Singed

Summer lessons. There are still some days that are very full of students and yet somehow it seems so much more free.  Perhaps it's the days off in between them.  But also I think there is a change in the attitude.  Summer lessons are bonus lessons.  They aren't a part of the normal package that families sign up for at the beginning of the year.  There is no true obligation on my or their part to undertake them.  They are being done for the sake of progress, discovery, or at the very minimally explained, commitment.  We are working toward a recital at some point in the future, but for now there are open skies between us and the next lesson.

It makes me wonder about the winter attitude.  It seems to be more one of working, goal-oriented, outcome driven.  There is a feeling of having to keep up with something, of fulfilling an obligation to something or someone, even if it is to oneself.

But what if all life were a bonus round?  We could look upon everyday, success or failure, as something that might not have been, something not felt, something not seen, something unshared.  In all the possibilities of the world, there is one in which we might not be here, either from what brought us here not having been, or a continuation not continuing.  We are here by some grace, whatever we might call or experience it to be.  Not by obligation.  What goal is there to fulfill?  

But just as I forget the miraculous opening of leaves in the spring, or their golden falling, or the solace of solitude, the pruning of winter, I will forget this hot-sunned embrace of non-existence as a source of liberation.  How many ways can we be free of ourselves?  And how many times will I find them again and again, always different?