In Your Room With The Door Shut

I'm noticing that many of my writing topics so far somehow relate to my mother. This is another one. Hopefully she will take it as a compliment! For the record, I do in fact have a father, a very loving one, and I promise that I will actually write about him and his family at some point as well.

Over the course of my childhood, I learned to play at least half a dozen different musical instruments. Some much better than others, but music classes of some kind, in school or out, were a constant in my life from the age of 6 or so until I finished high school. Mom had always wanted music lessons herself, but it just wasn't an option when she was a child. For that reason, she was tremendously supportive of all my musical endeavors and detours (except possibly for the brief period in which I studied the drums while I had braces on my teeth, and even then she didn't put her foot down, to her everlasting credit.)

She had only one rule, and it was very simple: All brand new instruments were to be practiced in my room with the door shut until I got the basic hang of playing them.

After that, I was more than welcome to sit myself down on the bench of her organ in the family room, right by the kitchen, and "serenade" her to my heart's content and for the full amount of time my music teachers asked me to practice.

Thing One is already a pretty decent pianist, and has asked to learn to play the alto saxophone next year in school as well. I dug out my old sax for him and have been showing him the basic ropes for the last week or so.

I had forgotten quite how much a new saxophone player bleats like a dying cow while learning to control the sound of the instrument. I now entirely understand why I was banished to my room at that stage. I hope I can manage to be as patient with him as Mom was with me!

What goes around comes around, indeed.