The Comfort of Wind on The Mountain

There’s something I haven’t done in a over a month. Well, other than writing on my personal blog, which is an issue in itself.

No, there’s something that I haven’t done that I love, that I hate, that I look forward to, and that I dread.

I haven’t played my Irish Flute.

My Ormiston Pratten

The number of emotions that I have centered around this instrument is stunning. Joy, sadness, frustration, anger, pain, worry, fear. Notice there is only one positive emotion.

Lately, I’ve been noticing that a lot with many of the things that I do, in many of these inadequacies that I have. They are hard, so hard that it’s almost not worth doing them. Yet I do them, because the difficulty of this journey is part of the reward.

Still, here I am, a month after having played it, and everytime I look at my flute case, I grimace and quickly walk away. Anyone who’s done something extremely difficult but rewarding has probably felt this, but the strange thing is that, for me, this is almost a first.

You see, I’ve done things all my life, tried things, failed and eventually succeeded, but I’m noticing that there are a few things I’m doing now that are very different than what I’ve dealt with before.

Usually, I pick things up, I just figure them out. It’s not like they are easy, but it is the fact that, even while I don’t know how to do it, I can quickly see that I will know how to do it. The difficulties I’m having right now learning to swim, and learning the Irish Flute are very foreign to me and it’s suddenly become a realization of mine that I had an expectation when attempting these practices.

I expected to pick up an instrument up quickly and immediately start playing with other people (something I’ve done with a number of instruments). At worse, I expected to not pick up these things quickly, but immediately see that, with a bit of effort, I can figure out 80% of the important points.

I was expecting a short, if steep, learning curve because that’s what I’ve come to be comfortable with. And I think that’s the problem: Comfort.

The Irish Flute is, forgive me, one holey bitch of an instrument. I’ve played dozens of instruments well, and this one tops them all. Part of that is the music, and part is the subtlety of the instrument itself. This is the hardest instrument I’ve ever played- probably ever will play, and I might get to the point where I can play with people in a year or two- making that 3-4 years total. Rather than a short, steep learning curve, what I’m climbing is a long, gradual ascent to an unknown, and unseen, peak. I can’t see my endpoint, as I normally can. I’m blinded by the mist on this mountain of effort and all I can see is that there is a path before me that is ever upward.

So I climb. Without knowing where the top of the mountain is, without knowing how long it will take me to get there. Without even knowing if I will get there.

And that’s the thing that hurts most. It hurts that this entire experience is basically proving to me that I’m full of shit. Every time I look at my flute case, I grimace and feel sick to my stomach not because it’s difficult to play, but because I am a lie.

I live my life with this philosophical cast, yet playing the Irish Flute means that I have to admit to myself that all the talk I have about “enjoying the journey” and “living in the moment” is bullshit. If I really believed that, I wouldn’t get frustrated about not being able to immediately pick up the flute and play tunes. I wouldn’t get frustrated when I look before me and see nothing but a long, uphill climb into- what?

If I really believed that, I wouldn’t care what. I would be happy here, wherever here is. Happy pushing my breath into my flute to make music that mixes with the wind on this mountain. If I really believed that, I would find comfort in the wind on this mountain.

I’ve played wind instruments all my life, and the thing I love about them most is that they are breath, and breath is life. In some ways, my whole life has been about breath, and each breath is breathed into the now.

Strangely, it is taking me a long time to see that this is the now. The wind on the mountain is my breath. That is what I have to realize. That is what I have to remember.

The wind on the mountain is my breath. The fog on the mountain is my fear, my confusion. These obstacles are not inherent in the music, nor are they part of this bitch of an instrument. These obstacles are my doing. The uphill climb on this mountain is a struggle only because it my struggle, because I make it my struggle.

I am the mountain.

I often can’t express how painful playing the Irish Flute is, but there’s a part of me hidden someplace deep, covered in dead leaves and pine needles, that knows why I’m doing it. There’s a part of me, nestled in a crook of roots under to a tall, strong oak tree, resting happily on the side of that mountain.

There’s a part of me that feels comfort in the wind on the mountain.

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