Music for a While November 19, 2015

In September, my energetic music teacher Trevor initiated an informal weekly session on composition, and my buddy Julie signed up for it.  Somehow, despite my taking three other classes, I got swept up into the fun, too.  Julie has now completed a lengthy theme and variations for piano, while I am still struggling with a few incredibly short vocal pieces, including, believe it or not, a Yogi Berra song cycle.  Actually, they are not horrible, but the process of working out the details on staff paper…well, tedious is the word.  Our works are going to be performed in two weeks!  As Yogi said, “When you see the fork in the road, take it.”  This was certainly a fork I did not see coming.

Sitting Still November 19, 2015

Following a surgery some dozen years ago, I stayed home for a few weeks to recuperate.  It was October.  I sat on the window seat in my living room, reading and just looking out over the neighborhood.  I was struck by the simplicity and the beauty of it all – leaves tumbling to the street, neighbors walking their dogs, birds flitting about the trees, the mail carrier hiking up and down our hill, the UPS delivery person just as the sun was setting.   And I thought to myself, “This must happen every day, but I never see it.”  A whole universe of routine and contentment within a few feet of my front door, and I always rushing too quickly to drink it in.

Today I scrapped my busy schedule to rest in my kitchen, write a few letters, and reflect on the past few months.  Sometimes, it seems, our most precious moments lie in just sitting still.