Life sure is sweet when you're moving with ease.
On a wintry December evening in 1931, a Moscow theater hosted the premiere of a film by the name of Lieutenant Kijé. This film featured an original score by Sergei Prokofiev, a Russian composer known as a rebel in the Saint Petersburg music scene of the day.
Very quickly after the film's release, and the overwhelmingly positive reception of the score, the Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra asked him to transform the fifteen-minute score into a full orchestral suite, entitled Lieutenant Kijé (suite), Op.60. It was first performed in Paris on the 14th of October 1934.
77 years and 10 months later, I sat in an orchestra class facing the second violin sheet music for Troika, the fourth movement of the very same piece.
I was terrified.
What Prokofiev's contemporaries considered "rebellious," I considered impossible. And I, being quite an outspoken eighth grader, informed my orchestra teacher of such. I insisted that the piece was far too hard for the few thirteen-year-olds in a class of extremely talented upperclassmen. He, being the seasoned teacher he was, insisted we study it anyway.
It was incredibly difficult to sight-read, but we worked on it class after class. I played with everyone else, albeit a bit begrudgingly, and I believe I even attempted to practice it a bit at home. As the semester wore on and we learned other songs, my teacher always had us return to this particular, widely popular early 20th-century piece of music.
Miraculously, though, by the end of the first semester, it turned out to be quite a delightful piece. I was happy to move on to Brahms in the spring, whose work I frankly enjoyed much more, but I never forgot the feeling of playing Prokofiev for the last time. There was relief, triumph even, at doing something with ease that used to feel impossible.
In 2012, I thought Troika was the most difficult piece in the world, because to me at that moment, it was! It was the most challenging piece of music I had played up to that moment. But now, years after playing far more difficult pieces and eventually retiring from the instrument altogether, I now can appreciate the piece differently and understand that it actually isn’t that difficult of a work after all. I just became a stronger violinist.
There is a very specific joy that comes when the difficult becomes easy. Getting to that place requires wisdom, time, and memory, but what a place it is to be!
So what does that mean outside of the context of high school orchestra? That means that whenever you want to accomplish something that feels (or actually is) very difficult, there's an opportunity to imagine in that moment what it will feel like once you're on the other side of it.
Using that darling imagination of yours to conceptualize what it would feel like for this difficult thing to one day be easy is certainly fuel for motivation if nothing else.
For example, I'm currently learning and practicing the craft of baking. I'm very much still a beginner and I'll be frank in saying that some of my most recent cakes were a flop! But what keeps me turning that oven of mine on is that I have an extremely clear vision of what it would look like for me to just bake for fun and with ease. I imagine myself inviting a friend over for pastries and tea after hearing they had a long day at work. I imagine myself revealing a spread of baked goods for a dinner I host. I imagine myself being asked last minute to bake something for a friend's party and feeling total confidence and ease when I say "Of course, I'll bring it by in a little bit."
I know that one day if I keep working towards developing this skill, the cakes that feel impossible to me now will one day feel easy. That's not to say that I'll be some supreme baker who can do anything, but I do think these small wins will be useful later as I work through more difficult recipes.
The culmination of all these small wins, though, is not simply for the sake of baking more complex dishes or playing more difficult pieces. This is about steadily building greater confidence so that when I have to do something that feels scary or outside of my purview, I can do so with bravery and competence. Whether that's finally getting my own home, adopting a dog, living abroad, earning a PhD, or being in a partnership with another whole human being, these things that feel difficult/impossible to me now won't feel as impossible because I know that I can learn.
I am capable. I can grow. I can get better. I can keep showing up, doing my best, and finding a way every time.
What feels impossible to you? What do you want to do or learn, but find daunting, intimidating, or -- as eighth grade Thalia did -- terrifying? How can you gain skill and confidence in that thing? When can you make time and room for that thing in your life? What tools and resources will you need? Who do you know that can help you? What would it look like for you to make that impossible thing easy?
Joy, my dear. I pray that it will look like joy for you. Easy as pie, every time.
Thalia is seeking ease in her life, one day at a time.
