In case anyone might think that my life is all music and bubbles and kittens, it is past time that I come clean. Most of my life is the opposite of glamorous. Instead it is just like every working musician, which means it is mostly hard work. Strangers immediately have some other idea entirely when they ask what I do and I tell them that I am a pianist. "Wow!" they inevitably exclaim. "Are you, like, a concert pianist?" Does this mean, do I play concerts? If so, then yes, sure. "Do you play with the symphony?" is often the next question. I have played with the symphony, and even have an upcoming performance with the New Mexico Symphony wind players doing the Poulenc sextet for a house musicale fundraiser. But it's not my normal gig, and even if it was, any symphony player will tell you it's not all encores and bouquets of roses. True, it's also not digging ditches, but in general, symphony gigs and other performances included, it is safe to say that my life is not particularly sparkly.

Case in point: We live in an old house with constant need of repairs. Our most regular visitor is the plumber, who must come at least once a month. (Small house, with one bathroom. If there is a problem, it is quickly an emergency.) Years ago, our cats took at early, immediate dislike to plumbers, going into hiding the minute they hear a plumber drive down the street. This is strange to me, as the cats have no choice but to become friendly with the idea that this house has lots of daily guests. Nevertheless, plumbers are a different breed entirely in their eyes. We developed a problem with the bathroom sink one weekend last month: it went from behaving fine to becoming sluggish and basically not draining at all. This was suspicious on lots of levels: first of all because the problem happened suddenly without the normal gradual buildup, and secondly because Friday night I had a bustling performance class with ten wild elementary-school students. No doubt, we decided, one of them put a foreign object in the sink. Monday afternoon the plumbers came, our latest favorites consisting of a guy who looks about 12 and his chubby sidekick. "Hey guys," I greeted them. "Good to see you." They "blasted" the foreign object through the pipes (Their word, not mine, but the use of the word "blasted" convinces me of the plumber's level of maturity). As the chubby sidekick was writing my bill, the 12 year-old asks me, cell phone in hand where he is clearly in the middle of writing a text message, "Hey! Do you know how to spell 'gorgeous'?" "You are talking about me, right?" I shot back as I handed over my credit card. "As in, this lady is gorgeous." He looked confused, which only made me feel old.

I'm feeling plenty old lately. My middle sister Beth is getting married on Saturday in NYC. I was the first wedding among my siblings, and then 13 long dry years elapsed before the next one. Now my younger siblings are getting hitched one after another, with breathtaking speed. Only one will be single after this weekend. None of this should be surprising as I have had plenty of years to prepare myself, but somehow it is anyway. In a similar vein, it was recently pointed out to me that I was old enough to be the mother of my favorite high school students, and that Matt and I have been together long enough that we could, without stretching the imagination at all, have a high school student of our own. I am not scared of getting old, and have no problem celebrating birthdays, but when I have turned the corner and become invisible to the plumber, useful only as a dictionary, then something has shifted. I am not sure I like it.

It's all very humbling; and last weekend only drove home this point. Saturday night was my end-of-the-year studio recital . In the weeks prior, I had organized a local music evaluation event with some 70 little pianists. I had attended meetings of various kinds here and in Santa Fe. I had met several writing deadlines for various publications. My dad came for a week-long visit. In other words, I wasn't without something to do. But there is something about pulling together 25 students to play in a recital that is its own special kind of stress. Even after all these years, and countless successful recitals, I still feel the weight of the event. For one thing, I usually perform myself, because I feel like it is good for my students and parents to see me play, and I always have certain prepared remarks to make. This, coupled with the energy and focus required to channel 25 students' performances, makes the focus and energy for my own music-making rather diffused, to say the least. And then there are all the details: Getting the recital space cleaned up and ready, hauling all the supplies and setting up the reception, proofing the program at least ten times. For someone who prefers to think globally, this is a lot of unwelcomed minutiae to attend to. Having said all of this, the recital went beautifully. The kids played better than ever, my Ravel and my new lace green skirt a friend had made for me in India both came off as planned, the spoken remarks were well received. After weeks of details of one form or another, after Saturday, I felt like I could coast: one week of a light make-up schedule and then I was on a plane to NYC to read e.e. cummings poems at my sister's wedding. To put it simply, I had cruise control on and was taking in the view.

