Practice

Tags

gnp, mindfulness, resolution, yoga

Hello, readers. This is my twenty-eighth Creative Exfoliation.

My college band director Mr. Parks once said at a leadership training session that it takes twenty eight repetitions to turn a behavior into a habit. This statement had such a profound impact on me when I heard it. I thought of all the times that I had tried to build a habit in my young life, and all the times that those habits had failed to stick. Clearly I just hadn’t given them enough time to take root. Mr. Parks had handed me the key to living a healthy, balanced, and productive existence.

The only problem is that it never seemed to work for me. What he was telling us, of course, is that practice pays off. But I took him a little too literally and came to believe that there was something magical about that number twenty eight – that the twenty eighth time I flossed my teeth it would unlock some untapped resolve in my brain and I would become a lifelong flosser. Time and time again I tested this theory, and each time I failed to follow through with the twenty ninth repetition I blamed myself.

As a musician I am intimately familiar with the concept of practice. It’s what I do on a daily basis. In college I routinely spent up to three hours a day shut inside a small room designated specifically for this purpose. There were hallways lined with these rooms, and at all hours of the day and night one could hear the sound of long tones emanating from the corridors, along with the dogged repetitions of technical passages against the unwavering pulse of a metronome. Now I impart the value of practice to my students (and I am always careful to remind them, as Mr. Parks reminded us, that the old adage is completely false: practice does not make perfect. Practice makes permanent. Only perfect practice makes perfect.)

It was not until my late twenties that I discovered yoga. I took my first classes at the gym, and thus I approached it as a fitness activity. It was, indeed, quite physically challenging. At every class the instructor reminded us that yoga was non-competitive, and that each pose came with modifications to make it work for every unique body. But I refused to let myself try the modifications. I was determined to get it “right.”

This attitude towards practice was reflective of my experience as a practicing musician. For my entire life, I had defined practice as the elimination of flaws. And to be clear, my musical education was an overwhelmingly positive experience and full of inspiring moments. My teachers were not domineering taskmasters. And yet I practiced with the mindset that I needed to iron out all the kinks in pursuit of perfection.

Lately I’ve been doing my yoga at yoga studios – the kinds of places with bamboo floors and candles and instructors who speak in a combination of English and Sanskrit. It’s just as physically challenging as the classes at my gym, but my mental state is entirely different. The instructors at the gym talked about a non-competitive and non-judgmental practice, but the studio instructors embody it.

The yogic concept of “practice” is one that took a while for me to understand. Even the most experienced yogis call what they do “practice.” No one ever describes himself as an expert. One is never finished practicing yoga, but each session on the mat reinforce the physical and mental routines that contribute to vibrant health.

This concept of practice has not only had a positive impact on my musical study, but it has changed the way I view every choice, large or small, in my life. Each time I pick up the dental floss, choose not to purchase the tempting item, or listen to someone with empathy, I am practicing the art of being who I want to be. This notion has been incredibly freeing to me because it also changes the way I view my mistakes. Whether my error is missing the twenty-ninth floss or mistakenly saying something hurtful, I remind myself that it doesn’t make me a bad person. It was just a bad practice session. Tomorrow’s will be better.

And although I’m pretty sure Mr. Parks never did a downward dog in his life, I have a feeling he would agree.

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Wisdom

Tags

dentist, fear, resolution, wisdom teeth

This Thursday, January 19 is a day of reckoning for my mouth.

I think by most people’s standards I am a responsible adult. I go for my annual physical, pay my bills on time, and almost always make my bed. But I do have one or two immature and irresponsible tendencies, one of which is an irrational fear and subsequent lifelong avoidance of what many people consider to be an oral rite of passage.

I avoided going to the dentist for … well, a lot of years (I just can’t bring myself to put the number in writing) supposedly due to lack of insurance but mostly because I didn’t want to hear bad news.  I particularly feared the dreaded wisdom teeth removal, and although I vaguely remembered some dull jaw pain in my early twenties, I remained for the most part blissfully unaware that I had them. I figured as long as I didn’t go near a dentist’s office I could go on pretending this was true.

As a particular milestone birthday began to loom on the horizon I decided that it was time to be a big girl, cough up the cash, and make my health a priority. So I picked a dentist and began to make regular visits to his office.

My dentist is a young man, well educated and respected in his field. He is a musician by avocation and expects me to discuss my group’s current repertoire in specific detail while he sticks both hands in my mouth. He gives off a whiff of arrogance, but I find his confidence reassuring. His office is within walking distance of my house and is open late three days a week. And he has a very nice receptionist.

At my first appointment in January of 2010 he told me that my mouth looked healthy – remarkably so given the lack of oversight by a dental professional – but that I needed to have my wisdom teeth out. I smiled and nodded.

