This phrase has been
on my mind but, after spending too many precious minutes surfing the world-wide
web, I cannot seem to find the source of this quotation. But that does not
detract from its veracity.
We had a nice end of
the Sukkot holiday with our family and friends. A few days after the end
of the holiday, Barry, who had finally recovered from a cold he had gotten
during the middle days, went off to Chicago for a meeting. Although I had been
away from our New York home for than two weeks, it just made sense to stay in
Sharon, which I did.
That enabled me to do
a few things I had wanted to do. First, I was able to spend some time with our
friend whose husband had died a couple of weeks ago. As is customary when a
death occurs during one of the week-long holidays, the Shiva (7 days of
mourning) had been postponed until after the end of the Sukkot holiday. People
often talk about being stymied by not knowing the “right thing” to say to
someone who has had a loss. The guidance for Shiva is to let the
mourner(s) lead the conversation. Sometimes they will not want to speak at all,
and you can sit quietly and hope that your presence and prayers somehow
strengthen them. In this case, talking about the final days and the difficult
decisions seemed to help our friend, although now that the period has ended I
imagine she is quite exhausted. While shiva is a beautiful custom, the
trouble is that the mourners go from having a house full of people to suddenly
being relatively alone to begin the hard work of putting their lives back in
some sort of new perspective. It is just one of those things for which we can
never be prepared.
When Maya was at our
house for her “Nana/Sabba” week back in early September, she took great interest
in the piano. She sat at it for quite a while pressing keys and creating
melodies. At some point I asked her if she wanted to learn how to play, and she
enthusiastically agreed. I could not seem to find any beginner piano music in
my pile, so we went on-line and stumbled upon a course. We started with the
first lesson, and she learned that little 3-note song very quickly. She played
it over and over again, each time her finger movement becoming more controlled.
It was abundantly clear that she is ready for piano lessons.
The beginning of the
school year is incredibly busy for our both of our daughters. Simmie is a
teacher in the Pre-Kindergarten class and Dina is an administrator developing
curriculum (among other things) in the elementary grades in the local Jewish
day school. So Barry and I started searching for a piano teacher. We contacted
all the teachers we found listed within a small radius and I dutifully prepared
a spreadsheet to track the details of each one. We started to arrange for times
to meet when Simmie and the girls attended a 250th celebration of
the Town of Sharon and met a neighbor they had never known who is a pianist and
looking to take on more students. When we were in Sharon a few days later we
met with her and liked her ideas and her style. Maya had her first lesson and
it went very well. She has already been “performing” for us. She had two
assignments from her first lesson, one of which was to compose her own piece.
Here she is playing it. Perhaps jazz piano is in her future?
While I am on the subject of accomplishments of the Rosenstein progeny, I had the great honor of accompanying Dina into Boston on Columbus Day to sit on the sidewalk in my wheelchair on an absolutely glorious day and watch her start and finish the Tufts 10K Race. Dina started running for fitness during the past year and has run in a number of events but this was the first time I have had a chance to go with her. It was really a thrill to see that sea of faces and know that she was in there somewhere. Maybe 10K seems like a trifle to any of you hard line fitness buffs, but in family with parents and grandparents who are each a little less fit and coordinated than the next, this is a very big deal! Joshua and Ella must have gotten a dose of whatever gene Dina has, and Eliana is surprisingly strong and athletic as well. Congratulations, Dina – you go girl!
Looks like I will need to spend time putting away the summer clothes and dragging out the winter ones. It had to happen eventually, I guess. Let’s just hope that Boston has a bit less snow this year!
Love,
Rebecca
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