disappointments make for the best appreciations

Have you ever noticed that? I certainly have--many times lately, in fact. My normally impenetrable immune system has come under fire, leaving me drowsy, coughing and swallowing painfully, my neck stiff and sore, and a handful of peaceful slumbers rudely interrupted by the incessant need to breathe. Lame sinuses. I'm not complaining though. What I mean is that I always forget what a blessing health is until I am once removed from it. Which, in turn, makes sickness a blessing.

One of my many quirks as a musician is that I get quietly furious when, entranced in a Chopin ballade or Mozart sonata, I am jolted back to reality by someone calling out the familiar name "Shelley!" I can't explain the place to which I lose myself when I sit at my piano, but it's a place I like to be, and in which no one else exists. To make the transition from one realm of reality to another is jarring. But, as with the sickness, I never appreciate my sweet solitude more than when I am forced to leave it.

Be grateful for the inconveniences and disturbances. Without them, your life might be perfect, but you wouldn't know it.

Love, Shelley.