Two 9-year old boys...

My two last pupils today: two 9-year old boys playing their fourth year now actually! Coming into the room I have on Wednesdays (where the Grand is and a quite nice piano, fairly new), tough! The first S. and his little brother D. frankly declared when they came that dad wasn't with them!

"Ok!"

I said with a smile over these two tough and frank boys.

Before I had ever said anything more S. started to play "the Teddybear Fredriksson" ("Teddybjörnen Fredriksson" in Swedish), quite well actually, as it was the easiest thing you can do. And after that:

"Now what!"

as if he was a bit impatient and in a hurry, didn't have time actually with a piano-lesson!?? :-)
He opened his book though to the next piece, a waltz, with two chords in the left hand (C major and G major with b in the bottom):

"I didn't understand this!"

"No problem, look!"

I said.

"This is c, the next note lies in the next space... Do you remember about stepwise melodies? So you jump over the line..."

Of course he managed this. And at last played the whole waltz "Come little girl" ("Kom lilla flicka" in Swedish) where he trains the c-major scale.

At last we tried a new piece, "Love me tender".

After him J. came. Immediately starting to draw on the "black-board" as S. and his little brother D. now had left! Hmmm... He too very tough, and without any parent, with the cap on his head!

When he sat at the Grand he played all his pieces in a row: "Oh, when the saints", the roundabout (rundgång) to "Diana" to which I played the melody, "In the mood" and at last the first part of "the Final Countdown". As this was nothing. Still with his cap on his head!

He declared that he wanted to play "the Final Countdown" and the "roundabout" to "Diana" on the informal concert the week before the autumn-vacation, thus in week 43. He had changed his mind, and taken "In the mood" away from his original decision. :-) I think it's important they play the pieces they like most and feel comfortable with.

"I want to test a piece from a new material"

I said,

"as I have been asked to test this year! Is that ok?"

It was I think. :-) So we played a short arrangement through of "Cancan"!

His dad turned up, they were in a hurry, but we informed him about what J. had decided.

"Maybe dad can play the melody to Diana on his trumpet!?"

I said to J. and his dad.
Yes, maybe.

Oh, they are so cute!!

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Tillägg 11 oktober, se om rundgång och improvisation i TV-programmet "Klassiska typer"!!

Sexual abuse, being manly (strong, tough, not weak), beavers...

About sexual abuse again (and earlier blogpost).

“I wasn't aware that Teri Hatcher had been sexually abused. She is a brave woman in coming out, and empowering others. I, for one, appreciate her words " I wish you strength and love, and a journey that leads to your own realization that you are lovable, worthy and deserve good things.

So many of us grow into adulthood, admired and loved by our friends and colleagues, and our deepest darkest secret within is that core feeling about ourselves that we are utterly unlovable, unworthy or deserving of any good things. But underlying that are the darker secrets of repressed memories and unfelt and unintegrated feelings of being 'made' to feel unlovable, bad, guilty, ashamed, by those who originally 'sinned' against us.

I was aged about 46 when I literally began to wake up to discover, that having suffered for over 25 years with depression, I too had been sexually abused as a very small child, and the energy of this, although trapped and blocked, was driving me in all areas of my life. And, with the help of an enlightened witness I was finally ready to open Pandora's box. I simply began to learn to rage, and the lifetime of depression 'went out the window'. I still rage from time to time. (smile) I am now 59 , and am that 'enlightened witness' for others as they too emerge .

I agree with Teri, If it hasn't happened to you, count your blessings and do something in your community to make sure it doesn't happen to anyone you know.”

“I also think it's very brave of Teri to admit this. The more people that speak up, the bigger the chances are that kids being abused speak out about their abuse and we as individuals and as a community can do something about it. So when famous people come forward, they'll reach many more than us ordinary people.”

More about the phenomenon being manly, i.e. not weak (my ironical reflection over this phenomenon and similar phenomena, though I like walking both with and without poles, cycling etc.). I am not sure I understood this entirely, reacting very spontaneously and "immediately" (and read it very swiftly). From “Breaking Down the Walls of Silence”.

Article in Guardian. And about the boot camp phenomenon even here in Sweden.

And I also read something on this blog about similar things I felt quite ironically; a politician (minister, vice prime-minister!!, in our current government, woman) thinking we should work like beavers (be strong in other manners!?)… Obviously she doesn’t think we do (we are not working like the beavers we should, but I think too many of us do already)!!

She says that:

“Passivity can be found on many levels in society /…/ Of course there are the (extremely) devoted, but unfortunately laziness is often shown in the notion/idea that someone else shall do everything [talk for yourself I say!!!].”

And about children towards their parents:

“Can (my)self!! Is there something that can make parents more overcome/exhausted and at the same time very proud when children are saying things like that? /…/ In my dream for Sweden we are a whole country filled with people which 'can (our)selves'. Which dare to experiment, try ideas and make dreams come true, both big and small (dreams).”