Cruising is dangerous indeed. Sunday morning I woke up, read some of the New York Times with my coffee and started to pull together my thoughts for the church service I had agreed to play that morning. I was looking through music and picking out a prelude and postlude (yeah, I confess, I was doing this at the very last minute.), and glancing over the service music. I cruised into the kitchen, found a mango that needed eating, and began peeling and slicing it. At which point I promptly sliced off the end of my thumb. It was quite a clean slice, nothing that would need stitches because there was nothing left to stitch. It didn't even hurt that bad (although I should qualify that statement by admitting that I have a very high tolerance for pain, given that I am a life-long migraine sufferer). I wrapped a towel around it and went back to my music.

It would not stop bleeding. I put some band-aids on it, and covered my hand with a towel and decided that I was still going to follow through with my plans to stop on my way to church and buy the rest of the plants I needed for the flower bed that runs along my driveway. With a bloody towel covering my thumb, I drove to Kmart, loaded my cart with lilies and petunias, and proceeded to the check-out counter.

And this is where it really hits you that my life isn't glamorous at all, for as I am standing in the check-out line with my cart full of plants and my bloody towel-covered thumb, I reach into my over-sized purse and discover that I have dumped an entire bottle of water into my purse. This would be of the 32-ounce size. I am holding a bag of water. Everything is soaked. My wallet, weeks worth of receipts needing to be filed, the scores I needed that very morning. Everything. Of course, I quickly become soaked as well, which doesn't mix well with the fact that I am still gushing blood. Immediately, I am covered with not just water, but bloody water. And I am now late for church.

Forget that lovely recital of the evening before. Forget that every once in a while, I clean up quite nicely, looking, well, almost glamorous. Forget any pretense I might have that I have my act together. Forget everything. I am standing in a checkout line -- at K-MART! --my thumb is squirting blood, and I am carrying a purse full of water. This is not what strangers have in mind when they think "concert pianist." A plumber about now would come in handy.

I think every recital could use a little personality. I love it when performers talk from the stage; I like good program notes that give a glimpse into the mind of both the composers and the performers; I like lecture recitals infused with humor and insightful anecdotes. My desire for some pizzazz quadruples when it comes to that potentially deadly event, the piano students' studio recital. So some time ago, I began working in what might be viewed by some as a "shtick" but what I prefer to think of as an antidote to death by boredom. It's not that I think my students are boring; quite the contrary -- they entertain me every day. But a piano recital should be an evening that everyone looks forward to, not an evening that we all have to endure.

One year I asked many of the parents in my studio, who happen to be professional musicians, to also perform. Another year, I had poems and short passages about music read by various parents in between the student performances. Still another year , the kids did performance maps of their recital pieces (either a drawing inspired by their piece, or in the case of the more intermediate to advanced students, a musical flowchart to assist memory) and we did a visual display in the performance space. It has gotten to the point where I feel a certain kind of pressure to have a shtick at my studio recitals, that there is a certain level of expectation about the program, that if families drag aunt and uncles and neighbors and grandparents to our recital, it had better be an entertaining evening.

As I was mulling over what to do this time, it occurred to me what I most wanted to do was to educate my audience (hopefully in an entertaining way) as to why it was we bothered with these recitals in the first place. Especially in this dicey economy, it seemed a good time to reaffirm why music matters. The following are my notes from last weekend's spring recital. In spite of the healthy amount of verbiage below, there really were fine student performances of great music as well. No one wants to hear me talk that much.

***

Another year, another recital. At some point is it fair to ask: why are we doing this? After all, we all have plenty we could be doing with our evening, and for that matter, with all the time devoted to the pursuit of music making. So why? When modern life pulls at us from five million directions all the time, why do we bother?

As a person who has decided to pursue music as a profession, one answer seems so obvious as not worth mentioning: that is, music itself is reason enough. This assumes that one buys into the idea that art matters, and music is important and worthwhile. "Without music," Neitzsche said, "life would be a mistake." But you all also must believe this, or you would not have prioritized music and music lessons in your life. Surely I must be preaching to the choir, standing before a group of people who don't have any trouble accepting that music in and of itself is reason to be here.

