chapter 18 - play

14/5/2020: The pen and the sword. The latter represented by the daily series of exercises, the former by my diary, explaining the dilemmas that occur in this period of quarantine. Everybody feels such dilemmas, also my eldest daughter, who is now struggling how to approach playing the piano. Are you still playing music, she asks me. I am thinking about it, I answer, which is true. But are you, I think, and I carefully ask whether she does play the piano, which she can do quite well. She even has some excellent youtube clips. Nine weeks already. she said. She must feel lonely, I think.

The morning started in a bad way, again. Tension, an apparent lack of energy. I went out, with the older one, to buy a new pair of pants. Black, the usual thing. When I came back, she did not even look at it. Busy with cooking. I vacuum cleaned the whole house, changed the bed sheets, etcetera. The usual complaints, with a stressed look on her face. Enough, I thought and I closed the door of the living room. To be honest, I indeed got a bit enough of that, and even feel again the urge to be on my own, somewhere in a warm place. Solitude, OK, but why suffer the cold. With dinner, most of the tension was gone, at least we were friendly. When she repeated what she did today, I told her: self-inflicted suffering. And, as you may guess, implicitly, stop complaining. She probably will not, and that is OK as long as she respects my limits, and leaves me some space. Before dinner, the girls were sumo wrestling, and kicking. I told them to be careful, a few times, in a harsh tone, but enjoyed watching them, cute and violent in a friendly way. Indeed, children need to play and fight. And, I am afraid, adults too!

15/5/2020: A simple solution, take the wall in the morning to reduce the sound produced and to limit the risks. Amazing how limiting the risk improves the actual movement, in particular in the early morning. Apparently, there is an element of fear that in some circumstances plays an important role. However, later in the day, given enough repetitions, this fear seems to disappear and the movements more precise, with the risk of unbalance and falling almost gone. Before my wife left this morning, she talked proudly about her performance. I noted the following keywords: performance self-expression. Later I added; practice as the ultimate harmonizer, from a totally different source, my own two hands.

16/5/2020: Performance as an incentive to practice. The last sentence, I read today, at the beginning of a new section, about playing the piano, with my own two hands. I even practiced my self today, improvising, of course. It might be the start of a new element in my daily discipline.

Running might become another part of it. When I went out with the girls on their steps (in dutch) I ran after them, slowly, first with some trouble to catch my breath, but more smooth along the way. And, yes, this morning I took the wall as my guru and it might indeed be the fear factor, that is the absence of risk, due to the wall, that makes the difference in finding, and maintaining proper balance, almost corresponding to the golden line. Again, also here, it is practice that harmonizes body and mind, that allows me to listen to my soul. Ironic? No, why would I be ironic? Eventhough the reverse of QI is IQ, the intelligence quotient. Please allow me to be stupid, to make mistakes, and enjoy my practice. Energy work, as I often call it, but with attention to find my balance. Seriously! And I even consider to become smart!

17/5/2020: Performance dream, action I wrote in my facebook post for today, realizing how important performance is as a complement to training and practice, or in another quoted phrase: practice is a harmonizer of body and mind. Later keywords were: challenge -- follow vision, as a replacement for listen -- no challenge, anticipating a possible challenge for either 10 pushups or the covers of (old) records. My current mood is to disconnect, disconnect from online challenges, online zoom training, and even group meetings outside. Let me stay on the side of it and I may later join.

I like my self-imposed solitude, and whenever one of the girls, including mother and daughters, transgresses a limit, it is my first and direct threat, I will run away. Mildly agressive, but serious. Then again, this is a period of survival. It takes discipline, but also has its rewards.

Even I cannot withdraw myself from a mild form of sentimentality, when I see the little girls play, and even more so when they try to provoke me, which seems to be a hard thing to do, in their experience, as they told me, my flowers. Well, it is in a way part of the performance of my life!