Outlets

So, I've figured something out tonight.

Part of the reason why I am feeling so stressed, is that I do not have outlets; either physically or artistically. I was a lot less stressed when I had both options available to me, such as in high school, or at residence. Perhaps I need to find a way to express myself artistically before I will feel I have the drive to be more active? Or will being active allow me to be more artistic?

Either way, I believe that I should find a sport of some sort, preferably something social, that I can exhaust myself with, as well as a piano or a guitar with which to while the hours away when I am in the mood. Listening to others perform can only take me so far, I need to feel the resonance in the floor when I'm playing a piano, to feel the vibrations through the guitar as I strum along to a favourite song.


To me, music is more than just a form of entertainment, or a hobby. It's a form of expression, it's relief from the stress that is life. A blissful half hour when the only thing I'm concentrating on is allowing the sounds in my mind to be transferred to the instrument. One of the things that I look forward to when I'm visiting my parents is the access I have to my mother's old upright. The ivory is falling off a few keys, and it is slowly starting to lose it's tune, but I have such an...emotional attachment to that piano. When my parents move, because they will have to with all of the developments going on, I will fight tooth and nail to make sure that piano isn't sold. It's the piano that I grew up with, the piano that I can sit at and know all of it's quirks, all of the ways I know it will perform. It is by no means a beautiful piano, but I would be heartbroken to never be able to play it again. It actually makes me sad to think that it's just sitting in the room in my parents basement gathering dust and acting as a shelf for various pictures. I miss that piano, and I wish I had a way of bringing it here to Calgary.

I sincerely hope that I can find a keyboard that I can connect with, that will be more than just an object to me. Something that I will look forward to sitting down in front of and whittling away half an hour just trying different things. I say this now, but I know myself a little bit to know that I will most likely stay in the key of D for the first, oh, 3 to 4 months. Still, I need to have that connection to the instrument, the desire to want to spend time with it. To those readers that are not musicians, you may not understand, but to those of you who are, you might understand. As much as I love the piano, and playing the piano, if I do not feel comfortable or at ease playing an instrument, I won't.

Which makes me picky, eh? Ah well, we'll see how this turns out.