Boring Rainbow

As I write this, my son is in his violin lesson, learning how to gently pick at the strings, to treat it like a banjo, to listen to the timber of the lines that run along its center. It’s tummy. It’s soft and delicate spot. This is what life is about.

Our piano teacher asked me if I would play the Barcarolle for our recital and yes, it will be me there surrounded by people who are younger than me, most of them by a collection of decades and, yes, it is embarrassing to me to play in front of others. But I do it so that

my son can see me try

and he can learn to be brave

and I can be an example

of one who plays

So there we are. I asked my uncle, one of the later generation who is battling his own health issues, well, I didn’t ask him; I sent him a text wishing that he would come and sing La Barcarolle for me while I played. He’s the operatic sort and lives in a world of music in the Bay Area, and he moves within musical circles, in the sense that his life is composed of groups of singers, and he will sing with one group and then another, different operas, same seasons.

And that’s also what I want for my son: a musical heart. I guess, I mean, like Rumi. Was that Rumi who said that the angels would gently stand over the tiny plant and whisper “grow”? That tiny leaf; that tiny flame. If he has a musical heart, I want to nourish it.

Yesterday I helped an old friend of mine with his website, as he needed quite a bit of tinkering from someone in the know.

Unfortunately that wasn’t me, and it was a journey to figure out how to manipulate his site, folding it into the crane that it should be.

He shared with me the story of the music he wrote for his mother as she was dying, and as her mind was slowly unwinding. And his music was meant to reflect her mind, and the processing of her as a person, and his experience of that time in their lives. He used an app where you take notes and input them on a screen, and the computer brain turns lyrical for you and plays what you told it to.

And almost eight hours later, as the night turned in and I was gently gathering things from the bureau to put away, it reminded me of my mother, and how, as I play, I do this for her in the

“Look, Mom, Look,” kind of way.

I just, somehow, want my mom to look. I want someone to see me.

See me.

I don’t want crowds to see me;

I want that one light to shine on me for just a moment and to say, “You did it,” with that kind of love and appreciation. Just that second.

That’s all I need, over and over.

As you grow older and as, if it’s your family, the petals of your family fall from the stem, you lose the people who truly care for you. This is another way that family

is so important

It’s a web based on a deeper love than friendship

And a real knowingness.

The family, often, is comprised of the only people who say

“I see you, and you are lovely.”