles and all good. I mostly pretend to be the happy and balanced person, at least most people think that of me and I am very good at hiding what is really going on. One of the lessons of being bullied as a kid, when I learned not to show any kind of emotion. So here, I will say it and if it comes to haunt me, so be it.

Lately I am derailed off my tracks at any instant. From teeny tiny things like putting a lot of quarters in the parking meter at the library only to find it closed (budget cuts) or two bathing suits disintegrating within 3 days (quality cuts + chlorine) to the big things like not getting a handle on my health. My severe Endometriosis ist being treated with shots of hormones helping me to not spend a majority of my time with ridiculously bad pelvic cramps. The down side of the medication though, beside the weight gain and loss of lust (sorry could not resist, sounds so funny 'loss of lust') it makes me swing between extreme anger and severe depression with constant crying fits. Obviously that is not a solution. At times I wish I would drop dead. So there, I said it.

I read somewhere that one of the side effects is psychosis and I wonder if that is why I feel that I am completely alone and have no friends whatsoever, which rationally I know not to be true, well, maybe - I cannot tell, because my brain feels to muddled. I know that I know a lot of really nice people here, but what I definitely miss is a best friend though. I had one from teenage years to motherhood at which point our tracks went in completely different directions and were absolutely incompatible. But I miss having a best friend who you take small vacations with, full of adventure, visit exhibitions and go to concerts, help each other with whatever and mostly talk about anything and at any time and well, you probably know, if you ever had that one person closest, a person who really knows you and understands you. I am lonely. I felt lonely before the medication, now I feel forsaken. So there, I said it.

 The depth of the problem is compounded by my lower back problems. My three disks were doing alright until I was so utterly stupid to lift two 80 pound cement bags, because I really wanted a project done. Of course I have been out of commission since that stupid move and the project is further away from completion than before. My chiropractor is trying everything he can to get everything back in order, I swim and swim and swim, take enough Ibuprofen to blow a big hole into my stomach lining, ice it over and over and relax it with valium. I can hardly make it through the day without painkillers. So there, I said it.

All my projects are on hold and my sole existence is to serve my seemingly grumpy and ungrateful, but sometimes very funny and definitely loved children. It seems that I do nothing much but drive them to and from places, get or return friends, shop and cook for them and their friends. The explosive and attention challenged one is riddled with teenage-hormonal rollercoaster like mood swings and in turn makes me explode, since my reserves are all drained by the little genius with the necessity to have everything in her life micromanaged by me, essentially making me have to live her life on top of mine. My children drive me insane. So there, I said it.

And while I write this, I get another of these crazy crying fits and I think to myself, this is not me actually. But something is seriously broken. I am broken - there, I said that, too. And now? Well, life goes on, I'll wipe the tears away and take my children and three of their friends to the lake, pretending that the abyss in my soul is not there and succeed half the time through distraction and company. So there.

P52/13: Find

Driftwood with a story from one of the most beautiful places in the world: Montagna de Oro in California. This piece is about 5 feet tall, it was even longer when I found it, but I had to make it shorter to fit in the car to go home. The spousal unit refuses to help with driftwood in any capacity as a matter of principle, so I had to schlep this by myself up to the car, it was still soaked and therefore very heavy. Back home in Pasadena, a bunch of carpenter bees thought it lovely as well and moved in. I tried smoking them out with incense, which failed to evict them, but might have turned them Catholic. When we moved to Pennsylvania, our fantastic movers had the brilliant idea to wrap the whole thing in a multitude of plastic layers and told me to just leave it in the garage for the duration of the Pennsylvania winter. It worked and I was finally able to have it inside. And then we moved it to Massachusetts.

This find is so big and unusual, everybody visiting us has to comment on it, touch the curves and smooth wood and tries to see something in the shapes, like cloud watching on a summer day.

P52/12: Patchwork

Though traditionally made of fabric, this patchwork is paper on canvas. It is a small section of a three canvas collage that I made for a paper art contest 'Blue'. The three are dusk & dawn, water & air, night & day. Can you guess which one this section is part of?

