Talents

My violin students (and my kids) had a recital at our house yesterday.  The captive audience was forced not only to listen to music, but to sample my experimental stew and pumpkin cookies.   I have a really great group of families hailing from Sweden to Argentina, to our own neighborhood and family!  I love, love seeing them every week, some speaking their native languages as they come and go, all of them building ties as families with each small musical endeavor.

Judging by the only surviving picture of the event, some were paying closer attention to the recital than others!  As much as I enjoyed the music, food, company and proud little faces, this picture is my favorite part of the whole experience.  It just cracks me up.  Freestone's manly little heart is not in playing the violin.  He has a vast arsenal of tricks to confound my practicing efforts, ranging from crying that he would rather play the guitar to standing there silently sobbing.  For the recital that he did not practice for, he asked me to "just write down the music."  His confidence was impressive, but completely unfounded.  I wrote the fingerings on a paper, and he followed them like a recipe.  He sounded terrible, I have to say.  But how could I not love him when I look at this picture?  Funny little boys, Free and Collin!  Talents certainly don't have to be about the arts.  At the recital, Izzy shared her talent for saying a heartfelt prayer over the food.  One of the moms shared her talent for making empanadas.  The parents and grandparents demonstrated a much-practiced talent for supporting their children.  Scott exercised his talent for being a supportive and understanding husband, not complaining about an event for 50, chez nous, that could very well have overlapped the Utah-Notre Dame game.  Thanks, Freestone and Collin, for sharing your talent of just being delightful seven-year-old boys.  You rock and I love you!