It's about 1 PM, and I'm driving back from a morning rehearsal in Buffalo. I packed a snack to get me through the morning, but I just can't seem to keep my eyes open. I know there's a Tim Horton's about 10 minutes ahead at the travel plaza, but I think about all of the entries for "coffee shop" and "Wegmans" on last month's bank statement and I steel myself against stopping. If I can only drive for another hour, I can be home and make my own coffee. My eyes begin to close again, and I snap them awake. I hold one hand on the wheel, and roll down the window. I slap cheeks and shout at the top of my lungs. It's raining outside, and I'm getting soaked from spray on the highway. I roll the window back up and try to refocus on the podcast I was listening to. My eyes are closing again. I pull into the rest stop.
It's pitch black in our bedroom, and I roll out of bed with a full bladder. There's an empty tumbler on the nightstand that had been filled with scotch and ice as I read before bed. I shouldn't have stayed up so late, but I wanted to finish three chapters. I don't let myself look at the clock until after I come back from the bathroom. I readjust my glasses and find the display: 5 AM. I smile, then pull on a bathrobe and head downstairs. I'll have an extra half-hour to read this morning.
It's the final round of an audition in Charleston. I've been up since 6 AM, and it feels much later than 8 PM. It feels like I've been up for several days straight. I've been in dress clothes all day, an I was on a plane all day yesterday. I've already played two full rounds--the Promenade, the Ballerina, Mahler 5, Pines of Rome, some of the Bartok Concerto for Orchestra, then some Brahms, some Strauss, some Wagner, some opera excerpts--and that was just the first two rounds. I took aspirin, then waited in the practice room, feeling exhausted but wide awake with the nervous energy that it would just be an hour...forty-five minutes...thirty minutes before I played again. Then it was the final round. Heldenleben, Dvorak, more Stravinsky, more Mahler. And now I'm sitting on a folding chair in front of a screen holding a piccolo trumpet and looking at the first trumpet part to the Bach Magnificat. I've been playing all day, and the last three bars on this audition are an ascending arpeggio to a high concert E on piccolo trumpet. It needs to be articulated lightly, easily, playfully. My lips hurt, my teeth hurt, and my whole face feels like it's swollen.
It's 11 AM, and I'm playing with James. We just built our third marble run of the morning, and he wants to tear it down and build another one. The one that's on the box. I'm hungry and my coffee has worn off. I've been lying down on the floor to work on the marble run, and there are lots of other things I'd rather be doing. I need to practice at some point, I need to empty the bucket on the spigot out back, and there's laundry that needs to be folded and put away. But I won't be around in the afternoon, and this is my only chance to play with him. He's scolding me already for not paying sufficient attention, and I end up putting my head down while he tries to build part of the marble run on his own. My eyes don't open again until he lies down next to me and gets right in my face. Now he wants to play hockey.
It's pitch dark in our room, and I roll out of bed with a full bladder. There's an empty wineglass on the nightstand next to me from earlier in the night. I tried to stay up and read my Oxford book of Latin poetry. I'd been looking forward to it all day, but then Owen got to bed late and we had to spend extra time cleaning up the house because James' marble run was spread all over the dining room, and it was 9:30 even before we went upstairs. I don't look at the clock until I get back. It's 2:30 AM. I'd love to try to read some more, but I know that I need to go to bed.
It's 7:15 PM, and I haven't practiced yet. J agrees to take the kids, and I probably should put in a full hour. I know that if I don't put in the work to tackle some of the weaknesses in my playing now, I won't have the time to practice them once the orchestra kicks up again and I'm always in rehearsal, or need to give up practice time to learn upcoming repertoire. I put in 45 minutes, and the time flies by. Owen is howling upstairs because he's so tired, and James is begging J to go outside even though he's in pajamas. She needs someone to put James to bed so she can nurse Owen, and Owen can't go to sleep until I stop.
It's 5:30 AM, and I didn't get back from my concert until 11:45 the previous night. I meant to get up and go running, but I just roll over and turn the alarm off. I need the sleep.
I'm actually not a zombie most of the time. Thank God for giving to us mortals coffee, which gladdens the hearts of men. Coffee reads my books, plays with my kids, drives me to work, and practices my trumpet when this frail and mortal coil is too weak on its own to do any of those things. But, there is a limit. Like yesterday, when I feel asleep twice on Pax and Kylie's carpet. (I vaguely remember Abby sitting on my head at one point.) I don't know whether there is such a thing as a Natural Law or if it can ever be known properly, but maybe there is some cause for a Sabbath rest. That rest is a good reminder that no matter how hard I will myself upward and onward, I am mortal animal with breath in my nostrils and a belly that needs feeding. If I don't rest my animal self, it will retaliate with a soul-numbing fatigue. And then the coffee can only go so far.
I officially resigned my position at LCS today. Here's to more rest in 2016.
(Though probably still lots of coffee.)
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