In the moment

Do you ever have those moments where from completely out of no-where you have a few seconds of pure happiness? 

I don’t know whether it was because I was expecting a truly terrible day at work, which didn’t transpire or whether I was nervous about a call with the new boss, which went fine or maybe because I had a good run after work, but I had one of those moments this evening.

It was shortly after my run, with sweat cascading down my heaving body, The Ting Tings (remember them?!) “Be the One” playing in my ears, the smell of line-hung washing in my nostrils, the late summer sun in my eyes and my heart lifted for a few seconds leaving me feeling light and free. I found myself smiling for no other reason than just feeling fantastic for a few seconds. Just being present and in the moment.

I was also aware that today would be my 800th blip and as blipfoto has been so good to and for me, I wanted to make sure it was a positive one – I’ll be the first to admit, I have gone a little maudlin at times, so thanks for sticking with me.

Initially, I wasn’t sure what photo to post today. 100 blips on from the last milestone. What’s changed? There’s a couple of things I could mention, but even I’m not quite ready to share them here just yet, however after a text exchange with my piano tutor this morning and then seeing the afternoon light hitting the music stand on the keyboard: inspiration struck. There is a thought that material possessions don’t bring you happiness, that they’re never as good as you thought they would be. There is a ring of truth to that, but maybe it depends on the thing you’re buying and what you do with it (get your mind out of the gutter). 

I bought a full-sized keyboard because I wanted to give a busy, distracted mind some focus and I also wanted to be able to play songs from Hamilton and become the North West’s answer to Lin Manuel Miranda by the end of the year. The focus has come and hopefully one of the other two will be achieved before 2020 is out, but more importantly, I’ve enjoyed learning something new and applying myself to the task in hand. Naturally, it’s also been great to see the children playing around on it too.

Whilst some app-based stuff got me started, it has been no substitute for the encouragement and tuition (and stickers) I have received from my piano tutor. I was really struggling with some chords shown in the book I was working from, within seconds she’d shown me a different, better way to play them and I now have them down….mostly.

She’s also had a crap week and very apologetically (and completely understandably) had to postpone our lesson tonight. So, my little attempt to return the sticker in the music book is to dedicate this, my 800th blip to her and thank her for her patience in teaching someone with no musical talent whatsoever to get something resembling a tune out of this thing. No mean feat. 

She’s a star and I hope she feels better soon.

Oh, and the song I was noodling around with earlier on the stand here? 

Help.