We've been in Ohio nearly three years. Three years.
Neither my husband, who'd grown up in Orlando and DC, nor I, who'd grown up in a global city of 8 million people, had ever lived somewhere like North East Ohio. The closest I'd come were a couple of weeks spent with family friends in Western Michigan. The closest my husband had come was visiting his brother at university in Oklahoma.
Did we arrive with preconceptions? Yes, of course. He's east coast, big city. I'm a Londoner. There's a certain amount of unavoidable snobbery baked into both those world views. But there is also the very legitimate reality that the way one lives in big, metropolitan, cosmopolitan areas, the sources of pleasure, the expectations, the coping mechanisms, are very different to what one finds in the semi-rural rust belt. Putting aside judgments, it is simply true that, to an extent, a big city transplant out here is somewhat ill-prepared for this environment.
So there was some trepidation. Moving into the tiny town where the university I work at is based, just before the onset of one of the hardest winters in the region in years, did not help.
Perhaps the hardest thing to deal with initially was the isolation. In the winter especially, people don't leave their houses much. There are no pubs where one can find ersatz community as a newcomer. More subtly, people here are from here. Their families and friends from their whole lives are all nearby. Unlike in a largely transient city like DC or London, not everyone out here is desperate to make new friends. For newcomers, it takes a lot of work to build a social network, especially outside of work.
So it was hard initially. There were hard days, there were days when we both pined for our former lives in the big city. Yet also, from the beginning, there were good things: good jobs for both of us, good bosses who understood how hard life was sometimes, and, quicker perhaps than we thought, good friends. In this last regard, it helps that LBGT folk out here look after their own, once they find them.
And there are things to do. One has to drive more, and look harder, and develop new habits, but there are things to do. There are concerts and museums in Cleveland to explore. There are restaurants, ranging from country steakhouses unchanged since the '70s where you get an amazing steak dinner for 20 bucks, to fine dining restaurants. There are lakes and state parks aplenty. And there is space. And space means room to take up hobbies. I have my piano, my husband has a dark room in the basement and a painter's studio in the attic. We have two small yards, and for the first time in my life I can devote time to learning how to garden. There is cooking, and having friends over for dinner (as I say, our house is the best restaurant in our town, it's just hard to get a table).
For Easter, we had my husband's family over. Our large, old, slightly ramshackle, slightly run down but beautiful house has enough rooms that we had two couples over, each with their own room. On a beautiful, sunny Easter sunday, after service at the local episcopal church, I was finishing up supper in the kitchen. The family were out in the back yard, sitting around the table and drinking champagne. And it felt like home.
In the front yard, the daffodils and tulips I planted in the cold last days of fall have bloomed. When we moved to this house last October, I had also transferred to the soil a clematis and a rose bush I'd been keeping in pots on the balcony of our first place in Ohio. I trimmed them back at the end of winter, and they are growing like crazy. Soon the clematis will flower bright purple, and the rose bush will begin to put forth yellow flowers, as they will for years, even after we leave. We have left roots here now.
When I get up in the morning and look out on that front yard in the sun, like Tenar at the end of LeGuin's Tehanu, I know we can live here. I don't know that we will, but I know that we can, and that is an encouraging thought.
Showing posts with label hobbies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hobbies. Show all posts
Tuesday, 19 April 2016
"One does not love breathing"
"Until I feared I might lose it, I never loved to read.
One does not love breathing" Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
Two weekends ago I was in Washington DC with the husband. The weather, which was supposed to be cold, turned out lovely, one of those perfect DC days when the sun is warm but not hot, the sky is blue, and the exuberant mid Atlantic spring turns every yard and every park into a riot of colour.
We were staying in north east, just off H street, at a friend's town house. We've stayed there many times. In fact the husband lived there for the year we were apart after I had to move back to the UK after finishing my PhD. So I know the area well. On the Sunday morning (to overcome the over indulgence of the night before), I went for a walk in the glorious DC spring. Ostensibly, I went in search of coffee. In truth, I went in search of what has always been my third place.
