Such Great Heights

...due to uncommon amounts of homework/practicing/auditions.

-LOVE SCHOOL. Will get back to you individuals individually as soon as I get to my e-mail!
-LOVE SCHOOL but am not too happy with Physics or all my homework right now.
-am SIXTEEN and do not have my licence yet. Like, WHY ALL THE HOMWORK!?
-enjoying violin but am not so into auditioning with a piece I haven't played properly for three months...
-loving piano, should find some time to practice
-not really caring about the causes of the French Revolution atm, but will try to write something half decent anyway/
-am not really into writing an essay tonight, but will, after audition. Late at night. When all my thoughts are GONE.
-am LEAVING to do...

GUESS...









OHHHH you GOT IT!!!!!!!!!!!




HOMEWORK.

Obviously I'm not too down or else I wouldn't be hyper like this but I HAVE TO GO GOODBYE HAVE A WONDERFUL DAY LOVE SCHOOL BECAUSE IT'S A GOOD THING TO LOVE.

Well, really. I suppose I should give some notice if I decide not to blog for a while. :)

This summer has been a blast. So busy and so fun. Pictures from Alberta coming soon! And the cottage...and camp...and the cottage again, and then again. I'm not going to attempt to write about the summer; I can just start clean here.

School starts in 6 days... It's going to be absolutely SO busy, but I'm looking forward to it all.

This is, I suppose, a little message to let you know I'm coming back. Nothing more, but perhaps when I have more to say.

I’m in Alberta right now, sitting in the doorway of the patio of our little 80’s chalet. We’ve been here over a week now. This has been a lovely vacation. Climbing mountains, riding horses, visiting friends, relaxing, going to museums, everything. I had never seen real mountains before this trip. Now I know. They are so amazing and big and comforting and scary at he same time. I love how I can feel so safe between mountains but how aloneness seeps through and lets a kind of transparent fear in. It’s not really a fear of nature, it’s a fear of being somewhere for long periods of time without people. But in the city there’s a fear too. People are everywhere but when you see the homeless ones lying on blankets under trees and people biking or skateboarding along with nothing really to do or stupid boys who have nothing better to do but whistle at your body or hair, you don’t feel any closer to humanity than you do out in the mountains. Either way, I think what matters is who you are experiencing your life with. It comes down to who and what you love. That’s what makes you close to humanity.
I’ve become more interested in people lately. Not that I wasn’t before, but I think about them more and who I am in relation. I am going to watch people more now, purposefully. It involves being quiet, so I’ll have to work on it! But I think through knowing more about other people you find out more about yourself.
Anyway, Alberta. Yesterday we went to the Glenbow Museum in Calgary. Museums are never bright, and this one was cold. The layout and design was very good though, and there was much to learn. Everyone was quiet and there weren’t too many people there. One woman exclaimed over and over about the battles and how interesting it is that we have designed so many ways to hurt each other. They were slow and we passed them. In the next section, on Greece, Egypt, and Rome (country, country, city), there was a little boy who was obviously very smart and I knew his Mom read books to him. He watched the movies with intelligence as his little sister squirmed on her father’s shoulders. They moved on, and the boy talked with his father. “I’m not looking for gods Dad, I want heroes!”
Later we walked out on Stephan Street, a street for people not cars. Meghan and I bought bracelets in one of the stalls and there was a young man – think partially ghetto or gangster - playing the bagpipes. He didn’t play boring things; he was interesting and I wanted to stay on that section of the street forever, listening to him. But he stopped, and we moved on. And anyway, there’s a truth about forever and I haven’t quite figured it out yet.
I’m reading Housekeeping right now, by Marilynne Robinson. I like how she writes, “It is…difficult to describe someone, since memories are by their nature fragmented, isolated, and arbitrary as glimpses one has at night through lighted windows.” Maybe that’s why when I try and figure people out I can’t, not as a whole anyway. On Saturday we visited friends of Dad’s and I met new people. I’ve been trying to figure out who they are, without knowing them. These are private thoughts, but it has to do with finding who you are and being content. I have trouble doing that, here in the city.
Today is a relaxing day. We’re going to eat a late lunch now, and then I think I’ll ask Dad to come play basketball with me.
It’s weird, now that I’m in a mood for writing, there’s so much I could say. I’m going now though, and when I write next it won’t be the same. There’s writing and thoughts then, that are lost. But this is good for now. Hope your holidays are coming up roses!

Provincials. I woke up early on Sunday morning and Mom and I left for London. It made me tired, that day. I played pretty well. You know, pleasing enough, but I can do better next time, kind of playing. Musical theatre is SO fun to listen to. Especially when the singers are good. Back, listening to my class, I almost fell asleep listening to Gabriello Pitman play. He had such beautiful melody line...I was sitting in a stiff chair, 1:30 in the afternoon, my dress strap was hurting, a little lecture room with a piano, the second movement of the Pathetique...and slowly, slowly, eyes close and his music watches over me as... But of course one does not fall asleep. One must not...
The workshop. Performing is not about you. Performing is about giving the music to the audience.

selah

I don't want to talk it really. I never do, after a festival or competition. Obviously, to the first few people, but then I am tired of telling. It seems as if I just want to remember and not talk about it. That happens to me other times too. Like when I am sitting in the car, quietly, and I see something. I don't tell anyone about it. Not because I want it to remain mine, but because it doesn't need to be said. Sometimes I just like to be quiet.

einde

I worry about how I will remember things. Like when I am older, I won't remember how I felt at provincials. I will remember playing in it maybe, but not what I felt. That's the part I want to remember. So, write it down. But sometimes, when I read what I wrote a year ago or something I don't like it. Down-right DO NOT LIKE IT. /ugh-how-could-i-write-like-that. Of course, I'll feel that way about this writing in a few months. It's because I don't like my writing and I don't feel I write well. In essays I can, I supposed, but nothing personal. Maybe I need to work on it. And you know, if it's on paper, I can always burn it.

parada

"'Where does rain come from?' the boy asked his sister, who was older.

She knew about clouds, but she said, 'It comes from the moon.'

The boy didn't believe her. He threw a pinecone straight up into the air and said, 'Umbrellas on the moon!'"

~Michael Laser, The Rain

I have five minutes before a piano student comes and I was thinking of my poor neglected blog and thought I'd add a little update.

We went up to the cottage, went for a hike, got terribly lost, had a heck of a time anyway. I drove the motorboat and loved it, skimming across the cold water, with the air whipping around so hard that it pushes tears to run sideways on my face. Our cousins were up with us, in their cottage, a minute or two by boat. Sometimes I think I'm the only one who has grown up, but then times like this show me reality. I wondered what will happen when our families don't get together much anymore, when I'm in university and he's doing whatever. We won't see each other much. It's hard to know what to talk about too, when the only thing you have in common is your family. But I really love it. I love them being close and how we are all part of each other's lives. It's a look into who they are, and also who I am. Who I've come from and what I want to keep, what I want to change, and what I might not like but what I need to know.

Time to teach.

She sits alone, near the front of the church. She does not smile, and her dyed-red head is bowed.
In the fellowship hall, she stands alone as people whisper, "My condolences dear..." "She had so much life to give yet..."

Last TuesdayBetty Spolstra died. She was our organist and it's amazing how much she gave to the church, and to each individual person. She played a concerto with my once, my little miniature concerto. Everyone loved her.

*_*_*_*

"i wouldn't want to spend forever with you."

ambition gives way to desperation...