If music be the food of love....

I hadn't set an alarm but was woken this morning by a rousing cry of GOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLL emenating from every household, bar, restaurant and cafe in the neighborhood. Argentina had just scored their first goal against Nigeria in their World Cup opening game.

I stretched and smiled, not because of the team's success but because I had an appointment - with a piano.

Most people, eventually, seem to settle on a passion. Whether it's football, photography, movies, model airplanes, writing obscure blog posts, or running for hours (but getting nowhere) at the gym.

My problem with passions is that I've always had too many of them. Plus, I seem to get bored easily. As soon as I feel I've mastered something - and note that my definition of mastered is often light years from the Master's definition of mastered - I lose interest. I'll dedicate myself to something, sometimes seven days a week, for years, and then stop, just as suddenly as I began, with a sense of "Ok, I know how to do that now. What's next?"

Some of these things, although I don't actively practice them anymore, stay with me, and I will often define myself by them, knowing that they are things I will inevitably come back to. I will always, for example, be a singer, although I don't have a band or a choir. And I will always feel that I'm a martial artist, though it's been some time since I sparred.

In the past I played the tin whistle, then accordion, then the cello, then the concertina, danced classical ballet, acted, directed, wrote poems and novels I never finished, learned tennis and horseriding (a skill which did me little good last month, see previous blog post). There was pottery and needlework, Irish dancing and Chinese lessons. I've taken shooting courses, pole dancing, power yoga and been to circus school. [although some of these thing happened in recent years, I mostly owe a huge debt of gratitude to parents who paid for and taxied to and from lots of these adventures].

I'm lucky that I got to taste so many talents. Talents I could have really 'mastered' had I had the motivation, discipline and time (which I didn't have because I was too busy trying everything). I will always be able to turn up at a Céilí and join in a few lively jigs. And I can knock up a decent dress if I need to.

But there are two passions which have persisted for me - music and food. And I've been thinking about this because I found a studio not too far from where I live, where I can rent a room with an upright piano and play away to my heart's content. Content is an understatement. I had forgotten how much I enjoy playing. Let it be said right now I do not play very well - at all - but it sends shivers of pleasure up my spine to sit in front of those keys and produce my own music - or at least my own version of someone else's music, however halting and frustrating its execution.

Maybe it's not the music itself but the potential - the things I could create if I really pushed myself for once. If I really stuck at it. The possibilities contained in a simple chord sequence fill me with a giddy excitement that has me floating on a bubble of happiness for the 40-minute walk home from the studio. People think that a passion is something that you can't give up or let go of, because it's inside you and it drives you and you have no choice. For me, a passion is something that you can give up - but then come back to. And when you do come back, it swells your heart like an old, loved friend and you wonder why you spent so much time away.

I've been coming back to the piano for years now.

Food though, I've never been able to get away from. I love food. And I have strong opinions about this statement. Because almost everyone says "I love food' when what they really mean is "I love to eat". There's a difference.

People who really love food will cook. They'll scour Chinatown for obscure ingredients. They'll order exotic spices online. They'll cut out recipes from magazines and store them for the next occasion that might call for a 'spiced roast parsnip mousse'. They'll drive out of their way to the supermarket that stocks frozen blackcurrants. They'll ask sheepishly in a restaurant if the chef could share the recipe for that butterscotch sauce. They'll watch cookery shows, read cookbooks for pleasure, swap ideas with other foodie friends on the best substitutes for tamarind paste. They may live in little apartments with no oven but there will usually be a window box with an attempt at a herb garden on the balcony. They take cookery classes. They know when cooking apples are in season. They're upset by straight GM bananas.

I'm not quite as obsessive as this.
But I'd like to be.

I always put it like this; imagine you're traveling around Europe, it's near the end of a long month and you've been walking all day in, I don't know, Croatia. And it's late, and you're all starving. You come across a restaurant that seems to serve decent pizza and pasta and cold beer and would hit the spot perfectly. But the guidebook says that half a mile away, there's a restaurant serving incredible fusion food that you just can't miss....

The people who love to eat head to the first place. The people who love food will keep walking.