Liliana loves the synthesizer in my study.  She stands on the boxes of advanced reading copies of Eve and goes to town.  She punches in the code for bird song, and then bangs the keys.  I wish I could get some footage of how she really gets into it, but when I reach for the camera, she instantly becomes Tame Girl.  Hmmm…you’d think it’d be the opposite.

I remember the music teacher at our elementary school introducing the various instruments to us when I was in fourth grade.  She encouraged us to sign up for band.  Oh, to be a flutist, I thought.  I would watch as all the girls would line up in front of the room-length bathroom mirrors, with their flutes hovering by their lips, while the teacher instructed them on proper lip placement.  Oh, if I could do that, then everyone would like me.  Yes, that was the ticket!  But I also knew that flute lessons came with a price tag; we’d have to rent the flute from the school, and I wasn’t so sure my parents could afford it.  After tentatively suggesting to my parents that maybe, just maybe, I would be an excellent flutist and have lots and lots of performances where people would throw roses at my feet–“Brava, Elissa, brava”–as tears streamed down their cheeks, my parents gamely said that, no indeed, they really couldn’t afford it; they were so sorry.  OK, so I didn’t say all that, but I was thinking it.

Instead, my mother offered to start me with rudimentary piano lessons, which I relished.  I began to sight-read, and would sit for hours plucking out the notes in a haphazard way, I’m sure, until my grandmother, during my fifth-grade year, generously suggested that she pay for piano lessons.  Oh, the joy!  Yes, now it would be the piano!  The lights would dim, and a hush would grow over the dimly lit auditorium.  You could almost hear people sucking in air, just in sheer anticipation of a child prodigy tickling the ivories.  Oh, yes, and they would clap!  They would stand!  They would shout (yep, you guessed it!), “Brava, Elissa, brava,” and again, they would be moved to tears.  [Does this remind you a little of the wonderfully funny movie, A Christmas Story?]  Does every child think this way?

A funny story.  We are friends with some of the most amazing little girls.  Well, this particular one (her name is Hannah) was going to have her first ballet recital, and Dan and I really wanted to go, but we couldn’t.  Sara, her sweet mother, gave us a little hint, though, about what Hannah expected after her recital.  Hannah had reminded her mother to “not forget the roses.”  Sara, after looking perplexed, I’m sure, asked Hannah what she meant.  Hannah said, in her most matter-of-fact voice, “You know, after I dance, you and Daddy will throw roses at my feet.”  Unfortunately, this was a family event, with many children dancing and many parents attending, so to have to explain to Hannah that she might not get roses thrown at her feet was slightly disappointing to her.  So, Dan and I went to a small floral shop and bought her a plant of baby roses, and told her that although we couldn’t be there in person, we were “throwing” roses her way, and we wished for her to be brilliant.  I think she was happy.  I know she was.  [If you are not already familiar with the Olivia books, please go to your nearest library and check them out.  Dear Olivia dreams of being famous one day–in the first book, it’s a ballerina.  In the second, I believe it’s an opera singer.]

As you already know, I’m playing lots of music for Liliana–classical, alternative, kids’, rock, folk, country, you name it.  Well, okay, you caught me.  I simply cannot stand most rap, so that’s sorely lacking in her repertoire, but I’m figuring if that’s her thing, then she’ll most definitely get it somewhere else.

I imagine her on a smoky stage some day, taking requests from adoring fans.  She’s got her tight jeans on, and she holds a guitar like she was born with it, and boy, can she riff on that thing.  That’s my girl.  I just don’t like the rocker dude standing in the corner giving her the once-over.  He’s gotta go.