Perception redux

The recital

I wrote this a few years ago. It popped up yesterday and I thought it was worth posting here. Perception errors have affected me for a long time - and I’ve never shaken the stage fright.

Several times I’ve tried to learn the lesson “we are what we think.” Perception is everything. I’m sharing this with you because I want it to sink into me.

When I was 21 years old I was a music major at a small private college. Junior year required a recital. I didn’t prepare well enough. I had other things on my mind. My marriage was collapsing, I was flunking my classes, and I was drinking far too much. Did I mention I was 21 years old?

It was a train wreck. I got lost in the Beethoven and played the same movement twice. I had serious stage fright. I wore a brown pantsuit - borrowed from a friend - because I couldn’t afford to buy the required formal black (my grade was docked as a result.) I was so appalled by my performance that I left the stage without bowing, for which my grade was docked again. The whole experience was so awful that I have avoided thinking about it for 40 years.

This morning I woke up thinking about that recital. And instead of seeing the train wreck, I saw a 21-year-old woman in borrowed clothes, walking onto a stage, sitting down at a 12 foot Steinway concert piano, doing the best she could at that time of her life. I really don’t know why I haven’t seen it that way before.