Expectations are funny things.
This year I expected Nutcracker to be much easier than last year. I expected to be able to play it with better technique, and therefore to sound better and to have an easier time than last year. After last night's dress rehearsal I realized that it won't be easier this year. It made me kind of panicky. And then of course when I'm sitting in a violin section full of people who can play well, I realize that I'm still a total charity case. And I HATE that. It really makes me want to shrivel up and just forget this silly idea of trying to play the violin again.
The depression hit today, hard core, and I hadn't even been eating sugar. Wow. Right after I had been trying to practice the Overture and feeling like suddenly my fingers were all over the place, like a whole summer of improvement had just been erased. I was wallowing in a combination of panic and total hopelessness. I held myself together during Thanksgiving dinner (at Ryan's new in-laws') but was a basket case the rest of the time. So I drove home, turned off my phone, lay down on the couch with Bonita and my laptop to do some more Rosetta Stone Spanish, and somewhere in the middle of "los caramelos están en la mano izquierda" I fell asleep for about 20 minutes. When I woke up I knew what I needed to do.
I made up a new violin exercise (actually more like a general mind control exercise modified for violin) and concentrated perfectly for an entire hour and a half. I improved the Overture 100%, and I realized just how stressed out I've been since school started. I mean, I knew I was completely busy but I didn't realize how much tension I was carrying all of the time. I also realized that having better technique doesn't mean that I don't have to practice the Nutcracker as much. Better technique is still different technique, different than last year and even different than my technique was pre-MS. So of course I have to practice because my fingers have never, ever played Nutcracker with this kind of great technique, even before I had a huge hole in my head.
And (E. says) no fair comparing myself to other people who just got the music 3 weeks ago and are playing it almost perfectly. I will probably never be able to do that and I need to just get over it. Ahem.
Four performances to go this weekend. I will practice my new exercise and keep myself in my perfect concentration zone and see what happens. And I think I will teach this exercise to one of my Monday evening students. It's just what he needs.