Yes, we are very lazy! So I just say Hallelujah! And from my point of view and perspective I can't say I find this woman especially creative or sensitive! On the contrary!! There is nothing "artistic" in her!! May I say this?? So I just wonder ironically what she knows about creativity!!!??? (I have a cousin, female, exactly the same age as I, which is member - and politician - of Olofssons party...).

What do workaholics do? What do they achieve? Actually? All these rushing around? Do they do as much as they seem to? (some in the literature about exhaustion and stress says it is the opposite...).

Came to think about what Christina Maslach and Michael P. Leiter wrote in their book "The Truth About Burnout - how organizations cause personal stress and what to do about it (1997?)". See another book by these two (more recent).

Do beavers have time to see sexual abuse (or do they have sensitivity at all in the first place to see or sense or hear it, or to see or sense any abuse at all, wherever it occurs)??? (see the first links in this blogpost). Do they have time to have sex themselves either??? Do they feel any lust to it either if they are too exhausted?? I think the literature says this lust decreases too if I have understood it right!? I can't guarantee I have understood it!! :-)

And this woman was supposed to chat with people in one of our biggest newspaper's chat on the web, but she realized in the last moment (before this chat) that she was double booked (!!!???), so her press-secretary (??) took her place (I don't watch the news nowadays, since a long time, because I feel so horrible hearing about our horrible government and what they do, and how media chose to report about things, even how the Swedish Television chose to report about things sitting in the knees of the government s my feeling, so this is what I have snapped very fast), but answered in the name of Maud Olofsson and not as her press-secretary!! People writing thought they were chatting with Maud Olofsson... (and poor her children I think... I wouldn't want a woman like this as mother!! This Maud Olofsson is much like Margaret Thatcher!! An iron lady!).

PS. Cristina Maslach's homesite.

PPS. Thought of this further at work today, and the female politician Maud Olofsson I quoted above: how does she see us; the grown up population in Sweden? As small children, and she like a sort of mom?? And I don't think (or believe) that the policy she represents, or she either as person, can fill especially many with creativity... On the contrary... Sad (and pretty angry) to say...

Writing spontaneously and thus swiftly and often very upset over all stupidness in this world... Hmmm...

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Tillägg 11 oktober: i bloggen Alliansfritt Sverige står det

"Olofsson (egentligen Wärn) påstod att:

'Som politiker måste man vara modig och ta debatt.'"

Being no cowards...

Very spontaneously: See this essay by Arthur Silber about being a manly man!! The second half of the essay!!

My personal and spontaneous reaction to it (with a very amused smile :-)), the attitude from men who are actually real cowards (maybe deeply hidden, or?), their whole attitude, towards other men preferably under them in some way, manipulatively, to force another man (that is perhaps hesitating, or just unsure of himself and needs approval of a seemingly stronger?):

"Ha, who are cowards (weaklings) here (I am absolutely, definitely not)??? S0 - just show your manliness now!! Because, yes, I hope you are not a coward!!?? Or are you? (so just prove you aren't!! That you aren't a wimp!)"

This method is used in other circumstances (it doesn't need to be outspoken always) and on other levels too! And by politicians here and there in this world!? But maybe though not so destructively as in some parts of the world!?

By the way, in the web address to the link above it stands "Power of Narrative"... Yes, there is a power to narrate!? (and this can be threatening to the power too?? So some voices have to be silenced for less sound people in the power??).

"Giving your child a voice"...

PS. Is it the result of such treatment (early in life, maybe by their, not so little, contemptuous fathers on small sons) we see in many blogs on the net now? I came to wonder... In their way of arguing, and in their ideas about things in society and politics? In their whole tone towards others?

And when people at last gets fed up with them (when they have taken over all space and pushed away many and made many others angry and feeling very unpleasant and uncomfortable - which is what they want?? Stretching peoples patience to its outermost. Trying to provoke others, but maybe not being really aware of it? Trying to project everything they themselves can't harbor", yes, is it so?) and pay these back in their own coin they get surprisingly wounded!!! They who gave done no harm!! How can people be so mean to them?

But usually they ravage without being hindered!!??

This is really thinking loudly!! Trying thoughts... Which I can't formulate yet, trying to find words and expressions on...

PPS. And daughters to these fathers? As they are supposed to really be the weaker sex (not only physically, but in all other ways?) they are treated as even less worth, doesn't even exist to that father?? Is entirely invisible for him?

Resulting in what? That they become used and exploited as adult women, and made even more invisible?? By men who needs to take revenge for how they in turn were treated?

No, now I am going to organize among all my note-books and sheets!!! It's really needed! I have so many books and sheets so I don't know what I actually have... And have forgotten that this and this music exists! Now it's a mild mess among them... Hmmm...

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Addition after a bike-tour: Contempt for weakness, that is for showing feelings!?? Feelings are weakness?? Being “rational” or not being troubled with feelings and emotions is more trustworthy? Or expressed in another way: not being so emotional is being strong - and more trustworthy!!?? More trustworthy than the emotional (usually a woman)! The emotional can be seen as not trustworthy at all! Seen as hysterical! Overstrung! Unreliable!