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Amused; musings from the ED by Karen Deschere | September 27, 2018
Beauty and the Messy Desk
Those of you who have been in my office know that I don’t have the neatest desk. It’s been a lifetime of clutter ever since I was a kid. Each new job, living arrangement, or New Year’s resolution to keep the desk clean was just beyond my daily ability. And, I’ve gradually come to accept it even though I still find myself apologizing when I have a visitor (many of whom will empathize with me!).
Do you ever watch detective or medical shows on TV where the dedicated doc or cop is wracking her brain trying to solve the mystery to no avail, and then she goes out to dinner, or to the mall, and something totally different is triggered in her brain, and voila! the mystery is solved?
That happens to me with my messy desk. I may be working on a project when I may be interrupted, and I need to rummage through the desk to find that one piece of paper that I know is under this other stack of papers. As I am searching, almost always some other tidbit arises that reminds me of another project, or provides a touch of insight into what I was working on.
Maybe that happens to you neat-deskers as well; you’ll have to let me know.
I think beauty works in the same way. We are bombarded by so much stuff in our lives – work and school deadlines, devastating tragedies, so many issues beyond our control, that I have decided I need beauty breaks. I’m not talking about skin care, but about music. Just five minutes of something beautiful can give me the respite needed to return to the task at hand. With all our devices, we are no longer far away from being able to access something beautiful to take our mind and our heart to a different place for a few minutes.
This kind of beauty break might just be what our students need as well. Are you stuck on that organic chemistry problem? What if your instrument was on the bed behind you and you turned and played a few phrases of a piece you are working on. Do you think one of those random connections might be made between the music and your chemistry homework? I think it might, and if it doesn’t, well at least you had a few minutes to enjoy the beauty of your music.