Today’s Daily Stoic writing prompt:  What false judgement can I wipe away today?

Today’s associated meditation tells the story of FDR, struck by polio at age 39 after years of preparation for a life in public service, and how he was able to get past this “external thing” and not let disability define him as a person.  “Let’s not confuse acceptance with passivity,” the meditation concludes.  And this is, in many ways, what I’ve been looking for in this week’s set of prompts.  “Acceptance” is only the first step.  Accepting that an external thing is and will not change does not mean my response is a passive “Oh, well.”  It means a challenge has been issued–how do I make the best of the cards I have been dealt?    

I kind of needed this this morning.  

*****
Remembrance Day 2020.  Watched a very different ceremony from Canadian Warplane Heritage, and tracked VeRA on the radar–was able to see her fly by just north of here twice.  Other than that, a subdued kind of day.  Waiting with bated breath to restart the fridge in a couple of hours.  However, the evening did have a treat in store….

As I waited for the second Frank Lloyd Wright Sites PechaKucha to start, I decided to find some YouTube music to watch/listen to, and I thought maybe the Shostakovich Piano Trio #2 (written during the Second World War) might work.  I ran across a live performance I hadn’t seen before.  Unfortunately, not every performance that makes it onto YouTube is brilliant.  I found this one lethargic and plodding throughout, except at a few points when it was so rushed as to be ridiculous, with the rhythm and melody at times “bent” so much for heightened schmaltz that it took all of the emotion out of the performance, making it just cheesy.  The performers all seemed to be in their own little worlds.  They were certainly selling the performance as “intense”, but it just fell flat.  I’m not going to post the video.  Not worth watching.  

That wasn’t the treat…

The Wright PechaKucha was again spectacular.  There were some really fabulous buildings covered–most of which were less famous Wright structures (of the eight covered, I’d only ever been to the Hollyhock House.)  Highlights were the Meyer house in Michigan (not the Meyer May), a gorgeous Usonian;  the Willey house in Milwaukee, which was kind of a proto-Usonian; and the Carolyn and Harold Price, Jr. House, Bartlesville, OK,  the “Un-Usonian” – it has multiple floors!  I’d never seen any of these.  There was also the house in Phoenix built for Wright’s son that was almost torn down, but is now being restored by a former Taliesin Fellow (who moved to the US from China) and his daughter.   The presentations will be posted here in the near future.