Shake It Off

I've decided to give myself a break from match.com this weekend. I will not check that email account, I will not sign on to my match account.

It's just too distressing.

So, in an effort to clear my consciousness, I just sat down at my piano and pulled out a piece of music I had written my senior year of high school - my composition class final project.

I wrote it 21 years ago and I can't even PLAY it now.

It occurs to me that I should find that depressing. But I don't.

Yes, it's highly derivative; yes, it's more "pretty" than "substantive" (my composition teacher did not consider "pretty" to be a compliment); while composing it, I remember being more concerned about not breaking any rules rather than creating a meaningful piece of music; when in doubt, I chose to consult Chopin rather than make my own decisions; and yes, I had to argue my teacher into giving me an A- rather than a B+ (he argued that other students took more risks with their compositions and I argued back that it wasn't because they actively took risks, but that they broke the rules because they didn't know them in the first place); but all that aside... it's mine, all mine (although heavily influenced by Chopin), and once upon a time, I wrote a piece of music that requires real skill to play.

And damn it, it IS pretty.