I grew up (as I may have mentioned before) in the heart of a big city. A big city where driving is very much optional, and far from practical. From the time I was old enough, I walked with my parents throughout our neighborhood. I walked to the gated square at the end of the block for which we had a key. Then later I walked to Holland park. My school was a twenty minute walk away, so sometimes my older brother or sister would walk me home. At eleven, I was giving my own set of keys, and permission to walk to and from school on my own. And from that day, London was to me as the Shire was to Bilbo: a place to explore on foot. In my head I have a mental map of most of the center of that city. I have walked from Ealing to St Katherine Docks, and from Camden to Clapham.
Walking in London became my third place: the whole city, as long as I was on foot, a place for thought and escape, a place that was neither at home not at work but that was mine. Walking home from school, I would take detours through the parks if it have been a long day, or if it was a sunny day. I remember once stepping out of school into driving summer rain. Rather than go home, I went to Hyde park, and walked in the downpour until I was soaked through. Walking became how I process my thoughts, how I establish what's important, how I calm my nerves.
In French, there is a word for walking aimlessly in the city: "Flaner". The closest equivalent in English is to stroll, though one can stroll through the country, or one can stroll to a destination. "Flaner" can involve neither. "Flaner" invites, encourages serendipitous, aimless exploration of the city. "Flaner" is what results in stumbling on a tiny church park one has never seen behind one of London's busy shopping streets, or stumbling on the Monument to the great fire on a sunny day and climbing it.
As I was strolling in vaguely aimless search of coffee in DC that sunny sunday morning, I felt closer to home, and closer to myself than I had in long time. And I realised, not for the first time, how much this inability to walk chafes me living in Ohio.
One can, and I have, debated quite how inimical to walking my current situation is. But it was in DC that I realised it was not so much the physical activity of walking that I miss here. It is the impossibility of "flaner". When I lived in the small town (little more than a highway exit) where our university is based, there was literally no where I could walk from my doorstep, not effortlessly, not pleasantly. The roads had no sidewalks and narrow verges, cars went fast, and there were no paths through the countryside to explore, no byways. Even the state parks, pretty as they are, have limited walking options. Paths are short and disjointed, and one must drive to the state park which to me, limits the spontaneity. The counrtyside of France and England that I am used to has footpaths at every doorstep, leading to fields and forests and home again. My aunt's house in Alsace has the local equivalent of Bilbo;s map of the shire in it: each path marked from doorstep to mountaintop. I could write an entire blog on how my European hiking habits are poorly adapted to American hiking, even though the rewards of American hiking are breathtaking.
Even back here in the city, the walking options are limited. The layout of most American cities, ravaged by the construction of transurban highways, is confusing to the pedestrian. One will quickly end up on a busy road, side walks vanish, and, for the most part, there are no shops to discover, no hidden pubs to find, no magnificent flower beds in tiny squares hiding behind rows of sedate houses.
And so, here in Ohio, I have been robbed of my third place. And I am often restless, frustrated, in ways that I cannot quite identify, until I remember how I used to deal with that feeling: by grabbing my keys and my wallet and walking somewhere, anywhere, through the streets of London, my own Shire.
One does not love breathing" Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
Two weekends ago I was in Washington DC with the husband. The weather, which was supposed to be cold, turned out lovely, one of those perfect DC days when the sun is warm but not hot, the sky is blue, and the exuberant mid Atlantic spring turns every yard and every park into a riot of colour.
We were staying in north east, just off H street, at a friend's town house. We've stayed there many times. In fact the husband lived there for the year we were apart after I had to move back to the UK after finishing my PhD. So I know the area well. On the Sunday morning (to overcome the over indulgence of the night before), I went for a walk in the glorious DC spring. Ostensibly, I went in search of coffee. In truth, I went in search of what has always been my third place.
I grew up (as I may have mentioned before) in the heart of a big city. A big city where driving is very much optional, and far from practical. From the time I was old enough, I walked with my parents throughout our neighborhood. I walked to the gated square at the end of the block for which we had a key. Then later I walked to Holland park. My school was a twenty minute walk away, so sometimes my older brother or sister would walk me home. At eleven, I was giving my own set of keys, and permission to walk to and from school on my own. And from that day, London was to me as the Shire was to Bilbo: a place to explore on foot. In my head I have a mental map of most of the center of that city. I have walked from Ealing to St Katherine Docks, and from Camden to Clapham.