P52/11: Glass

 

Still trying to catch up with Project 52 and therefore I picked a picture from the archives, showing one of the first fused glass pendants I made in my kiln. I love glass and prefer a unique shaped piece of sea glass or kiln fired glass over some fancy, frilly and expensive jewelery.

P52/10 - Wanderlust/Fernweh

There is no fitting word in the English language for Fernweh, which is the yearning for places far away. Even though wanderlust comes close, I do consider it more of an antsy wanting to be on the move generally rather than wanting to go to a place far away. Home sickness can usually be considered the opposite of wanderlust, except in my case where the yearning for far away places and the yearning for home is one and the same.

Alphabet Soup - letter B

B is for Buddha. In dire need of some peace on his perilous journey, Peter Pan consulted with the Buddha.

Alphabet Soup - letter F

F is for Fire. Usually battling with sword, wit and the ability to fly rather fast, Peter Pan had to come to terms with his mortality when massive flames were working their way towards him. I am happy to report that he escaped yet again, unscathed I might add - or should I say unsinged?

P52/9: Contrast

This week's, well, to be precise actually last week's photo challenge topic is contrast and really, ANY picture could fall under that. So does a really wide open topic make it easier or harder? I guess it just depends on our personality. Anyway, no long ramblings needed this week, but comments are still very welcome :)

P52/8: Technology - Friend or Foe?

This week’s challenge is thought provoking. Coming from Germany it is not actually about technology, but the term ‘Technik’, which shockingly does not even have an English translation. The root of the word comes from ancient Greek τέχνη (téchnē) meaning skill, art and labor/trade. Consequently I need to define the challenge for me as this is a huge area and almost anything could be part of it, like cutting parsley with a sharp knife. If I consider the question in its most basic idea, the answer would have to be that technology is our friend, because that is what makes us human: the making and use of tools? Looking at weaponry and other tools of evil points the other way though. Tough question it is!

* click for big!

Therefore, I have decided to interpret technology in regards to this challenge as man made tools with a concrete purpose and use and also being very complex in their built. So narrowing it down like this I conclude in line with my typical juxtapositional mindset, that the answer is both. I associate technology with pollution, noise and other annoyances, dehumanizing our lives with mechanical and electronic means, pushing us further away from the basics of life. Then again, I am an early adopter and embrace technology left and right as walking though the house shows clearly.

We have a house full of tools that help with cooking, cleaning, wood work and regulate temperature and humidity. They freeze, boil, melt, cut, move, print and even curl hair. My studio has a as many gadgets as the kitchen or the work shop. Looking further we get to computers, ipods and digital cameras (making me wish we had more Apple stock and at least some Canon). We use technology to be entertained, to stay in virtual touch or arrange for real socializing, to be creative and to be not creative, to make time and to kill time, to help us make a mess in the kitchen and to help us clean it up again. It helps us move faster or slower and even tells us where to go, it makes our world brighter and louder. It makes life easier and it makes life harder. (I’d like to meet the person that has not yelled at a piece of technology out of frustration.)

We all take the harder and the frustration for the reward, video chatting with friends on the other side of the world, picture sharing and critique through blogging and watching BBC’s Robin Hood streaming through the marvel called Wii. And when we are without power - something rather routine in this part of the world - we just as happily sit by the fire, read books, play boardgames, write with ink and take our instruments and make music. So yes, technology is a friend, but we are okay with an occasional leave of absence.

P52/7: All Red

If there would be a color to describe the relationship of my girls with each other, it would be red. Red because they love each other and red because they hate each other - all red! Click to see it in all its glory.

Isn't it often that what looks easy and straightforward needs us to have second look and deeper thought? This weeks photo challenge had the title 'All Red' and I did not want to run out and just take a picture of something red without a thought behind it, because I love when I look at other people's contributions and find myself completely surprised by the way they find their own individual way of interpreting the topic.

Alphabet Soup - letter S

S is for steering wheel. Instead of basking in the sunshine on this calm Sunday afternoon, Peter was in peril yet again, having been hoisted onto the steering wheel, expected to do the driving. 495 North was busy as ever and it took all his concentration for happy thoughts and depleted the remaining stash of faery dust at his disposal.

