My Turn to Cry

I always enjoy editing the photos from our lessons and rehearsals. The faces make me smile and the learning, teaching and playing evident in every picture are my inspiration for the day.

This morning as I worked my way through the photos from yesterday at Cave9, I started to cry. This is a miracle. I cannot believe I have the honor of helping to bring these teachers (old and young), students, musicians--people--together to share and grow and bring our community together.

Yesterday a young man sat down at the piano and played 'Fur Elise' from memory, turning heads. This cheerful 6th grader lives in the housing project and has been in many times. Armani says his name is Durell (sp?) but I can't find him in our roster of students. (Of course, we don't pressure the kids from across the street to fill out forms because we don't want to create even the smallest barrier to their visits.)

Durell came up to me and announced that someone at ASFA(?!?) told him to talk to me about auditioning for music. Wow. Nick took Durell over to the keyboard and they explored his knowledge. He has talent, but is entirely self-taught. He can read some, but plays by ear. He's never taken a private lesson in his life. Nick taught him some basic jazz. Durell started playing around with that--and soon was grinning to himself with the joy of these new ideas.

I suggested that Durell go to ASFA's open house on October 4. He looked at me with despair--obviously that's unlikely to happen. So Nick wrote out a plan of study and told Durell that he had to come to Cave9 as much as possible. We will do everything we can to help him realize this dream. Durell sat at the keyboard for the rest of the afternoon practicing scales.

I've talked about Claudia before. She's now become one of the family. Yesterday she brought drinks for the snack table and her video camera. She and Armani worked on a video. She taught. She and AnLeia and Brian practiced orchestra music together. As she was leaving, she stood by Durell and called out songs for him to play--which he did effortlessly. She shook her head in amazement and promised to see us at MYO rehearsal today.

Curtis has also come many times. Now he brings his sister and they dabble in everything. Last night Curtis helped us pack up and load out. As we shut the last car door, Curtis stood on the sidewalk hugging his Scrollworks notebook to his chest. "Are you leaving?" he asked in a tone that belied his age and squeezed my heart. I patted him on the shoulder and told him we'd be back next week.

Is it just me, or is something really special happening here?