Walking in London became my third place: the whole city, as long as I was on foot, a place for thought and escape, a place that was neither at home not at work but that was mine. Walking home from school, I would take detours through the parks if it have been a long day, or if it was a sunny day. I remember once stepping out of school into driving summer rain. Rather than go home, I went to Hyde park, and walked in the downpour until I was soaked through. Walking became how I process my thoughts, how I establish what's important, how I calm my nerves.
In French, there is a word for walking aimlessly in the city: "Flaner". The closest equivalent in English is to stroll, though one can stroll through the country, or one can stroll to a destination. "Flaner" can involve neither. "Flaner" invites, encourages serendipitous, aimless exploration of the city. "Flaner" is what results in stumbling on a tiny church park one has never seen behind one of London's busy shopping streets, or stumbling on the Monument to the great fire on a sunny day and climbing it.
As I was strolling in vaguely aimless search of coffee in DC that sunny sunday morning, I felt closer to home, and closer to myself than I had in long time. And I realised, not for the first time, how much this inability to walk chafes me living in Ohio.
One can, and I have, debated quite how inimical to walking my current situation is. But it was in DC that I realised it was not so much the physical activity of walking that I miss here. It is the impossibility of "flaner". When I lived in the small town (little more than a highway exit) where our university is based, there was literally no where I could walk from my doorstep, not effortlessly, not pleasantly. The roads had no sidewalks and narrow verges, cars went fast, and there were no paths through the countryside to explore, no byways. Even the state parks, pretty as they are, have limited walking options. Paths are short and disjointed, and one must drive to the state park which to me, limits the spontaneity. The counrtyside of France and England that I am used to has footpaths at every doorstep, leading to fields and forests and home again. My aunt's house in Alsace has the local equivalent of Bilbo;s map of the shire in it: each path marked from doorstep to mountaintop. I could write an entire blog on how my European hiking habits are poorly adapted to American hiking, even though the rewards of American hiking are breathtaking.
Even back here in the city, the walking options are limited. The layout of most American cities, ravaged by the construction of transurban highways, is confusing to the pedestrian. One will quickly end up on a busy road, side walks vanish, and, for the most part, there are no shops to discover, no hidden pubs to find, no magnificent flower beds in tiny squares hiding behind rows of sedate houses.
And so, here in Ohio, I have been robbed of my third place. And I am often restless, frustrated, in ways that I cannot quite identify, until I remember how I used to deal with that feeling: by grabbing my keys and my wallet and walking somewhere, anywhere, through the streets of London, my own Shire.
Monday, 27 July 2015
Familiar and Strange
I spent this weekend camping in the mountains of Virginia, near Goshen pass. It had been too long since I'd been in mountains. I saw the Milky Way one night (something which, having grown up in a city with some of the worst light pollution on the planet, still blows my mind). We swam in rivers, and hiked up to overlooks. The scenery was spectacular, and deeply rejuvenating. We stayed in the local recreational area, and camped by a river. The nearest town was twenty minutes drive away. The nearest grocery store nearly an hour. We chopped wood and built fire, bathed in the river (using biodegradable soap). And wherever we looked when in the mountains, we saw only wilderness as far as the eye could see. An endless thick forest rolling out over the valleys and mountains.
Although I grew up in a big city, I spent most of my holidays around mountains: the Vosges of Alsace, the Pennines of the Lake District, the Jura around Lake Geneva, the Alps of Tessino and Aosta. I've spent countless hours running through steep mountain side meadows, and hiking winding paths to spectacular overlooks, with views stretching out for hundreds of miles.
A few years ago, I was able to take my now husband to the small village in Alsace where I spent part of almost every summer holiday. My great grandmother lived there, and four generations of my mother's family has been there now. The Vosges mountains are old mountains, reaching their maximum height at about 1000m. Yet, because of the Ice Age, the valleys are glacial: flat bottomed and steep sided. This is hiking country, and has been in a semi organised fashion for over a hundred years. And so the paths that run from the village to the mountaintops are well known to me.
I took my husband on a mammoth 9 hour hike along these paths that four generations of my family have walked along. Paths that my aunt and cousins and siblings and mother know well. As we climbed up the steep walls of the valley, we passed from the forests to the high meadows, to this day still used as grazing pasture for the cattle that make the cheese for which the valley is famous. In those pastures, farms provide, as they have done for a century, rustic lunches for the hikers. Because this is France, these rustic lunches are delicious, fresh, and come with wine. Because this is Alsace, the wine is white, and the lunches are enormous. But they go a long way towards making 9 hour hikes bearable.