P52/6: Tea Party

click the pictures to see them big :)



Our feud with the faeries reached its high when they hijacked our tea party this week. It all started with the collapse of their faery houses under the weight of snow and ice and their decision to move into our house. We are very understanding people, especially when it comes to magic folks, but living with them was next to impossible. Tripping over tiny horses again and again, getting hurt by out of control unicorns and our cats would chase the faeries with the pegasus hard on their heels. Our house turned into a mad house. Instead of helping to solve the mystery of disappearing socks, they were dancing on the piano keys to make very unsettling twelve tone music and forcefully evicted all Playmobil people from their houses in a wicked ploy to move in themselves. Now we had those folks running about as well.

We called a summit of their leaders with the CEO of our household, but diplomacy failed and war was declared when I called them faeries and not elves. Apparently when you bestow the Franco-Anglican term onto Germanic magic folks, you are a fool and thus the feud began. In their clever and cunning ways, they started playing tricks on us, switching salt and sugar, leaning ‘purely by accident’ onto the Wii power button when we were about to get a first place, putting cayenne pepper into our wine glasses when we were not looking, lighting matches directly under the smoke alarms in the middle of the night, dousing the cats in expensive perfume, hiding car keys in the pastry flour and eating all our chocolate.



It proofed impossible to catch them all for a return to nature and I was tired of surprises like finding the floor covered in glue in the morning or children missing the school bus, because the wee ones had knotted up all shoelaces incredibly tight. To provide a little rest from this mess, we decided to have a little tea party. We had barely sat down when the wee folk descended onto our party like ants onto sugar cubes. In our favor and some kind of cosmic justice though, their last mischievous deed turned around unto them.




First, Feya the oldest burnt her feet landing on a teapot and Surah’s parrot drowned in a pot of milk. Yasira got stuck in the lemon bars and feared for the life, since Eyela & Ophira were devouring one after the other and showed no signs of slowing down. Tinuveel unknowingly had a piece of salmon sandwich and went into anaphylactic shock due to allergies. Apricum was mortified when his love Feya the third dove head first into the sugar cubes, he tried to hide in the creamer because he did not like to watch her flying on a sugar rush. Oleana, the smallest and youngest, ate a whole rum infused cherry and passed out, just like Falaroy, who slurped tea with rum and was drunk as a skunk. Arelan overdid it with the cucumber sandwiches, which gave him never ending hiccups while Sera II was stuck to the orange marmalade she was trying to get for her twin Sera I and the scones. Nimsay and Lindariel ate too many berries, resulting a belly aches.



It was not a catastrophy for all involved, Bilara and Iloris who had nurtured a thorough dislike of the other for a long time, noticed that they shared the same dream of bathing in whipped cream and small tendrils of friendship grew. Only Nuray and Turag, who had already maximized their daily weight watchers points, refrained from joining the feast, as well as Marween, who was content to listen to the mayhem from her perch and Feya the youngest, who took a foot bath in tepid Earl Grey.




Were we upset to have out tea party hijacked like this? At first yes, but when we woke up the next morning to find our house devoid of tricks and rather quiet, we realized that the faery-elves had left. They must have felt that it was impossible to be mischievous with us after being so thoroughly embarrassed by their own bad behavior. Come spring, we shall put some lemon bars in the vicinity of their dwellings, as a sign of peace.

P52/5: In & Out

I am going in & out of the house all day long and therefore I am in & out of my clogs constantly. In the past many decades clogs have been in & out repeatedly, but I never cared and have worn them happily all my life.

This was a tough topic for me and after a week of juggling different ideas, I went back to my very first one, clogs. If this topic would have been English based, it would have been easy, however in German it refers to fashion - picture Heidi Klum on Project Runway saying it and you get the picture. I am not a person who cares much about what is in and out, I think a lot of creative beings have more of a focus on their individuality and march to their own drum, if anything they might be trend setters and not followers.

Alphabet Soup - letter J

Jurassic Park - this is not how Peter had imagined it when he booked his vacation. How could he have known that it was a real, real like Neverland? Maybe he should have consulted a more reputable travel agency, because this was worse than dealing with Capt'n Hook. Hopefully Tinkerbell was coming shortly to help him out of this.

