ROUTINE

I didn’t sleep well last night.

After the losing the day yesterday to running around the Bay Area attending to errands, I found that I still had a grant application to finish for CAIC. I stayed up a bit too late in order to get in my portion of the application before the deadline, but this morning my internal alarm clock didn’t care that I had worked past my bed time. 6:30am arrived and my eyes automatically blinked open. Shutting them again was futile. My mind was racing with its morning anxieties, alert and ready to get going, even if my exhausted body and soul were screaming in protest.

Thank god for coffee.

A silver lining to this past year is that it has offered the luxurious promise of routine. It’s certainly the longest I have ever spent in one single location in the last twenty years. I yearn and strive for routine when my regular calendar of concerts has me hopping between cities and time zones, negotiating different rehearsal schedules and hotel rooms each week. I’ve learned how to create some routine in that context, knowing which things are non-negotiable for me and require protected time. Morning pages, yoga, my daily regimen of vocal warm-ups are the bare minimum of the things I need to fit into each day no matter where I am. The challenge with a fluctuating daily schedule is carving out the time each day. 

Trapped at home for the past year, I’ve learned that the obstacles a constantly shifting calendar and busy travel schedule pose are easy excuses. I’ve still also managed to find reasons to slip out of my routine despite being robbed of those justifications by the pandemic. Even with nothing on the calendar, it’s still easy to let the day slip by you without discipline. When I let that happen, it feels like an avalanche has pushed me further down the mountain I am trying to scale every day in my daily effort to achieve a higher perspective and a clearer view.  

Marking the halfway point of this experiment today, I’m finding that the discipline this 30 day blogging challenge requires of me is starting to bleed into other aspects of my life and work. I’m starting to get better about how I break up my day, I’m more efficient when it comes to how I work. I’m feeling the distinct difference it makes when I am focused and committed to these daily practices. I’m also keenly aware of the cost when I let all of that go. Staying on the track with this disciplined approach streamlines the process of work, leaving me more time and energy for taking care of myself. It allows me to enjoy life more.

I’m hoping I can take these lessons and better habits forward after this challenge is over in another 15 days. I am also excited to try to continue to integrate them into my life as the world reopens, and it becomes possible to return to the light of concert life at the end of this very long and dark tunnel.