Lost Youth

First of all, thank you to everyone who stopped by and left comments for Virginia Wright in the last post.  You made her feel very welcome.  You guys are awesome!  The winner of the autographed copy of Virginia's book, Wild Animal Sounds, is Loni Townsend. Congratulations, Loni!

Second, I had one more question from the Outstanding Blogger post.  I'll answer it now.  The question was:  What is your favorite piece to play?   Another tough one.  Since we were talking about piano repertoire, I'm going to select a piano piece.  (If I had to choose a violin piece or viola piece, I don't think I'd ever be able to do it!)  I really enjoy playing the Chopin Valse brillant in Ab Major.  It has both virtuoso passages and lyrical passages, which I think is a great combination.

Here's Lang Lang playing it:

And now for the story:

I took my ten-year-old son to the park yesterday.  He had a special request to visit the playground.  He went on the swing set and the spinning thing that makes you want to vomit. He went down the sliding board, and dug up some dirt with the digger toy.  He even made a few friends with some of the kids.

When he was done, he came up to me and said, "Mama, I miss being younger."

"What do you mean, Bubba?  You're still pretty young."

"All these kids are five or six years old.  They don't have a care in the world.  Now I'm old. I have so much to think about."

"Like what, Bubba? Video games?"

He gave me a funny look.  "No, Mama.  Homework and chores."

Right.  All those big kid things.  

I nodded.  "Well, Bubba.  You'd better enjoy being ten, because pretty soon you'll be forty, with a lot more to worry about than homework and chores!"