Do Something

 Last week two random events came begging for meaning. 

1) To pass the time at lunch one day, we were listening to an audiobook. Somehow the song "Deep Purple" came up in the story. I recognized it immediately, "When the deep purple falls over sleepy garden walls". It's a song Dad used to play. I learned it myself over sixty years ago and have not played it since.

2) One night I had a dream,  a familiar teacher's nightmare of the sort where I am late for class and things keep getting in the way so the kids are going to trash the classroom before I get there. I know where the dream originates. I spent most of my days as a teacher having important things to do, which over the years altered the structure of my brain. Now I have nothing important to do, so the old think-engine is spinning its wheels going nowhere.

Well, not quite nowhere. Here I am writing this blog. which is not entirely meaningless. 

I wonder if Deep Purple is still within reach for someone who hasn't practiced at all for the last year because he has been so busy taking naps. Curious, I dug out the sheet music from the stack of golden oldies: Nola, In a Mist, Why do Fools Fall in Love, The Doll Dance, The Colonel Bogie March, White Christmas. Found it at the bottom of the pile. I played it through once, but the notes were not there under my fingers. They weren't easy on the old eyes either. So I scanned it into my scrolling music software and set up the computer on the piano. Three or four more runs through and the muscle memory is kicking in. Fun. In another few months if I keep at it I might be able to play this. 

When I need a project, any project will do as long as it's my choice and it has a chance of succeeding. My motto is "do something rather than nothing." If you succeed, good. If it doesn't work out, at least you know one thing you don't want to do next time you are at loose ends. Either way is better than another nightmare.