Wednesday, February 16, 2005

Finger-Stretching, Resocialization, and Maximus

Monday, at my organ lesson, I discovered that I have a small hand.  No kidding.  My younger sister has the longest, most beautiful fingers, and mine have always seemed a little stubby in comparison.  But after fifteen years of piano lessons, I thought that they worked for me.  I can hit the notes, I can hold a pen—no problem.  Sadly, organ demands a little more.  A broader reach.  More flexibility.  And so, I began work on a page of finger stretches.  An innocent enough name…

Basically it means spreading your fingers apart in ways they were never intended to spread, to reach organ keys that no decent person would ever expect you to reach.  Then you hold your hand in this ridiculous position, praying that your skin doesn’t split and that all the joints stay in place.  It’s supposed to help stretch out my tendons, and yeah, I can see how that would work.  I can’t even look at my hands when I’m doing it, because they seem so unnatural.  I didn’t know my pinkies could bend sideways like that.  I don’t know if they really should...

I hope no one was listening outside the practice room, because I couldn’t stop laughing.  I’d look at the next note I was supposed to reach, burst out laughing, and cry “UNBELIEVABLE!”  It’s all even funnier because I’m doing this voluntarily, patiently contorting my knuckles in ways that shouldn’t even be thought of.  So… my hands are a little sore.  My pinkies are offended and bewildered.

Then I started thinking: I will never be able to shake hands again!  Those who know me really well understand that I have this thing about limp hand-shakers.  You know: it’s after church, and everyone is hanging out in the narthex or the church kitchen, and you meet someone new.  You stick your hand out, and theirs is like a dead weight in yours.  They don’t move it; they just stick it in your grip.  Ugh.  I have never understood that.  But today, I had a new revelation about this whole limp subculture.

They’re all organists!! who used to have small hands, but no more!  Every tendon, every ligament is properly stretched out, and they now have a finger span that is incredible to behold!  It just, unfortunately, interferes with their handshaking ability, because the whole “grip” idea is now impossible.  And in a matter of weeks, I will join their esteemed ranks.

Okay, in all seriousness, I really love learning to play the organ.  Such a great sound.  And (in addition to the finger stretches) I have to learn all kinds of new ways to approach the music.  There are a bunch of exercises where you hold down two fingers and keep playing with the others in all kinds of combinations, without ever lifting those first two.  Sounds simple.  I’m twenty years old, I have (some) fine motor skills, I’ve been messing with keyboards for a long time… I should be able to handle this.  Ha ha ha.  Not a chance.  You would think I’d never used my hands before.  For the life of me, I just can’t keep those two fingers down!!  And all the while, it’s like my mind is splitting in half… quite a rush, really.

In sociology, we’re learning about “resocialization,” and I realized that I am being “resocialized” as I learn organ!  [I sometimes feel cheesy about getting excited for class, but it happens, what can I say?  The best times are when classes overlap: I learn something in one class that relates to another, and then the second class relates to a third, and on and on.  And then I think: “This is why I’m here!!  I love school!”  So I was thinking about sociology, and organ, and later poetry class.  I kept thinking about slants I could take on an organ poem…  Ahh, life is great.]

Whew.  So that was today.  Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays are my “class” days.  Yesterday I just chilled out in the apartment.  I spent most of the day copyediting a manuscript for my internship.  That’s hard work.  There are tons of tiny decisions to be made, and each one feels monumental as I consider it—like earth and heaven will shift if I mistakenly delete that semicolon.  Wow.  No pressure.  I spent the first four hours editing to the soundtrack from Gladiator.  Somehow that makes me feel like I am being noble and heroic every time I adjust a wayward comma.  That probably sounds pretty crazy, but hey, whatever works.  And didn’t someone once say that the pen is mightier than the sword??  Take that, Maximus!

Strength and honor, everyone!  And treat your fingers with care. —jl

Posted by Jenn Langefeld on 02/16 at 05:28 PM
(0) Trackbacks • Permalink

<< Back to main