When you stand on the top of the Hohneck, the highest point of the hike, you look out over similar geology to what you see in the Appalachians: rolling hills, deep valleys. But the geography is totally different.
Here the land is patchwork. There are forests yes, but they are cut up by pastures, and the valley floor is cleared of trees, and dotted with villages. And all around the mountainsides, small farms, or old shepard's huts, or the odd old country house, are visible. Even after walking up nearly 500m, the land is still human.
Even in the most remote of Alpine valleys in Switzerland or Austria, one will see these marks of humans on the land. What is more, the landscape of Alsace is in some ways more ancient than that of Virginia: much of the Appalachians was once clear logged for wood and farmland. That is why Appalachian forests do not have millenial oaks like European ones do. But with the westward expansion, men moved on, and the forest grew back. In my overcrowded, ancient continent, people stayed.
The Appalachians, and the Vosges, are both rejuvenating to me. But when I stand on those mountaintops and gaze out at the landscape before me, on is familiar, and one is still a reminder that I am not at home. After seven years, even in those places I like most, I am still a stranger here. And, like all expats, I wonder that if I cease to be a stranger here, then that place where generations of my family have walked will cease to be home.
If I have children, will I show them the path up from their great great grandmother's house, through the valley their grandmother, uncles, aunts, father, and cousins played in, up to the mountaintop that looks over a landscape that their family has lived in for over a century? Or will I show them the endless rolling woods that their father discovered with their other father, that have almost no mark of man on them?
 | |||
| The mountains of Virginia |
A few years ago, I was able to take my now husband to the small village in Alsace where I spent part of almost every summer holiday. My great grandmother lived there, and four generations of my mother's family has been there now. The Vosges mountains are old mountains, reaching their maximum height at about 1000m. Yet, because of the Ice Age, the valleys are glacial: flat bottomed and steep sided. This is hiking country, and has been in a semi organised fashion for over a hundred years. And so the paths that run from the village to the mountaintops are well known to me.
I took my husband on a mammoth 9 hour hike along these paths that four generations of my family have walked along. Paths that my aunt and cousins and siblings and mother know well. As we climbed up the steep walls of the valley, we passed from the forests to the high meadows, to this day still used as grazing pasture for the cattle that make the cheese for which the valley is famous. In those pastures, farms provide, as they have done for a century, rustic lunches for the hikers. Because this is France, these rustic lunches are delicious, fresh, and come with wine. Because this is Alsace, the wine is white, and the lunches are enormous. But they go a long way towards making 9 hour hikes bearable.
When you stand on the top of the Hohneck, the highest point of the hike, you look out over similar geology to what you see in the Appalachians: rolling hills, deep valleys. But the geography is totally different.
 |
| The view from the Hohneck |
Even in the most remote of Alpine valleys in Switzerland or Austria, one will see these marks of humans on the land. What is more, the landscape of Alsace is in some ways more ancient than that of Virginia: much of the Appalachians was once clear logged for wood and farmland. That is why Appalachian forests do not have millenial oaks like European ones do. But with the westward expansion, men moved on, and the forest grew back. In my overcrowded, ancient continent, people stayed.
The Appalachians, and the Vosges, are both rejuvenating to me. But when I stand on those mountaintops and gaze out at the landscape before me, on is familiar, and one is still a reminder that I am not at home. After seven years, even in those places I like most, I am still a stranger here. And, like all expats, I wonder that if I cease to be a stranger here, then that place where generations of my family have walked will cease to be home.
If I have children, will I show them the path up from their great great grandmother's house, through the valley their grandmother, uncles, aunts, father, and cousins played in, up to the mountaintop that looks over a landscape that their family has lived in for over a century? Or will I show them the endless rolling woods that their father discovered with their other father, that have almost no mark of man on them?
Monday, 1 June 2015
Other skills
I grew up in a large apartment in the center of London. We had no outdoor space, and no spaces that weren't used as everyday rooms (no sheds, garages, basements, attics). In fact, the only non essential room we had was my mother's study and library, which is probably relevant to the content of this post. My mother was a high school teacher, my father a civil servant. As a result, I never had much occasion to dabble in practical, manual skills like gardening, or DIY, or car maintenance. There was neither the space, nor the people to teach me.
