One week to go

We are leaving in exactly one week! I can hardly believe it!

This past week, I had a scare with tendinitis. I started having pain in the second finger of my left hand, right along the top of the joint where it connects to my hand. Anxious to avoid aggravating the problem, I immediately did everything I could think of to get it under control. I went to the pharmacy, where they gave me anti-inflammatory gel to rub into it and a band to immobilize it. (The band turned out to be a terrible idea, because after one night it made my whole hand stiff and sore, so I gave that up.) More importantly, I made a conscious effort to put less stress on that finger and to share the work more evenly with the rest of my fingers. For example, I realized that in the course of each day, I ended up tuning sometimes up to 4 or 5 harps, all with that finger, so I started tuning with other fingers. This all seemed to help, until...

...my thumb then started hurting. Same thing, same hand, in the corresponding joint. It didn't make sense that it was my left hand, because I feel like I work a lot harder with my right hand. Maybe it's a subtle technique problem that I'm unaware of. Maybe it's just that when you overwork a joint it will inevitably wear down, no matter what you do. I realized that I haven't actually taken a day off in about two months now. I became upset and started envisioning a bleak future of permanently reduced functioning in that hand – a crippled harpist – all because I overworked it for a competition. It's not worth it! I concluded this was a sign from the harp gods that I needed to do some mental practicing. Thus, I spent the weekend working on my memory and only air-harping.

This did a lot of good for my hand. I feel significantly stronger again. Today I did a full-volume, public run-through of the pieces on my second stage, at Camac Harps. (I had done first stage there last week, with a happy amount of success.) I have a lovely friend who works there, Claude, who lectures me about how to take care of tendinitis and who schedules practice performances for me. I have been inviting a few friends to come and listen and give comments. I chose Monday afternoon because I figured that the store is usually not too busy then and so dominating the space with my playing wouldn't be to much of an imposition.

But... today! Today, Kimberly Rowe, the editor of the American publication Harp Column, was in the store to choose a new harp. Her assistant Alison Reese was there with her. Jakez François, the president of Camac, had come up for the day to help manage the sale, AND my teacher, Isabelle Perrin, also showed up! Rather than being annoyed that I was interrupting their harp selection, they all exuberantly professed delight at the idea of hearing me play. So I played!

It was an unexpected level of stress, and maybe because I was already feeling anxious about the time I had taken off over the weekend, it was mentally a very difficult performance for me. My thoughts were all against me the whole time, and I just couldn't muster the energy to stay focused and on top of everything. By the end of the run-through, I was completely spent. I'm exhausted. A month ago, I could still laugh at all the stress people submit themselves to in the name of competitions and optimistically proclaim that I will keep a healthy perspective. But the pressure is rising, and it's harder and harder to ignore. The next week will be a balancing act of getting enough rest while also staying on top of the repertoire enough to feel confidently prepared. The final countdown is on.