Tom Bopp played the piano for the retirement party last night, and getting to see him in action made me think a lot about playing the piano and the power of music. I’d love to be able to play like Tom.
I started learning to play classical piano when I was 5 or 6 years old, and took lessons all the way through high-school. But, I had stopped playing since then, until Tom put his foot down and bought a piano for me about 8 months ago.
This is a strange weekend for me. It is filled with activity options that wouldn’t normally occur to me as Things to Do in Yosemite. When I got here 5 years ago, my list was pretty short – climb, hike (to climbs) and backpack (for far away climbs), but the more I’ve lived here the more I get exposed to all of the other things that are going on in Yosemite.
I don’t really know too much about Lent. We never observed it when I was growing up, and although I knew it was that period right before Easter, I didn’t really even know how long it was until pretty recently. My in-laws observe Lent, and I think my brother’s family does, and I’ve even tried it once, in the traditional way.
We were visiting my in-laws one year during the beginning of Lent, and my father-in-law was giving up “all the stuff he loved” meaning desserts and sweets. I felt like I’d been eating a lot of desserts lately, and on a whim decided I’d follow suit, having no idea how long Lent was. I was shocked and horrified to find out that I’d committed to 40 days. 40 days!?! In the end, it didn’t really matter, because my dessert-loving father-in-law had a favorite bakery on his morning circuit, and since he wasn’t eating them, brought a pastry home for me. My good intentions lasted just over (or maybe just under, I forget) 24 hours.
But, 40 days is a good number of days to challenge yourself with – long but not eternal, so I thought that maybe this year I would try again to do something for Lent. I’m going to try to publish a blog post each day for the duration of Lent.
This was the poem of the day on Writer’s Almanac and it really struck a chord. Thought I’d put it here so that I didn’t lose it. It’s amazing and wonderful that we can catch up with friends and loved ones while dining alone in a cafe, it’s comforting not to have to eat alone. … Read more
On a personal note, this year I’m starting to feel like it would be OK again for me to get shaken up a little bit, and take a few falls, if you know what I mean. I’m still pretty tentative, but on a relative basis it’s a huge step up from where I was last year. When the snow was firmer I got in a few runs on the NASTAR course, trying to go as fast as I could, and now I’m hitting some rougher terrain with more confidence, and taking some falls. I keep thinking it would be fun to ski some steeps in Tahoe one of these weekends, but of course there is always so much to do.