Things go through my mind as I wait backstage.
I still get mild butterflies. Not because I'm nervous but because I'm READY to play but have nothing to do but sit and wait. If I'm waiting backstage where I teach, then I'm playing Words With Friends and cracking one-liners with the crew. If I'm waiting backstage anywhere else, I'm staring at the four walls, looking for something to do, and thinking about all kinds of things:
Why did these people come to hear this organ recital? Did they come to hear me? Did they come to hear this organ? Did they come to recruit a friend to the organ? Did they come to get picked up? Did they come thinking this was going to be a revival service? Did they come thinking they were going to hear the only two organ pieces they know of? What does Fred Swann think when he's waiting backstage? How many times has Diane Bish done this? Is anyone ever going to fix that squeaky swell box? What if we were on a deserted island and made an organ out of bamboo? Oh, dear, they have THAT anthem in their choir folders? Wonder if anyone can hear this toilet flushing?
I also think about all kinds of things during the heat of battle. At a recent Lenten recital, I had a few memory slips because I had been re-thinking my posture at the console, and when I would change "the routine" to send a few brain cells toward sitting up taller, I would have to think harder or at least differently about the notes. Very interesting study. Another time, as soon as I hit the first note, I saw a fly writhing in death throes on high C of the Great; the same fly that had been terrorizing me earlier that day during practice time. (Nothing to do but play on and knock him off afterwards.)
At all times, I keep checking my motives to confirm that I still want to do this. Do waiting backstage and going out and playing ever get old? Do I want to continue doing this? Do people who play pretty much every week get tired of it? Tired of the traveling? Tired of the practicing? All those hours of practice for one hour of performance? Do Olympians get tired of that sort of schedule, too?
I wouldn't call this ADHD. I'd call it heightened awareness during a higher stress time. Recitals are not stressful to me -- they are exciting. But they do create a certain stress on the nervous system, and the brain runs wild, unattended, as a result.
I'd talk more about this if I could remember more. But those backstage thoughts are a bit like dreams -- they're real in the moment, and then we forget them. Got to go practice now and prepare to do what I still want to do.