I admit it

I am Thankful for the ability to sit and read other peoples blogs. I have been on many miniature vacations looking at photos, I have had the sweet feeling of commeraderie as I read blogs that dealt with the good, bad, and ugly of parenthood. I have relished the recipe's, the decorating ideas, and the insights of many talented people. So this Thanksgiving as I struggle to keep the kids out of the nasty turkey ridden kitchen while they fight over decorations that are not even theirs I will have a refuge to look forward to. I will anxiously await the many heartbreaking, lighthearted, and wonderful posts of people going through the exact same thing! I am thankful for blogs, and naptime.

I am Thankful for Music, and for the ability to make it.

I can remember the day that I got it. I of course had no idea that it was coming even though I had been told by both of my parents that if I practiced for several years and stuck with it I would get one. For years I hauled a heavy cumbersome case in frigid weather up the mountainside stairway to the U of A. Rain or shine, below freezing or slightly above it I climbed to my fathers office with the instrument that was almost as big as I was being shifted side to side and back and forth. Wearing snowmobile pants, jacket, sweater, scarf, gloves, hat, and huge snow boots which kept your feet really warm, but gave the impression of trying to walk normally while wearing skis. Up the icy and treachurous stairway until finally at the top I would say a silent prayer grateful for not falling backward to my doom. Then proceeding to the correct building I would walk through the office doors to the familiar sting of the warm air hitting my frozen pudgy cheek. Sigh a sigh of relief at having reached my destination in safety, and after puting my things away and sprawling out my homework on the side of the desk assigned to me I would go to the teachers lounge and make us two cups of hot cocoa. I never garnered surprise or supervision from the other teachers, just a "Hi, how are you doing today?" Sometimes in good weather I would walk across the campus and find the empty stage, and act or perform to my hearts content. When all was done and 5:30 rolled around we would leave and invariably I would start out the door with him to walk to the parking lot to our plugged in car that was colder than the outdoors, and it would happen. He would offer to take my cello from me. I always said the same thing "Thats O.K. I am really big so I can carry it just fine." Now here is the beauty of that memory. My dad knowing my desire to be just as strong as any man had a choice to make. He could have said anything, but his response empowered me, left me my dignity and dreams. "I know you are strong that is why I was hoping you would trade me and take my briefcase and I could carry the cello because my briefcase is so full, and the cello is empty inside. I know that you are very smart and know that something doesn't have to be bigger to weigh more so what do you say? Will you help me out?" To which I would take the brief case and say sure Dad I AM really strong. Years went by and not much changed until that December when he left this life. It arrived that February, and it was perfect timing. I hadn't played in two weeks the day that it arrived via a delivery truck. I was downstairs in the garage looking at the fishing flies we had tied that last summer when my mom called me to answer the door. There at the other side of that door was a delivery man with a very large box. My mom asked the man to tell me when it had been ordered and he showed the invoice with a date stamp of one week before my Dad passed on. We took the box to the living room to open it, and there amid the peanuts and bubble wrap was my very own German cello, hard case and all. My mother told me that it was one of the last things they bought together, and that he was excited to see me playing my own instrument, but would miss watching me try to carry it around. I have his briefcase sitting in my closet, and I am sitting next to the cello my parents so graciously bought me. Every once in a while I carry the briefcase to remind myself of the girl I was, and I pick up the cello everyday to become the girl they both knew I could be.