Tea and a beautiful concert

We used to have a full-size upright piano in our living room.

I sometimes miss it. I bet Audrey misses it more. She used to foist herself up onto the piano bench at a very young age and play with the keys. She was always very gentle to it. I remember we marveled at how well she could match pitch with whatever key she happened to tap.

We traded our upright piano for a keyboard a number of years ago. We have a couple of smaller keyboards around as well so there's no shortage of options in our house.

Last night, Vivian made her way into the basement and called upstairs to me that the "plano" needed batteries. That's her way of saying that she couldn't get the piano to work. I plugged in the small keyboard that was sitting on the floor for her.

It didn't take long for Audrey to intervene. Because that's what Audrey does. If something that Vivian is doing interests her, then Viv needs to step aside and let Audrey take over. Usually that involves a defiant cry/scream from Vivian but last night she was totally cool with it. She did, however, insist on serving me tea and invisible food of some sort with her tea set.

I drank enough tea to appease Vivian before I slowly slinked out of the room so I could make dinner.

Audrey continued playing the piano but to be honest, I wasn't paying close attention. After a short while, Audrey came upstairs to ask me if I'd like to come down and listen to her song. I told her that I had been listening (it's not hard to hear from the main floor) but she insisted that I needed to come downstairs. I'm SO glad she insisted.

I sat down on the floor to get ready for her performance. To my utter surprise, she was playing the song "We Shall Overcome." She just learned the song in music class at school for Martin Luther King day. [She sang this song to us a few days ago and her singing sounded so angelic and beautiful. She even showed me the accompanying sign language.]

I sat there stunned while I listened to her play and sing along . . . . two verses! She then explained to me that the song was in two parts and both parts had the same notes so it was pretty easy. She would sometimes hit the wrong key but she very quickly figured things out.

I've been toying with the idea of getting her into piano lessons. I think I should stop toying and start acting on it.

We shall overcome, we shall overcome,

We shall overcome someday;

Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,

We shall overcome someday.

We'll walk hand in hand, we'll walk hand in hand,

We'll walk hand in hand someday;

Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,

We'll walk hand in hand someday.