Very... very... different

So, tonight I sit down at the organ, thinking that I need to start practicing and getting ready for the Really Big Show that is Commencement, first weekend of June.

And that's when I discover...

I have no fine control over my feet. I can no longer play the pedals. At all. Not even a little bit. Not even aiming at and trying to just lean on the low C, the easiest note to hit on the pedal board. As far as actually playing the pedals, I can't control my feet at all. I can barely control the expression pedal, a big fat piece of wood shaped like a giant gas pedal.

My initial reaction was not grief. Was not anger.

Quite literally, I said--aloud-- "OK. I'm not going to say 'I can't play the pedals any more.' I'm going to say 'I can't play the pedals today.'"

And then I said, "Let's see what we can do without them."

And I'm happy--relieved--to say, that I did OK, pedal-less. I can't--right now--do the sorts of things that I used to, but I can be convincing. And that's all I need. Nobody but me will know what I'm doing, or what "might have been."

Is "let's see what we can do" a "good reaction"? A "healthy reaction?" Oh yeah, sure, probably is, but I've been functioning as an organist since 1973, and even before then my piano teacher said that even when I played the piano, I was playing the organ. Thirty eight years of being an organist... and now I'm not. Except I am--I can play certain things, certain ways, on certain organs.

Well, I always was a non-conformist.

Maybe that's why I'm reacting calmly. At the moment, at least.

I'm going to have to let this sit a while. Maybe I'm not really ready to face it, right now.

But am I going to put on a good show, come commencement? Hell, yes. And I'm going to have fun with a wonderful organ.

But it's going to be... different. Very, very, different.

Very... very... different.