I should add that I wasn't raised to be contemptuous of manual work. My mother's father was a master craftsman, specialized in tin roofing, and everyone in her family were the kind of people who could build a house from scratch, or plant a vegetable garden the size of a field. The kind of people who did, in fact, because they could never find a contractor who would meet their standards. (One of my mother's aunts, in her late 80s when I knew her, still hoed her vegetable garden by hand because she felt the hoeing machine her son rented for her left too big clods of dirt in the soil). My mother had learnt all these skills, as well as all the other skills of needlework that women in the family were taught. But, through a combination of moving to the city and lack of aptitude, she never developed them like her siblings did. What she kept, however, was an appreciation of good craftsmanship, which she used when guiding the remodeling of our house in London.
I've often felt, as I've become older and more independent, that my lack of practical skills was a mild hindrance. Abstractly, I worry about having no skills to help in a zombie apocalypse. Concretely, day to day, I feel vulnerable to things going wrong (plumbing leaks, car troubles), and I feel that I pay for tasks I ought not to (trouser alterations). It would be easy to run with the idea that I am "intellectual" and not practically minded. But such dichotomies are dangerous and patronizing. And besides, I have spent the past year developing into a rather good surgeon. Surely that suggests I am more practical, and better with my hands, than I might think.
It was the process of buying a car for the first time about a year ago that really reminded me of my lack of practical DIY skills. For financial reasons, I decided to buy a car from a private seller rather than a dealership, and the cars I was looking at were old. I quickly realized that I felt completely out of my depth as I opened bonnets to stare at engines I knew nothing about, and took cars on test drives without really understanding what I was looking for. In the end, I picked the wrong car of two that I saw, because I couldn't tell the difference between cosmetic rust, and a concerning engine.
Last weekend, I took my truck on my first solo roadtrip from Ohio to Virginia and back. On the last day, I was about to leave my friend's house in southern Maryland when he noticed a leak that I had been ignoring (on the basis it was an old car). He pointed out to me that my rear differential was leaking a lot of fluid, and that there was a fair chance I wouldn't make it back to Ohio if I didn't get it looked at. I managed to find a garage to patch my differential cover, and made it back to Ohio, but the experience unsettled me. Without my friend, I would likely have been, best case scenario, stranded on a highway roadside with a totaled truck. My lack of knowledge had nearly cost me dearly.
So this weekend, I got another friend, who's been rebuilding cars since he was teenager, to come and look at my truck and walk me through the basics of car maintenance. We drove it and listened to the engine, and discussed various ideas of what might be wrong (the gears were shifting oddly and I was losing power going up hill). We checked fluid levels, and he crawled under and looked at the other leak (water from the AC, he thinks). We changed the sparkplugs, which improved things, suggesting that a cylinder malfunction was the major reason for my engine issues.
I spent the rest of the weekend gardening, planting flowers on our deck for the second year running. There's a clematis and a rose bush out there that I protected through the harsh winter. They've bounced back well. I feel like I've learnt something.
I will never, like my uncle and grandfather, be able to do everything around a house. I will probably never be able to plaster or tile, or take apart and rebuild an engine. But my lack of practical knowledge and skills is not a destiny. It is a choice, and something I can change, until I reach a level of knowledge that removes the anxiety of being at the mercy of things I don't understand and cannot help.
My stitching is terrible though, so I may still have to pay to get my pants hemmed.
I should add that I wasn't raised to be contemptuous of manual work. My mother's father was a master craftsman, specialized in tin roofing, and everyone in her family were the kind of people who could build a house from scratch, or plant a vegetable garden the size of a field. The kind of people who did, in fact, because they could never find a contractor who would meet their standards. (One of my mother's aunts, in her late 80s when I knew her, still hoed her vegetable garden by hand because she felt the hoeing machine her son rented for her left too big clods of dirt in the soil). My mother had learnt all these skills, as well as all the other skills of needlework that women in the family were taught. But, through a combination of moving to the city and lack of aptitude, she never developed them like her siblings did. What she kept, however, was an appreciation of good craftsmanship, which she used when guiding the remodeling of our house in London.
