I am feeling most rested today!
I played the piano in a little church that I love on Sunday. Their regular pianist was on vacation. The funny thing is that this church meets every Sunday in the same music center where I teach several days a week. Where I have been teaching for over 20 years.
But when I attend this church, it feels like a church. Even though it meets in the auditorium. Of the music center where I hold piano student recital 2 to 3 times a year.
And the piano I played on - a splendid Steinway - is the same piano I play on weekly when I accompany the adult choir.
But it still felt like church. And it felt like home. Most everyone came up to greet me and inquire about my health, about my son and about the granddaughter, the most precious addition to my life ever!
The woman who normally plays the piano every Sunday is amazing. I wish her the best. But if she ever decided to retire, I would jump on that job!
In the meantime, I have two churches I am applying for. One in Gladstone, one in Vancouver. I have heard from both. They say I am in the running - one said I was in the lead! But they are taking their time making a decision. Apparently they had quite a few applicants. Humorously, they had to weed through piles of resumes. And toss the ones that showed absolutely not musical training or experience!
I feel like God is leading me in this. I try to pay attention in God moments.
I don't know if the book I am currently reading was divinely suggested. But I had a stack of books to return to the library. One of them is on hold for another reader. I sorted through the books and DVD's I needed to return. There was one I stopped on. Undefeated: America's Heroic Fight for Bataan and Corregidor by Bill Sloan.
I had put this book on hold after I read The Reckoning by John Grisham. But I never opened a page. I thought my interested had waned. But before I put the book in my return pile, I sat down and opened the first page. Luckily I only have choir practice tonight. Otherwise I might have been late for my first student. An hour later, I raced out the door. I put Undefeated in my book bag. When I got to the library. I did not return it.
It is fascinating! It is a true story, based on interviews of survivors of the Bataan Death March. And fills in gaps in my brain concerning the history of the time around the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
Perhaps my intrigue has to do with the fact that yesterday was Memorial Day. And on Sunday, at the little church I played, the pastor read an account of a few "Medal of Honor" recipients from a big book of "citations".
I was teary-eyed as I heard the remarkable accounts of brave young men displaying courage and self-sacrifice in abominable conditions.
I know Memorial Day honors those that lost their lives defending our country. But I said a prayer for all that served yesterday. Including my father, who served in the Air Force and my grandfather, who was a "Chief Warrant Officer" in the US Army for 35 years! He led an Army band and was stationed in Europe with his family, which included my father and his brothers and sister.
How I wish I could have known my grandfather better. If only to discuss something we had in common: Music!
Speaking of music. I gave my mother a little clock radio set to the classical station. My father, who taught me to play the piano, is in declining health after a stroke and subsequent diagnosis of Parkinson's disease. He tends to sit and watch many movies, because it is painful to move. But I remember as a child, he always had music playing in our home. Usually classical. He cannot operate his stereos anymore, but my mother turned on the classical station. Just as she did, Beethoven's 3rd piano concerto came on the air.
She told me he smiled.
And now I am off to choir practice. Which always revives my soul!
Happy Tuesday!
Talk to you soon.
(Hopefully with good news. Since I am breathing again, I am planning on going to the gym, even if for a few minutes, every day! It turns out the express bus to Portland stops within 2 city blocks of a gym I belong to. I always stop at Starbucks when landing in Portland. My plan today is to take my Starbucks to go and actually walk through the door of the gym! Even better, I hope to actually plant myself upon a treadmill and do some weight lifting before choir practice.)
So off I go!
Love,
Zita
Here is my newest Qi Gong/Hooping Video: Day 73!
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