I'm lying in my bed. It's a lovely Summer evening and the curtains in my room don't block out the light. I can hear children's voices as they play in the fields behind our house and I don't want to be in bed but, oh, I've played outside all day and now I'm bathed, comfortable and very sleepy. I am 4 years old.
I can hear music. It's my father playing the piano in our front room and he's playing Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. I listen to the lilting jazz concerto with its undertones of the varied ethnic diversity of 20th century New York. I love the music, I love my dad, I love my home. Tears of contentment and happiness form in the corners of my closing eyes.
I wipe away the tears and open my eyes. For a moment I'm disorientated; no bed with pink counterpane, no flowered curtains, I am in my sitting room and the music is coming from the record player. It's Leonard Bernstein playing the piano, not my father. My tears are of loss, of longing, of sadness for what has gone and can't ever be brought back but, still, my heart soars with the music and always will.
I can hear music. It's my father playing the piano in our front room and he's playing Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. I listen to the lilting jazz concerto with its undertones of the varied ethnic diversity of 20th century New York. I love the music, I love my dad, I love my home. Tears of contentment and happiness form in the corners of my closing eyes.
I wipe away the tears and open my eyes. For a moment I'm disorientated; no bed with pink counterpane, no flowered curtains, I am in my sitting room and the music is coming from the record player. It's Leonard Bernstein playing the piano, not my father. My tears are of loss, of longing, of sadness for what has gone and can't ever be brought back but, still, my heart soars with the music and always will.
