Bagpipes As Metaphor

I had bagpipe band practice tonight at the banquet hall at Kelly Ryan's Pub where we meet every Monday night.

Earlier I was thinking I wanted to quit the band and probably bagpiping as well. This is not a new thought. If there were a syndrome about having a love/hate relationship with playing bagpipes I would have been diagnosed years ago. I wonder where I would be if this could be "properly treated"?

I want to quit and I want to stay for much of the same reasons: I feel I never reached my potential, I have not "mastered" the playing of them as I think I should, etc.

I LOVE the music and even listen to bagpipe band music on my ipod while on the treadmill at the gym and I "rock out" to pipe bands while walking through Central Park: my secret, loud moment. But playing and working at it frustrates and annoys me. I have always wanted to LOVE playing for others, but I just hide and loathe it when I have to play.

Just because someone does something all ones life does not mean they have to keep doing it. This is one of my arguments.

So why do I stay? Duty, sense of tradition, my dear old mum, I love it, I think I will fall back in love, I have unfinished business, who am I without "bagpiper" identity?

It goes on.

But one thing I DO notice is when I practice - truly and consistently, I get better and I love it MORE.

This is the obvious metaphor. I get what I put into it. Sure there are naturally talented bagpipers, and I even could be one, but no one gets good without putting in the time. And this goes for writing, exercise, French, career, amour, the lot.

The question remains: Do I want to put in the time?

But as I stood in the circle with the guys tonight at the hall and we blew our pipes and worked collectively to sound better, I took a quick moment to notice that I was present, I was part of something generations old for many of us and it was good. For tonight it was a good thing.