Piano

Piano - that's Dutch for piano - and also French for piano, and Italian, and Spanish, and Finnish, and Swedish, and Norwegian, and Portuguese . . .

If all language could be that easy.

If you've known me for very long, you know my mother was a music teacher and that she taught piano lessons every afternoon for as long as I remember.  There are hundreds of adults who may often thank her when they read a piece of music or sit down at a piano.  She didn't teach them to compete at the rally, but taught them to enjoy music. That's all.  They played what they liked and if it was the Beatles over Bach, then so be it.

I didn't have quite the love for playing the piano that she did, but on her insistence, I took lessons.  Not from her.  She knew it was necessary to take lessons from someone other than her.  When I entered high school, she said I could quit.  And I did.  But fortunately it's a bit like riding a bike and although I wish my vision was a little better and I could remember a little more, I can still find my way around a piano and a piece of music.  

I guess I'm also one of those hundreds of adults thanking my mother.

She taught lessons to Randi for a few years.  Randi loved my mother and probably enjoyed playing the piano more for that reason than any other.  I'm sure she can still play and read music and is grateful, but it is Ross who inherited the love of playing the piano.  

I often lament over how much my mother would have loved to hear Ross play . . .

I know I'll never play like her or him, but Jim bought a piano for us a couple of weeks ago and I have enjoyed every minute!  I'm re-learning Fur Elise and The Entertainer, both of which I played in a piano recital nearly 40 years ago.

If you're lucky enough to have a piano, go play something and don't forget to thank that piano teacher who made it all possible.  And in my case, a mother, who insisted I learn to play.