My practice this morning was a bit desultory. How could it not be? Today is the first day of school! (I joke that it’s only an orientation day, but really… it’s the first day that the students who are new to the middle school arrive and visit as students. My mind was on other things this morning besides getting my Golden Pheasants correct or having good form during Bend the bow to shoot behind…
The other challenge this morning was that my father needs me to find a record of something from several years ago, and I’ve been prepping for school. So the office floor is covered with pieces of paper in stacks, as I unpack files and get ready to move. In some ways it challenged my practice — I had to step around and over piles of work from time to time, without disrupting anything. Ideally, my space should have been organized and ‘clear’ all the way through the day, so that I could do my main work without interruption. But the mark of good practice is, at the least, that your practice takes priority over other issues… the fact that the space where I work is a mess, is not an excuse not to practice.
I’ve done quite well this summer and spring at not letting anything — hotels, travel, staying at friends’ houses, visiting my parents — disrupt my practice. On the other hand, I haven’t really been challenged by anything serious yet.
