The devil's interval (and other tales)

This week has been a little...bit much. 

I didn't actually have to go into campus, but I did go to a conference in Atlanta (LRA), where I ended up leading a mentoring session (by myself) for an hour, which was super intimidating and stressful. But I did it. 

I turned in one of my final papers. And now I'm trying to write the second one and am struggling for some reason (which is odd, considering it's a lot of the same information I presented on at LRA...I just have to write it down in an organized way and cannot make my brain do it).

So that's all been eating up a lot of my time and attention this week.

*****

On Friday, Miriam and Zoë had a little recital at the mall. I will put up their videos later. For now I will share a few little stories.

On the drive to the mall, Phoebe turned to Alexander and said, "Hit me in the face!"

"No," he said. 

"Awwww! Why not?!" she asked.

"Because," he told her. "That would be rude."

And that is exactly the response he should have given her as her older brother. 

"Fine!" she retorted. "I will just hit myself! HIT!"

And she hit herself. I don't know why. 

Also, everything she acts out while playing comes with the most boring sound effects. If her little characters are walking she bops them up and down and chants "Walk! Walk! Walk!" If her little characters are picking berries, she says, "Pick! Pick! Pick!" If her little characters are sleeping..."Sleep! Sleep! Sleep!"

So it tracks for her that she would narrate "hit" while hitting herself, though we do not condone hitting.

I say that, and yet...

On the drive home from the mall, Benjamin challenged his siblings to "insult" him.

"Insult me!" he defied them. "I can take it!"

"Oh, I've got this," Rachel said. "Your face is dumb."

"Doesn't hurt my feelings," Benjamin said. 

"Oh, yeah?" Alexander asked. "How about this?!"

And then Benjamin started yelling, "Ow! Ow! Ow! Alex stop! I said insult! Not assault!"

Evidently Alexander had begun punching him in the backseat. 

*****

Miriam's organ teacher shared the video of her playing I Saw Three Ships with her last email to the studio, since there would be no organ at the mall for Miriam to play on. 

One little girl (who is not in the group theory lesson that Miriam helps teach) was so charmed by Miriam's song that she begged to be allowed to play that song, too! 

And she did! Either her parents or Ms. Deb scrounged up a primer Christmas book with I Saw Three Ships in it and this little girl proudly played it at the recital...and tiptoed up to Miriam to shyly say hello.

I thought that was so cute!

*****

Zoë played her pieces twice and did very well. 

Miriam played her pieces one and a half times and also did very well (in my opinion). Unfortunately she got confused in the middle of her second piece (a complicated Bach invention) and had to start over and then got confused in the same place and...fled the piano in a panic. 

We stood behind a pillar together while she collected herself and decided she'd like to try to play the piece again with the music in front of her. So we went to stand beside Ms. Deb and one of the dads of a student who is in the group theory lesson that Miriam helps teach came over to give Miriam a pep talk. This dad is Malek Jandali—a rather famous Syrian composer (How are we doing these days, Syria, now that you've ousted Assad?) and Steve Jobs' cousin. He is the most enthusiastic audience member—clapping and hollering for every student. I appreciate his enthusiasm but am unable to match it. I just don't have that energy level inside of me, I think. But I think he makes everyone feel wonderful. 

So many loud bravos, always accompanied by robust applause. He is excited about music. 

He told Miriam that her first piece—by Chopin—was easily the best piece he'd heard all evening. He told her that her Bach was lovely, but that Bach is so complicated, with all these little changes here, there, and everywhere. It's easy to get lost. Bach is so interesting because of his history with the tritone, which was forbidden by the church. He worked much of his music to avoid tritones (the devil's interval) and did so in such interesting ways. And when Jandali gets lost in Bach pieces (because it's quite easy to do, did he mention?) his go-to out is to pick a chord and just—BOOM!—finish the piece then and there. But this was such a low-stakes environment, no one was even going to remember this tomorrow, she's just at a shopping mall with a roving audience. It's nothing. He's done similar things while accompanying an orchestra and, well, that gets a little hairier. She'd do better next time. This was no big deal...

He was so very kind and encouraging. 

And Miriam went up and played the piece (with the music in front of her this time) just fine.

*****

She was already joking about it on the way home. Someone asked if anyone knew some random bit of trivia and Miriam did know. She shared the answer and then quipped, "I can remember that but not Bach."

Once we arrived home we quickly got ready to head to the church for a games night and the first thing Miriam did when we got there was run to the piano and hammer out her Bach piece. 

"Oh, sure!" she said, "I can remember it now!!" 

She'll get over it, I'm sure. 

I'm just proud of her for getting up there again to play. All those little girls who look up to her so much...well, they probably didn't even notice that she made any mistake...but if they did then they will also remember that Miriam rallied and tried again and did just fine.