I mean, you must accept this premise on some level, as here you are with your cell phones and cameras turned off for the next hour. You've brought cookies and cleaned up your children quite remarkably. We are all dressed up and ready to go, so, let's just play some music, shall we?

But let's assume for a moment, that we needed more reason than just the inherent value of music itself to motivate us to spend the kind of time, money and energy it requires to take up a musical instrument, much less set aside a whole Saturday evening to attending a piano recital.

Here's the thing: if you have thought for even one moment that we what were doing in piano lessons was limited to learning notes and rhythms, then you have underestimated what music lessons can be. While music is my tool, and piano is my artistic medium, maybe the most important job of a good teacher is to nurture the transformation of self that happens through learning, through the growth process inherent in becoming a sensitive and compassionate human being. What I know is that, through music, I have the chance to teach life lessons: how to work, how to learn, how to think creatively and artistically. If I lose sight of the person on the bench in the worthwhile pursuit of music making, then I have missed the point. We aren't just developing musicians here, but creative, artistic, whole persons.

Another valuable reason to hold this musical celebration every semester is that it is the only time we all get together. Look around, folks: this is a community. Semester after semester, year after year, you become a unique group of people who take interest in one another and each other's children, you care about the progress of kids other than your own, you might sense that you have more in common in your struggles and battles to keep your children practicing and engaged than you might think on the surface. I watch you all pick up your kids from performance class every month and catch up with each other in my sun-room and driveway. Those of you who have helped in group classes know that that these kids have become friends, and that sometimes way too much fun happens in the shadow of my six-foot grand piano. In a world where we are losing important connections with one another and becoming more and more fragmented and scattered, this community matters. We are part of each other's lives. Thank goodness we get together like this twice a year.

Finally, I believe that it is in the pursuit of making art or in any all-consuming artistic passion, that we most easily lose ourselves and become part of the great creative process of the universe. I think we are born to create and that making music feeds part of our souls and spirits that otherwise hunger for nourishment and sustenance in this complicated world. It seems that in the act of making music, whether that be time spent on a piano bench or in a choir, playing in a garage band, or singing in the shower, or whatever musical act we might find ourselves engaged in, that in that process of losing ourselves, we most often find ourselves, and claim and connect to all the disparate parts of our minds, souls, spirits and hearts.

Vita Sackville-West wrote: "For the last 40 years of my life, I have broken my back, my fingernails, and sometimes my heart, in the practical pursuit of my favorite occupation." She was talking about gardening, but it applies pretty nicely to my life as a pianist, and even more to my life as a teacher. I started playing piano when I was four, and as the oldest of six kids, I have been teaching my whole life. I taught siblings to ride bikes, and read, play the piano, and sneak out of the house at night. I taught my first piano lesson for $5 to neighbor children when I was 14, and I have really never stopped. If my mother were here tonight she would be happy to tell you that I did not always practice without first throwing a tantrum, and that it was not always smooth sailing to get me here. It might make you feel better to know that, but I'm not sure it much matters, for what I can tell you as I tiptoe rapidly towards 40, is that most of the happiest moments of my life have been spent on a piano bench, or in some form or another teaching. I have that heady experience of losing myself everyday, both in my own music-making and immersing myself in the act of teaching, and really, there's no better way to spend a life. Whether or not your kids become professional musicians, you have given them the gift of being able to lose themselves in making music. There's no better gift.

If I were to end this evening with one thought it would be this, stolen from the book Searching for Bobby Fischer by Fred Waitzkin, "It's unsettling when you realize there are only so many things you can teach a child. And finally, they are who they are." Although music lesson may always be about more than just the piano, to imagine that any of us have much control over what happened here tonight is to deceive ourselves. It's unsettling, really, and very humbling, but they are who they are.

Over Christmas break I cleaned out the refrigerator. This, I am embarrassed to admit, was a first both for the four-year-old refrigerator and for myself. I have, from time to time, gone through the refrigerator and emptied it of food that had begun to grow its own bacteria, and I have wiped out empty refrigerators when preparing to vacate an apartment. But to clean a refrigerator without the objective of trying to get a security deposit back . . . no, I had never done that before.

