Anti-fragile this Mother’s day
Between nature and the city
If anyone knows about flexibility and adaptability, it’s mothers – and probably fathers too. Finally everyone is dressed and ready to go, you’re about to step out the door – and the baby throws up all over everything… scrap the plan, time to improvise. I imagine there isn’t a parent alive who doesn’t know the scenario.
Sometimes it goes that way in music too – we spend hours, days, weeks preparing our songs according to a “plan,” according to the notes written down. But inevitably at some point in life, SOMETHING goes wrong. Every musician has experienced this ON THE STAGE during a performance. What do you do? It all depends on your personal relationship to spontaneity. Can you “jazz” or are you rigid?
We all know someone in our lives who doesn’t deal well with change. The human (as an animal) doesn’t like change – why move to a new place for new food sources? There might be lions in the next valley!
Changing gears
The call came in earlier this week – Berlin is beginning to re-open. I have been waiting for this news since February, and now that it has come, I find myself asking, “What, so soon? But the virus isn’t gone yet!” The cozy introvert in me has gotten used to the inertia of stillness – it feels very strange to rev it up again on such short notice. Without any conscious act, that (non-)inertia would carry me easily through the summer, maybe even into Christmas!
I’ve discovered I quite enjoy the quiet of the woods – it does wonders for one’s focus. Now the bustling city is calling – it’s time to get back to work. Although the (rusty?) gears seem to be crunching, I heed the call and kick myself into high gear: plane ticket, corona test, registering my travel with the government agencies. There are so many more barriers to traveling now than there were even four months ago… but keeping the learning curve “learning” is always a good exercise in non-rigidity. Flexing those mental muscles – responding to the unexpected, not dropping the ball – builds anti-fragility.
For all of you Moms out there, many thanks for embracing the chaos of raising us kids! For this new episode of the E-Flat Files I picked out a beautiful Filipino lullaby for Mother’s day – lullabies aren’t just for babies!
In other news, I finished recording the 100th exercise for the voice-building app on Friday, so with that wrapped up I’ve packed my things, left the “recording studio,” and am off to the big B! Two-thirds of the database is already uploaded to the programmers – first testing phase is coming up this week. Time to get busy working with physical people on music again, lest I should forget what this whole project is for… !