Notes of grace
“I do not at all understand the mystery of grace - only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.”
– Anne Lamott
I can still feel the quick flick of a grace note in my fingers, barely a moment of sound, added just before the main note it graces. In fifty years of playing flute, I must have played thousands of them, and still, no two ever felt quite the same. Light as they can be, they change everything about the phrase they embellish.
The lightness of a grace note
A grace note isn't essential - music and melodies would survive without it. It's printed smaller on the page, tucked in just ahead of the note it decorates. And maybe that's why I love them: they exist only to add beauty, purely as a gift from the composer, asking for nothing in return.
That's what grace can be – an unearned gift. A kindness extended not because someone has proven they deserve it, but because we choose, out of love, to give it anyway.
In between life's big moments and markers, we can give ourselves small notes of grace. It doesn't have to be a big moment, but a small choice like making tea before you check email and start your day. It could look like not beating yourself up for a missed workout, and instead taking five minutes for breathing exercises. When we give ourselves this kind of self-compassion, we remind ourselves that we deserve moments of grace.
Notes of grace can be the love and power that forgives and restores our relationships with others. When our loved ones, or even strangers, have wronged us or fallen short, we can extend patience and kindness. We can offer a graceful "no worries" or "no hurry," treating someone to the gift of compassion.
Of course, being graceful can also mean being calm under pressure, having elegant and refined movement, or being courteous in challenging social situations. All of these require a light touch, the ease that comes from both giving and receiving grace.
The weight of an appoggiatura
My favorite kind of grace note is an appoggiatura. Coming from the Italian appoggiare, meaning to lean, it is pronounced uh · paa · juh · toor· uh. While it looks like a quick note preceding a strong note, it is instead played on the beat, and with weight. We emphasize the note, giving it extra depth and length, creating a dissonance that feels like a sweet release when it resolves to the principal note. Leaning into an appoggiatura, creating harmonic tension in a downward movement, returns us deliciously upward to the expected home.
Life can sometimes feel like an appoggiatura. We need to lean into the weight of hard things, feeling the heaviness, giving them space and weight, before they can resolve. We look challenges in the eye, taking our time to see the truth of a difficult situation before moving forward. A client contemplating the end of her long and fruitful marriage leaned into the full weight of her situation before deciding to close that chapter. She felt the complexity of her choice: the dissonance and tension that had grown without resolution. It was not a situation she felt lightly, but with the weight and gravity of love.
The grace my father has given me
My father is 93 now, and I can still remember the feeling of his hand on my back as I learned to ride my bike. Walking beside me in the hills we loved to explore — steady and certain, like he had all the time in the world for me. Or absorbing the news that I had lost an audition that meant everything to me without judgement, only deep care. The grace he's always given me was never about being told I was perfect or right. It was about being met exactly where I was, without having to perform my way into deserving it. When you have someone like that to lean into, you learn what an appoggiatura feels like from the inside — the weight, held safely, before it resolves. It's one of my life's goals to be that person for my own family, imperfectly, but with the beauty and mystery of grace.
Do you need the perspective to give yourself or others a little grace? The support to be a person that others can lean into? I'd love to offer a complimentary discovery session. Reach out — I'm here.
With warmth,
Wendy