P52/4: "when I was little"

When I was little I would lay on the carpet for hours on end, listening to stories. I would listen to the same ones over and over again, knowing every voice by heart, mouthing the dialogue in unison with the speakers and anticipating every crackle and hiss from the worn old records.

staying warm

This has been a record year for snow and there is no end in sight. Couple that with very cold temperatures and it feels like exceptional circumstances and not like ordinary workdays. Even though I should work on my two major to do items - which would be working on my stories and organizing the house - I seem to be more inclined to work on staying warm and comfortable. So this is how I spent my day on arctic Monday: make a fire - put on thick, woolen socks - read under a blanket - make a pot of rooibush - bake a bread - eat said bread with a freshly made spelt & onion soup - drink delicious, piping hot and überheatlhy elderberry juice - take a bath.

Stjepan Hauser and Luka Sulic - Smooth Criminal

Absolutely incredible, I keep going back to watch it again and again. It's a nice change after listening to my cello beginner every afternoon, though I am sure there was a time when these guys sounded the same. I would love to see these guys live.

P52/3: favorite color

Determining one favorite of anything is a very difficult thing for me, in no way can I narrow it ever down to one. When it comes to colors, it really depends on the circumstances and situations, though two colors stand out: Aqua and orange. If I would poll all my friends, I am sure most of them would answer orange and being a democrat at heart, that's what I went with. The sun obviously agreed with my choice and delivered a stunning sunset over Newburyport Mass, when I took a stroll on the winter beach of Plum Island yesterday.

P52/2: Winterwonderland

Whereas most people in the old world were struggling with finding snow for this topic (and due to that a lot got very creative and inventive), the new world has more snow than we can ever use. The streets have turned into snow canyons and the backyard is slowly going up in altitude. I like winter and its wonderland landscapes, very magical.

P52/1: snapshot

A photo challenge and a snapshot usually don't live in the same category, so the more interesting to start this challenge with exactly that. Most of my pictures are made with a purpose or idea, but snapshots somehow seem to come from a different angle. They are a spur of the moment raw slice of life. I think that is actually their strength, they capture a fleeting moment without a composition and perfect light, they convey emotions and memories. While visiting a friend's house, the youngest was 'flying' from one sofa to the other with such speed and energy, the blur does it justice.

Projekt 52

Projekt 52 is another German photo challenge, was born out of the 365 challenge of taking a picture a day and is asking for a photograph a week. The impetus is to constantly work creatively. Every week a new topic or theme is chosen and there are two groups of people participating. One group uses the same figure, doll or manikin in every picture - much like the alphabet soup challenge - and the other group works freely. I decided on the latter, since I already work with lovely Peter Pan on the other challenge. This came late to me, I am already behind and the revelation of the next topic is looming, but it sounds like fun and I am amazed by the strong networking of German bloggers, they are really active and social.

Alphabet Soup - letter N

N for Noodles - Silly Peter, doesn't he know to be careful what to wish for? He said he was so hungry, that he could eat a whole pool of noodles, but was not aware of the consequences when his wish was spontaneously granted by higher powers.

Alphabet Soup photo challenge: N wie

Alphabet soup - letter D

D for Dominoes - Peter Pan was bravely facing the onslaught of the falling dominoes. Having the security of his magic fairy dust, falling was generally not something to be feared.

Alphabet soup - Photography challenge 'Buchstabensuppe'

'Buchstabensuppe' is German for alphabet soup and in this case refers to a photography challenge somebody in Germany came up with. The rules are as follows: she draws a letter every 2 weeks - because coincidentally there are exactly enough letters in the alphabet for every fortnight, but I don't want to go into the significance of the number 26 here. Participants pick a figure that will be in every picture taken and that is the hard thing, I have tough time deciding between a Playmobil witch, a Schleich fairy or Disney's Robin Hood. Anyway, I am lagging behind already, since the challenge already went onto the second letter, but since we are having yet another snow day here in beautiful Massachusetts, it should be done by the end of the day.

Serendipitously it was my friend Jeannette, who introduced me to this project and she is the one complaining about the lack of posts on this blog. Though I have to brag about 150 straight daily posts on the Beauty of Being!

Here is the link to the project 'Buchstabensuppe'.