mental reboot

Trying to invent a more appropriate title for this post, I could think only of the kill % command, which didn't convey the proper amount of optimism. No new year has felt so dramatically new before.

I concluded my reflections on the accident and its aftermath with the hope that I would find my way out of that dark labyrinth reborn. Although revisiting Vrijbroek park on bicycle is still out of the question, light floods the void. On January 1, I went through a mental and spiritual renewal. Perhaps bidding goodbye to a terrible mistake and celebrating a new start in Brussels on the 31st freed me to venture back into my life. With absolute confidence that the moment was right, I returned to my love, the carillon, and found that it had not deserted me. I attended my first concert since the accident. I FedExed my last music school application. I visited someone who wasn't my landlord (and petted a cat for the first time since graduation). On January 2, I tossed aside one crutch and felt freer than I had in many weeks. I returned to playing the organ, finally tackling the last movement of Mendelssohn's Sonata II. I have weekend plans to see the ocean again.

Like any reasonable person, I expected the process to be gradual, but life has returned to me all at once, generously, and I barely know how to greet it. I have trouble sleeping at night because my heart races at the thought of what small miracles the next day might bring.

Yesterday the world was aglow with soft winter light, and happy crowds of shoppers had flooded the cobblestone streets (by law, after-Christmas shopping cannot start until January 3!). I played the organ in OLV-o/d-Dijle until the "big boss" himself (as Monique described Wannes) showed up to practice, offering me a Sunday recital in late spring as I packed up my things. Strolling through golden-hued streets admiring windows and cornices and doorsteps, I came to the natural foods store and finally restocked my kitchen. That night at the carillon, I played through Sybrandus van Noordt's monumental "Sonata a cimbalo solo" from memory for the first time... and played it better than ever before. Even the killer Thornock "Motorhythmia" that I thought I would need to relearn from the beginning felt as if I had just left off practicing it last week. I don't understand how a six-week break has barely left me out of practice, and wonder if perhaps my standards for myself subconsciously dropped while I was away. (Or could playing before midnight actually have its merits?) Afterwards my leg hurt slightly. It was the best feeling in the world.

Out of cash, I began to crutch home when a car pulled over and the driver leaned towards me, calling out something. Being an ever-suspicious American city girl, I crutched faster, irritated that some scrub would have the nerve to try to pick up a gimp. But what scrubs have nice cars? I looked again, and it was Sergej calling my name. "Have a seat!" I hopped in (literally). "It must be difficult to get your carillon skills back so slowly," he sympathized on the way to my house. I tried to explain that my learning skills were somehow better than before the accident, but he couldn't understand, and neither did I. So I gave up, content in the thought that it was a reality.