When I come home from a performance and am reflecting on the experience, I ask myself one question..."Did I do my job?" Sometimes I do my job well, but sometimes a performance can dramatically miss the mark. One can never really know going in, it's all an experiment. The best thing I can do is feel well prepared for anything, which means I need to know the music well enough that I can balance playing the music with relating to the other musicians on stage, addressing the audience and being in the moment, all at the same time. Out of my last three performances, they range on my personal scale of success from "not anywhere near to what it could be" to about a 9.5. My lowest point was not at all acceptable and it took me days to recover from it. Was I still not well from the flu? Was it the struggle with the sound system? Was there some under-rehearsed music in the program? I accept that I won't ever really know the combination and degrees of variables that contributed to that difficult performance. Thank goodness I can usually perform soon after an experience like that. I am so appreciative of second chances, a new day, growth spurts, experience and everything else that time can bring to support us on our path.