Happy Pride Month, day 29, growing

29. I'm proud of trying to learn and grow and be a better person. My explorations with a word of the year are part of that, for 15 years now. I'm proud of slowly accreting habits that work for me, and continuing with them long-term. I'm also proud of checking occasionally if something still works for me, and stopping if it doesn't.

I'm proud of listening to my body about what does and doesn't work for me, rather than taking other people's word for it. I'm also proud of considering advice, and trying it on to see if it fits.

Wait, having words of the year for 15 years means I've had this dreamwidth account for that long too! I'm proud of that too, reaching out to you folks and being part of this community in an ongoing way with my writing and reading.

Revisiting piano

In 2015, when my word of the year was Music, I took piano lessons for a year. I stopped at the end of the year because I wasn't enjoying playing the piano, and I had gotten some of what I wanted with being able to plunk out a line from sheet music to be able to sing it.

I've been singing with a friend regularly, and between the two of us, I'm the one who can play piano and read music at all, so I've been doing the honors. Sometimes I get it wrong and it takes us a while to figure out why we can't get our parts to fit together.

A couple of years ago I picked up some beginning piano lesson books for adults at a library book sale. Finally now, after all the changes of the last couple of years, including being done with eye surgery, I took the first book in to my singing teacher who also teaches piano, and asked her for some exercises to get better at playing the right notes. She suggested playing all of the C's on the keyboard, all the D's, etc, so I've been doing that, and also starting to work through the book.

I'm enjoying it! Partly, it's easier when I'm not seeing double when trying to find the right keys. Partly, five years of singing lessons have helped my ear and my understanding of music. I can hear right away when I hit a wrong note and something clashes unexpectedly. Partly, it's good to have a beginning music book for adults rather than children.

Also, I looked back at my posts from 2015, and wow that was a painfully hard year. It's a wonder I stayed with music at all after that. It's a powerful inner drive for me.