if i threw my guitar out the window

ben gave henry this gas station guitar last night. henry likes to practice and ernie taught him how to say "virtuoso." i wonder if there will be too heavy an expectation on henry and jude to be musicians. they'll certainly be expected to practice -- lots and lots of practice, hours of finger burning practice. i don't think anything bad will come of that, will it?



i have a hard time imagining having a child who hates to practice. i practiced until my mother made me stop. my brother would tell the teacher "whatever" and she'd cut his lesson short and make my lesson longer. that first teacher was a glossy self-tanned woman who didn't know much about music at all. she kept copies of "teen" magazine in her waiting room and while my brothers took their lessons i would read the magazines cover to cover. and during my lesson i would play the music perfectly. sometimes she would leave the room for one reason or another and i would sneak sips of her iced coffee from the sweating glass on her filing cabinet. she was angry when i quit taking lessons from her to move on to the hotheaded polish teacher who had a real tan and glossy short fingernails and a gleaming black piano on a floor of white carpet.

i wonder if there's anything i can do *now* that will "mold our young breed" (mrs. banks) into musicians. not just musicians, but lovers of practice.

it's still snowing. i crept down the stairs with the boys at 6:30 this morning and the snow itself had already been creeping across the lawn.