Defining Moments

Well, tomorrow I'm turning 30 and feel the need for lots of gratuitous posting, plus I'm compuhovering today. There are reasons. I realize that I have no wisdom to complement my age and feel each day like I have less to say that is worth saying (hopefully in a good way) so will share one of the moments in my life that was really formative.

When I was oh, almost 8 years old, my parents took me to meet Mr. Roberts. They had heard of him from one of our neighbors whose oldest daughter was an extremely accomplished pianist for her age (16).

Actually I wasn't just meeting him, it was an audition. Mr. Roberts lived in a small white house in Winter Park, Florida. It was a house filled with exquisite things from faraway lands: oriental rugs, statues, etc. He was a collector (he once told me).

We were ushered into his studio and he directed me to sit down at the piano. He asked me a lot of questions:

Do you know what responsibility means?
Do you know what discipline is?
Do you know what a student is?

I fumbled my way through the interview, which culminated in my playing the two pieces I had learned by rote and by ear: two bits and Carol of the Bells.

All right, he said. Now, do you want to ask me any questions?

Yes, I said. I decided the best way was to follow his example and go for the vocabulary.

Do you know what higglety-pigglety is?

I asked with a perfectly straight face.

It was the first of many times that he would burst out laughing at something I said or asked. I didn't know what was so funny, I thought we were just quizzing each other on vocab, and, higglety-pigglety had been one of the extra-credit vocab words from way back in first grade (from Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, I think).

In another ten years I might be qualified to write something more about Mr. Roberts, who taught me most of what I've managed to remember in this life. Meanwhile this was one of my defining moments.