Rainy Bus Ride Home

I've just taught lessons near Times Square and am headed home on the bus, my Tuesday night luxury. The bus is really slow and unreliable, but sometimes it feels good to give the time, like waiting for an empty "Don't Walk" light in Japan.  We have more time to give than we think and the bus is a reminder.

Ironically, I'm sitting with my cello and my bags, typing this on a blue tooth keyboard and my iPad, balanced (some would say precariously) on my backpack on my lap.  The bus ride, luxurious as it is, is also a working time for me, when I can get ahead and type up the notes from my lessons so that I don't have to do so at home.  I have the time, but alas, I am using it.  

Time is an interesting thing.  As I became more experienced as a performer, I came to learn that filling out the time was an asset.  No rushing, no hurrying:  You have the time.  Take up the space, own it, breath it, define it.  It is a concept that can be hard to live in a world of instantaneous everything.  My teaching is still rushed.  The more I'm teaching, the more I'm learning to fill out the time, to become fascinated with something, to have faith that it will come.  Words are one thing, living it is another.  

Perhaps this is a way to become an expert at living.  I'll be 33 in a few weeks and realized that I while I'm not without care for my age, I worry about it less and less.  I was the oldest I've ever been at the age of 19.  Youth is so concerned with getting older, but how strange that as I get older I'm not so concerned about it anymore.  If only had known, if only I could know a little better now, as I imagine I will in a few years. 

It's raining and dark outside, and I've lost track of the cross street.  Perhaps it's time to look up for now....