Spare time magic

We live in the present but the future is always coming so you have to make space for it.

”When I finish the unfinished business of the past and start living in the present, I will have some spare time. What do you do in that spare time?” My client asked me.

I replied as follows. “If I don’t have something to do now, I finish ahead of time what I will have to do in the future instead. There is no time to waste. For example, I have just delivered my 1D1U kit and have already finished ordering the materials for the next camp. If I do what I need to do in the future ahead of time when I have time now, I can attend to a sudden appointment in the future, or rush to a sudden invitation or request from others. That’s how I make space for the future as well. In these spare moments, I find out what I have been asking my subconscious to do, I meet people, or people ask me to do something. They say when there is a space available, something will come into it”.

The day after I told that story on Zoom, my dream of playing the street piano came true. I stayed at a hotel in Tokyo to Zoom on the first day of the 1D1U Online Camp, and there was a street piano at the nearest station to the hotel. Unfortunately, I couldn’t play it on the day I arrived because someone else was playing it, but when I checked out the next morning, nobody was there.

The piano is in the corridor that serves as a gallery at the Station and is away from the station gates. Just the thing for a quiet street piano debut! I have been playing the piano again for three months after 30 years, but for now, I can play “Gymnopedie” without looking at the sheet music. Rather, I had practiced playing it in public in the near future.

I went straight to the piano without hesitation about whether to play or not. I sanitized my hands with alcohol and sat down in front of the upright piano. As my debut, I set up my iPhone and started recording. With my backpack on, the traveler played “Gymnopedie” and “Your Song”. I had to do about three takes to play it without making mistakes.

When I finished playing the piano to my satisfaction and was about to leave, a woman approached me. To my surprise, there was an audience there!

“What was the music you were playing?”, she asked. And I said, “It’s Gymnopedie, my favorite music, too, and it’s the first piano piece I practiced when I started playing again after a 30-year interval. I’m glad you listened to it!”

This would not have been if I had put off my debut by saying I was not ready yet, even though the piano was ready in front of me. Opportunities come to those who are prepared. As usual, it seems that the universe had prepared some fun things for me to do in my spare time.