I’ve decided to participate in On Being’s Summer of Pause - a thematic series, where, each week, we get to explore a new theme and think more deeply about the art of living. My Grace Notes for the next few weeks will talk about these themes. Stay with me.
We start off week one with perhaps the most timely and apt of all the themes for me: Transitions. How do we transition and what are the transitions happening in my life right now?
I have been thinking a lot about transitions for a few months now. I’ve undergone, perhaps the largest transformation of them all in the last while - going from Working to Mother and now to Working Mother. As I am apt to do in almost any situation of uncertainty, I’ve been patiently researching and gathering my resources and steeling myself for what might be a blast impact as two very big parts of my life meld together in a few short weeks.
But of course, as I stand on this precipice, the first interview that the On Being project presents is that with renowned cellist and perhaps the most generous musician I’ve ever seen, Yo Yo Ma. His concert, which I attended many years ago is one that will stand out in my mind for many years to come as the best night I spent alone in a sold out audience. So it only makes sense that the echoes of music as a theme in my life and my favourite classical cellist should come and greet me at the gates of transition right now. I almost cried from the joy.
But veering away from music a little bit, I’ve been thinking about transitions as an exercise in truth-telling. When we occupy a liminal space, or, a pregnant pause, there is potential of all kinds. There are paths that blast out in different directions for the so many you’s that you can be. But I’m starting to find that it is critical to simply sit in that pause and ask yourself to tell the truth. What’s working? And what isn’t? How will and can the world work differently for you?
Transitions can be both smooth or effortful. But I think there is a needless effort that comes with not telling the truth. It’s when we make things that much harder for ourselves by not answering to something that is off-kilter. For me, this new world means a reordering of priorities. I cannot and will not do it all. I will ask for help and I will drop some balls. I’m refusing the martyrdom that is so common for working women. I hate the word authenticity because it’s become a business buzzword, so I think honesty, in transitions too, is the best policy.
Now back to music. As a choral singer, I always bow in reverence to the great teacher in transitions that is music. I’m reminded of the terrifying Soprano notes of the hymn Zadok the Priest. Those first notes have the potential to soar into the heavens or have you squawk like a strangled rooster. And you never know which - having done both - you’ll be faced with. But as you transition into the vocal parts of the song you quickly leave the Big Leap behind and get on with it. The scariest bit of the transition is just the first part. And then whichever way you went, off you go. But you must leap, regardless. And I think that’s the one thing that music has taught me. In quoting Pablo Casals, Yo Yo Ma talks about the infinite variety between notes. Not really of the failure but that we can go a number of different ways.
And so as I explore what the next chapter (or perhaps next bar) looks like for me, I’m fully aware of its strangled-chickenness. But I think it’s in my best interest to get on with it afterward.
Some things to circle back to on transitions:
Yo Yo Ma’s Interview with On Being
Zadok the Priest by Handel, relive the horrifying/beautiful with me
Bach Cello Suite No.1 by Pablo Casals