No Room At the Inn…A Tale of Christmas Angst.

What type of Christmas are you having this year?  Perhaps, you haven’t thought about it like that before, but as your life stage changes, so does your take on Christmas. For those of you with a new baby, there’s the Baby in the Manger Christmas. Or, if your kids or grandkids are a little older, there’s the Shepherd and Angel Christmas. I’m sure somebody out there must’ve had the Three Wise Men Christmas, while the Three Wise Monkeys always seem to turn up here. I wonder if they also found gold, frankinscence and myrrhr under their tree instead of socks and undies? It’s Not that I’m ungrateful, but who wouldn’t like to hit the jackpot?!!

Well, this year, our Christmas story is…”No Room At the Inn”.

Firstly, we had to find room for the Christmas Tree. We buy a real one every year, and we put it up originally to keep it safe from the kids, but this Christmas we have puppies in the house. Indeed, we have four puppies in the house and I don’t know if pups can climb Christmas trees quite as deftly as a cat, but I don’t want to find out. Our tree is behind bars.

Speaking of pups, there’s no room left in the kennels anymore. We currently have five dogs…our original dog, Lady, our Border Collie x pups Isaac and Rosie and the micro pups, Dobby and Yoda.

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Next, I’ve had to clear the shelves of clutterolly to make room for the Christmas decorations. I don’t know where all this stuff came from, and much of it is related to my research project on the Irish Famine Orphans and I’m concerned that if I put it away, I’ll forget all about my project and move onto something else simply because “out of sight, is out of mind”.

The other thing experiencing “No room at the inn” is my blog. Beyond the Flow is full and I need to upgrade my package, which I’ll do after Christmas. I just need to balance the pennies, and unlike the inn, the bank account is closer to empty.  Of course, I swear it was a hacker and not a certain person wanting to spread Christmas cheer a little too far, too enthusiastically and might have got just a little carried away with all that Christmas sparkle. Happiness doesn’t have a price tag, and yet I know I’m not the only one who weaken, crumble and fall into a rising tide of debt just to make everyone and their dog’s dog happy around me. I just can’t help myself. I know each of us

So, the challenge continues…trying to make room for Christmas in a full house.

Are you having any struggles making room for Christmas in your house? I’d love to hear from you.

Best wishes,

Rowena

The Prodigal Violinist.

Last Sunday, I performed Bach’s Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring at “MY violin concert”.

Before you start asking me for the details of my national tour, or how to order copies of Ms+e shar them in the comments. CD, in the interests of brutal honesty, I should confess that it wasn’t actually MY violin concert after all. Rather, I was performing at: “Music in the Orchard”, put on my the music school where I learn the violin. I know that’s just a minor distinction. A question of being in the fine print, instead of having my name up in lights, but a point needing clarification.

Anyway, as it turned out. I deserved to have my name my name up in lights,and that’s just for turning up. Ironically, playing my violin turned out to be the easy part.

You see, our household has a thieving poltergeist, and last Sunday morning it gave its best performance yet.

The nightmare started when my glasses went missing. Indeed, it hid my glasses  so well, that it took three people to find them. Every night, I put my glasses on top of the pile of books beside my bed. However, it’s not uncommon for me to send them flying during the night, but they usually land in the same old, predictable places i.e. down beside the bed or under the side table. However, this time they travelled further afield and had actually dived into my shoes. In an embarrassing moment of capitulation, I had to call my husband home from Church to find them.

The poltergeists next target was my daughter’s tap shoes. As no day is sacred in our end of year schedule and we’re double and triple booking and splitting the kids and ourselves up between us, my daughter had dance photos on the same day as my violin concert. While I’d really been looking forward to her hearing me play and being a part of my special day, I dropped her off at the dance studio as I headed up the hill. By this stage I was running late for my concert, but I figured that I wouldn’t be the opening act and would be well down the pecking order towards the end.

No such luck!

No sooner had I got there, and I was tuning up and praying to whoever it is who takes pity on mothers trying to pull off a performance while supporting their children and is lucky to be dressed at all, let alone made up. And, as for getting those fingers, strings and bow to cooperate, it was, going to take desperate prayer and serious pity. A case of the prodigal violinist… “I know you haven’t practiced enough, but I’ll help you play those strings and together we will make sweet music.”

As it turned out, I did have a guardian angel and that was my teacher, who was not just playing a duet alongside me. She was my accompaniest and a good accompaniest enhances the performer and compensates for their mistakes to make them look better. I knw she had my back, which gave me the confidence to get up on stage at all when I was only just adequately prepared.

So, let’s fast forward to my actual performance. I was playing Bach’s Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring. It is a fairly difficult piece, but it starts out relatively easy and gets more difficult as you go along. I usually managed it through the first page alright but struggle with the rest. Indeed, we had been looking at cutting out the middle section, but I really liked it and found it very dramatic so I bumped up the practice and went into prove it mode.

However, after all the stress of actually just getting to the venue and trying to find my bearings, I started stumling right from the start and my fingers weren’t getting into gear. There was part of me which was starting to feel my performance was doomed. That if I couldn’t even get the start right, I was really going to botch up the other bits. It was that same kind of dread which overtakes your stomach when you’re on a rollercoaster  and your peering straight down over the edge of the very earth. You are going to die! Yet, at the same time, there was also that awareness that the show had to go on. That I couldn’t give up. I just had to make it to the end.

Then, the strangest thing happened.

After stumbling at the start, I actually nailed the rest of the piece and it really did sound sensational as a duet.

I have a very patient and encourging teacher! A veritable angel!

Do you have any performance stories you’d like to share? Please share in the comments.

xx Rowena