Oregon Public Broadcasting

It may be easier to find the silver lining in stories about hard times from the past than it is in the stories about present day troubles. But commentator Elizabeth Armstrong Moore is trying her best to do just that.

I’m working on Bach’s 13th Invention when the sun breaks through the fog and lights up the maroon leaves of the cherry blossom tree, the tree that has spent all winter tapping its branches against my bay window, the window next to which my baby grand piano sits.

I’m on my lunch break, and it occurs to me that my fingers are stiff from the crisp winter air, and that a cup of hot chocolate would be just the thing. And as I sip the hot chocolate and inspect the series of 16th notes that are so clean and pretty under those golden beams of morning light, I understand fortune.

I have spent my lunch hour playing the same 8 measures like a broken record, and I have done this not only because I would like to play those 8 measures with greater ease, but also because the mere act of improvement creates all sorts of pleasurable activity in my brain. I feel smarter. I feel disciplined. I feel neat and orderly. And most of all, I like the way the notes fill the air.

These are the things that even a deep recession cannot reach. Notes of discovery. The creative spirit. An ability to dream. I am rediscovering Bach. I am writing in my journal again. I am reading old books in lieu of buying new ones and knitting woolen slippers from old bits of scrap yarn.

No matter how tight the budget, how scarce the cash flow and these are troubles I do not take lightly -- room for peace and quiet and art is profoundly important. Like so many, I have lost considerable income in the past few months, and while I feel lucky that I am neither destitute nor homeless, I have spent some sleepless nights wondering how to make it through. It turns out that taking the time to improve, to polish, and to excel at a few of the activities I love allows me to focus on the things I want to do well, instead of dwell on the uncertainty that permeates everything around me.

In some ways, it's hard to talk about the importance of personal happiness when we are at war with so many things -- in Iraq and Afghanistan, against drugs and terror, within our own homes as we argue about the budget, the mortgage, the future. Never in my lifetime has it seemed so excusable to worry about money.

And the economy of today is a good lesson in smarter borrowing, safer spending, and the true existence of a global market whose pieces fall like dominoes when just one goes down.

But inherent in each of these lessons, on the most personal and local of scales, is how we prioritize the things that make us happy. And while doing this might not solve our financial problems, it may help us to survive emotionally.

I play Bach. I climb rocks. I roast my own coffee beans and pen haiku in a journal I hope no one ever reads. I have to do these things consciously and deliberately, to remind myself that these diversions are not only OK, but necessary. And I am finally, at least for now, sleeping better at night.

Elizabeth Armstrong Moore is a freelance journalist and piano teacher in Portland.