challenging – Music. Life. Joy.

September 9, 2024

Remembering Bill Bailey

There’ve been a few times over the past ten years or so when I’ve found myself reflecting on my jazz band days and recalling key experiences from that time.

Near the end of my saxophone playing days there was an arrangement of the jazz standard “Bill Bailey” that I remember as being quite challenging. I’m not sure why it kept coming to mind periodically but I’ve wished I could revisit it in order to remember what made it so hard.

I tried to find it a few years ago with no luck, but for some reason it came to my mind again tonight and this time I found a video, performed by a jazz band of young musicians from Barcelona, Spain (of all places)!

Listening to it validated my memory of it being challenging, but let me tell you, these young folk nailed it!

And to top it all off, I even stumbled across the actual sheet music. Totally fun.

November 22, 2023

Not my imagination

Yesterday was a good example of why I find astrology helpful.

It’s not about having someone tell me what I should do or what’s going to happen. Not at all!

In fact, my favorite memories related to astrology were times when I was intensely feeling or experiencing something and the astrologer’s advice helped me understand — after the fact — why I had been feeling or experiencing what I did. Which was very validating.

So, after sharing my “irritated for no particular reason” experience this past Monday, I decided to follow up on a friend’s suggestion and explore what was happening astrologically.

Sure enough, I learned that for most of this month, Mercury (the planet that rules my sun sign) has been having a challenging transit in the sign of Scorpio. And, as I already have a lot going on in Scorpio, it’s no surprise at all that I’ve been feeling unsettled and overwhelmed and (yes) irritable.

Knowing all this doesn’t magically make the challenging feelings go away, but it does make it feel a lot less personal. Which is a big help.

May 11, 2023

Taking steps…lots and lots of steps

In fact, Riomaggiore is pretty much a beautiful, living, breathing Stairmaster!

There are steps — literally! — everywhere you go here.

What makes them especially challenging is that they’re not your typical modern-day city steps — all evenly spaced and at the perfect height.

No, most of these steps have been around for centuries and are, more often than not, irregularly spaced and way higher than what I’m accustomed to.

It’s been rather taxing, but I can feel my leg muscles getting stronger every day, and I definitely prefer “working out” like this, rather than in a gym. 😂