My journey with Maurice Ravel's "Jeux d'eau."  The music scared me. I tried to avoid it. But I had ordered it a while ago, before plunging into Claude Debussy's "The Children's Corner Suite," before Josef Hadyn's "Variations in f minor," and way before C. Debussy's "Arabesque." I had completely forgotten about it, in fact, but there it was staring at me as was looking around for something else one day. 
The sound intoxicated me, even as I was learning it -  a slow slow process.  I couldn't get enough of the particular sound of M. Ravel.  I understood this strange, captivating dissonance.  It was my own sound I was hearing.  And I loved it.
To play this piece with dexterity became my utmost goal, and I quickly understood it was necessary to let go of interior conflict to master "Jeaux d'eau." So the speed came spontaneously once the personal work had begun.  My attention moved to mastering the transitions between phrases, teaching my hands where they needed to go.  Next came phrasing and color with the sustain pedal. 
This morning's work, I would say, presented itself.  Rhythmn, consistency.  I allowed myself to play "Jeaux d'eau" slowly, evoking the stillness and clarity and play of light on the surface of water in the magical early morning light of day.  Eddies and swells arise during the piece, as well as rapid waterfalls and storms. But the piece closes with a painfully sweet poignancy of a sunset over a beach, signaling to a child the end of a day's pleasures. Slowed-down music of a carousel is evoked as "Jeaux d'eau" closes, but not before one last play of water, rapid, organic, unstoppable. 
Can you tell I love this work? This slow rythmn is mine. I own it. And it is beautiful.

National Resource Center-Psychiatric Advance Directives provides step-by-step information to enable consumers, clinicians and family draft mental health advance directives consistent with the consumers' wishes should an acute psychiatric crisis occur.  New York State law recognizes PADs.  The legal requirements vary state by state, so it is important to know your state's specific requirements and conform your document accordingly.  www.nrc-pad.org. Another website to consult is www.nami.org (National Alliance on Mental Illness).

My reading list: Bleak House by Charles Dickens. Chopin in Paris by Tad Szulc. Recently finished Come from Nowhere by Ellen Greenfield.

Anthony's story

Anthony is the son of two musicians.  His mother, a singer, died some time ago, his father passed relatively recently.  Anthony suffers from schizophrenia and now resides in an institution upstate New York where he receives psychiatric medication, counselling, and medical and dental care.  This is the "happy ending" to a tortuous situation where he was found living in a utter squalor in his downstate home he had shared with his father who had been refusing treatment for his son for many years. Anthony was found in a catatonic state, lying in his underwear, in an unheated home filled floor to ceiling with stacks of newspapers and other detritus.

I became acquainted with Anthony in a legal capacity and visited him upstate during the course of several years.  He is the gentlest of souls, a man who takes great pleasure in participating is group activities and volunteer opportunities, a man who is well-liked by residents and staff at his residence.  He is also man tortured by paranoia and fragmented memories.  Piecing together his story, I learned that he had once been acquainted with the guitar and piano.  I am no longer helping Anthony in a legal capacity, but I remain his lifelong friend. My hope for him is that he rediscovers music - for music is the surest source of internal healing. See @Robert Gupta's talks on TED about music and medicine, music and sanity.