About a decade ago I had a friend who said that his life went uphill until age six, and had been coming down ever since (I imagine his is deeply subterranean now).
It could be that he had a particularly blissful childhood, but I am beginning to notice that under-sixers, carefree as their lives may be, have a way of creating painful crises anyway.
The other day I walked into the room while Natalie and my mom were practicing piano. Something was "too hard." Things were not going well. At least one of them was crying.
The next day she practiced the same lesson in a fraction of the time, a smiling little Level 1A professional.
Her attitude made the whole difference.
Funny thing is, I remember the "too hard" piano lessons from the small-person-on-the-bench perspective, and they really did seem that impossible.
The other funny thing is, things haven't really changed.
Just now I'm bigger and -- metaphorically, but I guess musically too -- there are many times more notes on the page.
1 comment:
So true! I just lived the "too hard" piano lesson with my favorite 6-year-old only to have him say, "that was easy" 10 minutes later. Unfortunately, his mom is not too different.
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