Carpe diems
Browne started playing piano when she was four and got to grade eight but she lost the habit of playing and the music slipped away from her. On one of her first days she “played for 45 minutes and wrote down the name of each piece. There were mistakes but there were also times I was able to bang the music out or play softly. I will get my mojo back. Each piece brought back its own memory of happy or sad times, but then that’s all part of this personal project.”
We have two singers: Norma O’Meara wants to learn to sing, with the goal of joining a choir, and Nicola Elliott wants to learn a song from her sister’s favourite opera to sing at her birthday.
In Donegal French teacher Dolores Francis has a business idea she wants to get off the ground in the next 30 days. She has helped family and friends by doing mock orals over the phone. Her idea is to set up as a language coach via Skype and landline calls.
As the mentor who took on six “someday” projects for 30 days at a time in the space of a year, my challenge this month is to see if I can cajole, pester and support people through their projects when their energy dips or other demands get in the way.
An email support group is already up and running. The Somedayers are talking to each other.
Darcy has recommended a driving instructor for Long. We are applauding Francis’s progress through the world of virtual communication. The piano players are swapping notes and one of our writers, Teresa Carley, is going to share her professional voice training with the two singers. A sense of possibility along with a shared sense of humour is developing nicely.
“Good God,” our piano player Sheila Robinson emailed recently, “I’ve played for 20 minutes and I’m wrecked. I’m beginning to be glad Mozart limited himself to 12 variations.
“I hope it’s going well for everyone else too. It was back to work for me today, so the challenge will be to stay with it. It’s great feeling there’s a little group of us scattered around the country (I’m in Cork) all supporting each other. ”
Updates on the Somedayers are at amonthofsomedays.ie
