Simple Pleasures

November 23, 2012 at 3:48 AM

This morning, I got up early, made a pot of french-pressed coffee, fed the cats and sat on my back patio enjoying the unusually warm autumn morning.

Later, I made a quick stop at the grocery store to pick up a few items I forgot to get yesterday, thanked the clerk for working that day, went home and practiced for an hour or so.

It didn't sound much better than a cat screeching, so I packed it up and headed over to my aunt & uncle's house along with the 'extended family'. They aren't related by blood or marriage, but by bonds formed by people helping people. We ate more than what is considered healthy, and summarily plopped down on various chairs to digest our meals.

Except for me, one little girl and my uncle. Instead, we found ourselves in front of my uncle's keyboard. My uncle found the rhythm button and set it to a Latin beat and cranked up the volume. I began to teach the little girl how to play a simple scale and played an accompaniment an octave and a third below her.

She looked at me, I looked at her and we both smiled. It didn't matter that neither of us were pianists or even spoke the same language fluently. We were making music. Simple, but music none the less.