I've often felt, as I've become older and more independent, that my lack of practical skills was a mild hindrance. Abstractly, I worry about having no skills to help in a zombie apocalypse. Concretely, day to day, I feel vulnerable to things going wrong (plumbing leaks, car troubles), and I feel that I pay for tasks I ought not to (trouser alterations). It would be easy to run with the idea that I am "intellectual" and not practically minded. But such dichotomies are dangerous and patronizing. And besides, I have spent the past year developing into a rather good surgeon. Surely that suggests I am more practical, and better with my hands, than I might think.
It was the process of buying a car for the first time about a year ago that really reminded me of my lack of practical DIY skills. For financial reasons, I decided to buy a car from a private seller rather than a dealership, and the cars I was looking at were old. I quickly realized that I felt completely out of my depth as I opened bonnets to stare at engines I knew nothing about, and took cars on test drives without really understanding what I was looking for. In the end, I picked the wrong car of two that I saw, because I couldn't tell the difference between cosmetic rust, and a concerning engine.
Last weekend, I took my truck on my first solo roadtrip from Ohio to Virginia and back. On the last day, I was about to leave my friend's house in southern Maryland when he noticed a leak that I had been ignoring (on the basis it was an old car). He pointed out to me that my rear differential was leaking a lot of fluid, and that there was a fair chance I wouldn't make it back to Ohio if I didn't get it looked at. I managed to find a garage to patch my differential cover, and made it back to Ohio, but the experience unsettled me. Without my friend, I would likely have been, best case scenario, stranded on a highway roadside with a totaled truck. My lack of knowledge had nearly cost me dearly.
So this weekend, I got another friend, who's been rebuilding cars since he was teenager, to come and look at my truck and walk me through the basics of car maintenance. We drove it and listened to the engine, and discussed various ideas of what might be wrong (the gears were shifting oddly and I was losing power going up hill). We checked fluid levels, and he crawled under and looked at the other leak (water from the AC, he thinks). We changed the sparkplugs, which improved things, suggesting that a cylinder malfunction was the major reason for my engine issues.
I spent the rest of the weekend gardening, planting flowers on our deck for the second year running. There's a clematis and a rose bush out there that I protected through the harsh winter. They've bounced back well. I feel like I've learnt something.
I will never, like my uncle and grandfather, be able to do everything around a house. I will probably never be able to plaster or tile, or take apart and rebuild an engine. But my lack of practical knowledge and skills is not a destiny. It is a choice, and something I can change, until I reach a level of knowledge that removes the anxiety of being at the mercy of things I don't understand and cannot help.
My stitching is terrible though, so I may still have to pay to get my pants hemmed.
Monday, 16 February 2015
Silent Ivories
My mother has always had a piano. Playing the piano is central to her idea of herself. The only thing other than a house she has ever taken a loan for is the upright Steinway in our living room. Having "time to play the piano" is a measure of how much control she has over her life. It is, to use modern parlance, her measure of self care. Yet, interestingly, the piano is not relaxing for her in the way that a movie or a book might be. She is always challenging herself to play harder pieces, to get better. It requires effort and energy: more of a discipline than a hobby. And when my mother does not have energy for the piano, then she knows that something else in her life is taking too much of her time.
My relationship to the piano is very different. Its presence and sound are comforting to me, yet I never really played. My instrument was the violin, and our relationship is estranged at best. I have dabbled in playing the piano (over the course of a decade I have taught myself the first two movements of the Moonlight sonata), and whenever I am back home I find time to refresh my memory.
During the year between ending my PhD and starting my postdoc, when I was unemployed and living back with my mother, I started playing the piano more seriously. At my mother's prompting, I took lessons with her piano teacher. I improved noticeably. I began to think of other pieces I would like to learn. And so, when I moved to Ohio, concerned I would be bored, I resolve to buy myself a piano.
I found a good electronic piano on Craigslist, one that was highly rated for its sound. In fact, it is based on sampling a Steinway concert grand. I set it up in our spare room, and got sheet music for the Moonlight (no point in losing the benefit of all that practice) and the next piece I'd resolved to learn, a piece of Tchaikovsky incidental music from his Seasons series. After almost a year, I can play 8 bars. I play the piano maybe a couple of times a month.
