learning clarinet, all over again

Back in 6th grade, I wanted to play the clarinet.  After being badgered for days, my parents gave in, signed me up for lessons & rented an instrument.

The lessons lasted maybe six weeks before I gave up in disgust & quit.

Yes, I wanted to play the clarinet.  What I didn't want, hadn't counted on was having to LEARN how to play.  Hadn't imagined how awful it would sound as I became familiar with the mouthpiece - & my sworn enemy, the reed - let alone proper breathwork & using the keys.  It never entered my mind that it would be a struggle to learn just how to play the scales without sounding like a scalded cat.

If my parents had insisted that I master the scales before being allowed to drop the instrument, it would have been clear that mastery requires a lot more than desire, but that it will come, with persistent focus & action.  I don't fault them - my whining to stop the torture, hearing my gosh awful practicing coming out of my bedroom, and the cost would be enough to make any typical parent cave.

But this is today, not 50 years ago.  And the skill I committed to mastering is a better sense of order in my life, beginning with our home.  Just like with the clarinet, learning how to hit the right notes in housekeeping is taking a lot longer than I envisioned.  It feels like a personal failure, rather than the nature of realigning an entrenched life habit to a more whole & healthy place. 

Just like I love listening to a well-played clarinet, a welcoming home delights my very heart.  It would be so lovely if all that was needed was the desire to get past a lifetime of dreadful habits, let alone all the other gunk that piles up in my head pulling me away from making sense of it all.  But the lessons aren't in the end result, but in the learning.

Do what my parents couldn't - keep at it.  Don't get discouraged.  Stay on task.  Imagine what it will feel like to walk into every room & have it say, "Welcome."  Do it for me.  Do it for that clarinet, which never had the opportunity to be played correctly.  Let an orderly, clean & welcoming 450 Pheasant Run be one of its greatest legacies!