In August 2010 he told me that I really needed to have my wisdom teeth out. He said something about crowding, impacted blah blah stuff that makes me cringe. I said something about money; he told me it was really quite affordable with local anesthesia. I made some feeble argument about a previously scheduled inner ear surgery for that winter; he assured me that my head could handle two procedures in one season. I silently vowed to sneak out the door, but while I was rinsing my mouth he stepped out and told the very nice receptionist not to let me leave without scheduling the procedure. I booked an appointment for February 18.

I walked home feeling quite proud of myself for having taken this step towards a healthier me. I had booked the appointment. I had no fear.

February 18, 2011 found me not in my dentist’s chair but on a flight to Italy. I wish I could tell you I’m kidding, but I’m not.

When I told the very nice receptionist I would not be coming, she very nicely assured me that it’s not so bad, that lots of people are scared, and that I was welcome to wear headphones to drown out the sound of cracking teeth and hug a teddy bear while the good doctor yanked my head back and forth.

Well okay, she probably didn’t word it exactly like that, but I was too busy wiping my tears to catch the finer details.

I’m pretty sure my dentist thinks I am a gigantic wuss. But when I did finally make it in for my next cleaning I let him know that I simply would not – could not – undergo an extraction in his office under local anesthesia. Frankly, I think tears and a flight to Rome were entirely justified. So he referred me to an oral surgeon, and a few months later (why rush these things?) I was in her chair for a consultation.

She agreed that they have to come out, the sooner the better. I took a deep breath and told her that I would do it, but that being knocked out was imperative – I want not even the vaguest recollection of the procedure. She let me know that at my age, general anesthesia is recommended due to an increased risk of surgical complications.

At my age. Some people think I could pass for a high school student. Not my oral surgeon, apparently.

So I sat down with another very nice receptionist and told her that August wouldn’t work, because I’d like to enjoy my vacation, and the entire fall was booked because of the musical, and December was no good because who wants to be on a liquid diet at Christmas, and January is festival season, and in February there’s Presidents Day …

The very nice receptionist booked me for January 19.

This is, no doubt, not the last you will read of my dental adventures. Because let’s be honest, I’m not thinking about anything else this week. I know that this procedure is performed every day in dentist’s offices all over the world. You’ve probably had it, and it was probably not such a big deal. But I am going to worry and fret until I wake up with a mouth full of packing, because that’s just what I do.

Think of me what you will, but note this: I have not booked any flights this week.

Creative Exfoliation

Tags

blog, creative efforts, resolution, theheartfulfoodie, writing

A man I once loved (who happens to be a gifted writer) had an interesting take on the creative process: To put it indelicately,  he said, creativity is like a bowel movement. It’s best to let it happen on its own, but if you have to, you can force it.

It was twelve years ago that he shared this pearl of wisdom with me, and at the time I agreed with him. But a lot has changed in those twelve years, and I know I can’t be alone when I say that I’m not just creatively constipated. I’m not, er, producing … anything.

Let’s leave the digestive metaphors behind for a moment. I’ve certainly had flashes of inspiration that have lent themselves easily to the written word. In recent years my accounts of assorted European adventures have garnered much attention and praise from friends and acquaintances. I’ve kept a private journal off and on for years – but it is the gutter press of my creative efforts, essentially verbal vomit (that’s the last one, I promise.) My early efforts at a food blog attracted some traffic – and I’m not giving up on it entirely – but I quickly came to the realization that no one was paying the slightest bit of attention to my recipes. And what’s the point of writing a food blog when your readers don’t care about your food?

For the record, people, the food was good.

But truth be told, these moments of prolific verbosity have been annoyingly fleeting. Most of the time, the demands of my adult twenty first century American life (the thrilling ones and the numbing ones alike) discourage me from putting fingers to keyboard for anything more expressive than an email. I am increasingly aware of my inability to sustain focus on a task, however meaningful it may be. (During the writing of this post I have checked Facebook, performed seven Google searches, and gotten up twice to get a piece of chocolate from the kitchen.) And I don’t want to be that kind of person.

Twelve years ago my life was contained within a five mile circumference. The internet was tethered to my desk, as was the telephone. I found it generally easy to sustain focus on any given task – and when I didn’t, I had a team of demanding professors to nudge me back on track. Today my life looks decidedly different, and after twelve years I have to disagree with that man I once loved. Creativity is not like a bowel movement. It’s more like exfoliation. It’s supposed to happen naturally, but for optimal, glowing new results, it needs to be practiced regularly.

So my goal is to sit down and write something every day this year. There will be some travel logs, some compelling personal confessions, and probably a few calluses and some occasional dull, dead skin.

I’m afraid that if I call it a new year’s resolution, I won’t actually do it.

Of course, by publishing my writing online, I am inviting the blogosphere to witness my exercise in self improvement. Because although a promise made to oneself ought to be sufficient motivation, most of us need external reinforcement from time to time. So I am making my commitment public in the hopes that someone out there will hold me to it.