On occasion, I feel guilty about this. I enjoy the piano, and I want, on some level, to learn these pieces, and ultimately, one day, to master the third movement of the Moonlight sonata, which is currently far beyond my technical skill. And, of course, I compare myself with my mother, who throughout her always busy, sometimes hectic life has always been able to practice several hours a week. It would be easy to blame science, and its tendency to expand to fill all available space. It would be easy to argue that I could cut out more mindless pursuits (like twitter, or browsing the internet, or playing video games, or watching TV). Certainly, my upbringing was Protestant enough that I must always wonder if I am making the best use of the time allotted to me. And certainly the pressures of being an early career researcher don't help.
But I think also, part of the problem lies in being honest about what is important to us. As I was talking to colleagues over the weekend about the compatibility of science with time consuming hobbies, I came to a realisation. I have decided what matters to me: my work, my fiance, my friends and family, and exercising so that I can enjoy the outdoors in the summer. These are the things, when I look at how I spend my time, that I make time for. It is not worth feeling guilty that I do not play the piano enough. It is simply not important enough to me to make the cut. And conversely, it is clearly important enough to my mother that she will make time for it in the face of other pressures.
Life is difficult enough, and there are enough pressures and demands on our time as scientists, that we should not burden ourselves with feeling obligations towards activities that we do not in fact value that much. Embrace the things you care about, and make time for them. That choice is personal, and yours, and your choices are valid.
Maybe in ten years time I will have deciphered the Tchaikovsky piece. If that is the time it takes, then that is the time it takes. In the meantime, I will enjoy my fiance's company, invite my friends to dinner, and plan for a summer of camping trips in the Appalachian mountains.
My relationship to the piano is very different. Its presence and sound are comforting to me, yet I never really played. My instrument was the violin, and our relationship is estranged at best. I have dabbled in playing the piano (over the course of a decade I have taught myself the first two movements of the Moonlight sonata), and whenever I am back home I find time to refresh my memory.
During the year between ending my PhD and starting my postdoc, when I was unemployed and living back with my mother, I started playing the piano more seriously. At my mother's prompting, I took lessons with her piano teacher. I improved noticeably. I began to think of other pieces I would like to learn. And so, when I moved to Ohio, concerned I would be bored, I resolve to buy myself a piano.
I found a good electronic piano on Craigslist, one that was highly rated for its sound. In fact, it is based on sampling a Steinway concert grand. I set it up in our spare room, and got sheet music for the Moonlight (no point in losing the benefit of all that practice) and the next piece I'd resolved to learn, a piece of Tchaikovsky incidental music from his Seasons series. After almost a year, I can play 8 bars. I play the piano maybe a couple of times a month.
On occasion, I feel guilty about this. I enjoy the piano, and I want, on some level, to learn these pieces, and ultimately, one day, to master the third movement of the Moonlight sonata, which is currently far beyond my technical skill. And, of course, I compare myself with my mother, who throughout her always busy, sometimes hectic life has always been able to practice several hours a week. It would be easy to blame science, and its tendency to expand to fill all available space. It would be easy to argue that I could cut out more mindless pursuits (like twitter, or browsing the internet, or playing video games, or watching TV). Certainly, my upbringing was Protestant enough that I must always wonder if I am making the best use of the time allotted to me. And certainly the pressures of being an early career researcher don't help.
But I think also, part of the problem lies in being honest about what is important to us. As I was talking to colleagues over the weekend about the compatibility of science with time consuming hobbies, I came to a realisation. I have decided what matters to me: my work, my fiance, my friends and family, and exercising so that I can enjoy the outdoors in the summer. These are the things, when I look at how I spend my time, that I make time for. It is not worth feeling guilty that I do not play the piano enough. It is simply not important enough to me to make the cut. And conversely, it is clearly important enough to my mother that she will make time for it in the face of other pressures.
Life is difficult enough, and there are enough pressures and demands on our time as scientists, that we should not burden ourselves with feeling obligations towards activities that we do not in fact value that much. Embrace the things you care about, and make time for them. That choice is personal, and yours, and your choices are valid.
Maybe in ten years time I will have deciphered the Tchaikovsky piece. If that is the time it takes, then that is the time it takes. In the meantime, I will enjoy my fiance's company, invite my friends to dinner, and plan for a summer of camping trips in the Appalachian mountains.
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