It was past time to do so, however, and one day having found some spare time due to The Break and the quietness of the days immediately following the holidays, I got inspired. I took everything out of the fridge, and set about removing shelves and drawers and spent the next hour scrubbing down four years worth of messes: clumps of jam, outside layers of onion skins, sauces and dressings that had spilled at some point and begun to form a permanent coating of grime on the inside surface. Afterwards, the appliance was sparkling; it gave me some kind of strange pleasure every time I opened it and gazed into the gleaming beauty. I almost became a convert to the joys of housekeeping.

But that's the thing: my real life doesn't allow for the kind of time to do more than basic housekeeping, much less the luxury of time to keep a sparkling refrigerator. I am suspicious that as far as housekeeping goes, survival mode is the only one at work around here. But the clean refrigerator got me thinking, because I realized that in too many areas of our lives survival mode is all we are managing. Looking around, I see colleagues and friends who regularly live in that maxed-out place of too much work, too many obligations, too much stress. They manage, but barely, one step away from a possible breakdown--if not of the catastrophic nature, then at least of the kind of minor meltdown we all have experienced at one time or another. My students are no better off: there is too much homework, rehearsals, activities, sports practices and very little unstructured time. I know that my best creative ideas bubble out of moments that almost look like boredom. I also know that its been forever since I allowed for the luxury of such unscheduled time, and that I have never conscientiously prioritized such empty spaces in my life. It isn't just our refrigerators that are messy, but our lives are stuffed and overflowing. We are so busy and stressed out that we have little hope but survival mode.

Both personally and professionally, this is a concern. Obviously, living one beat away from insanity is not desirable, but more than that, what I know is that when we are in survival mode we don't have any mental or emotional space for artistic, creative thinking. Not only do we fail to clean out our refrigerators of unwanted science projects, but huge areas of our lives get moldy and dusty. It's hard to think big idealistic thoughts when we are barely getting our basic needs met. Of course, this is psychology 101, the idea that we until our primary needs of food, shelter, and love are met, we are not capable of anything more complex. While we may be lucky enough not be primitively fighting for fundamentals, I wonder if there isn't a parallel somehow that says as long as our lives are completely full of pressing obligations and time restraints, artistic and creative thinking is but a faint probability.

Recently, this idea was brought home to me. I was traveling, doing a workshop for teachers about creative thinking in our studios. At the end of the talk was a discussion period. Although I liked to have thought that I shared lofty, cosmic ideas about teaching, the questions I got were basic survival kinds of things: What do you do when your students don't show up for lessons and don't call? How do you handle it when your students come to lessons without their music? What do you do about students who can't afford a full-size keyboard? "Wow," I found myself thinking. "Did you even hear me?" I dealt with the questions as kindly as I could feeling all the time a little like the Alice Waters of piano, proselytizing on the benefits of healthy, organic music-making and teaching, only to be asked how I prepare Hamburger Helper.

Although I may not deal regularly with the above problems, I think I get it. I get how teachers might be fighting so hard for such fundamentals like a committed student roster and regular paychecks that high level creative teaching never gets to be part of the equation. I understand that, for many classroom music teachers trying to manage in rooms without a piano, perhaps seeing a class of children once a week at most, that teaching complex harmonies might not be at the top of their agendas. I recognize that for every teacher who might get the privilege of teaching highly dedicated advanced students, there are dozens of other teachers working to keep music alive in our society no matter how basic the level. For people who actively have to fight for every meal, whether or not the food is organic is not really important. Yeah, I get that.

So what's the answer? On the one hand, I love big lofty ideas (Music in every home. A piano in every classroom....) and think that as a functioning artist and teacher, I need motivation as much as the next person. Obama resonated with voters because we were people in desperate need of inspiration. But taking a good look around our profession reminds me that we need both: we need encouragement and a motivating reason to do what we do and we need practical tangible solutions to the problems we face every day. While we can get by without clean refrigerators, that doesn't mean we should ignore the fact that our starving spirits need to survive too. Truth is, I know altogether too well what survival mode looks like. I face plenty of it in my life, and certainly it is not only my creativity or my refrigerator that suffers. The difference between surviving and thriving is relevant to us all.