Did you practice?

Magnet #811 - Renoir's Two Girls at the Piano

I love this magnet. Shamefully, as many times as I've been to the Met, I can't remember if I've actually seen this painting in real life.

Oh, don't worry, I plan on rectifying that at some point. What I need to do is just go for the day, rather than just popping in and out for a couple of hours here and there, looking for Michelangelos, special exhibitions, and their clearance shop for their magnets.

Or...other things. Heh.

But this particular Renoir, speaks to me, because as my friend says, it really does remind me of my sisters and our collective almost 40 years of piano lessons. That's including:

• running for quick dinners before lessons.
• sitting through each other's lessons while doing homework.
• playing outside during each other's lessons.
• sitting at home, listening to the interminable practicing of the same three, then six, then nine piano pieces, getting ready for Competition.
• hearing the oft-asked question, Did you practice? Often.
• hearing the greeting, "Joyful, how you doin' today? Did you practice?" (Or "Hey, Tiger! Did you practice?" Because she couldn't tell my younger two sisters apart, I think.)
• that's combing the music stores in hopes of finding the right (and more fun) piano books with the right Richard Marx ballad, or the tv show theme or 70s easy listening piece for my parents to hum off-key to.
• finding the right dresses for recital.
• going to recital rehearsals.
• recitaling.

And on and on and on...a lot can happen in 40 years.

Little did my five-year-old self know that when I said, "Can I take piano, too?" after seeing my friends practice, that I would change the course of our family's history.

Rather, little did I know how much I would curse my five-year-old self every time I was asked the question, "Did you practice?" Argh.