Winter piano recital, age 9

Calvin started playing piano when he was three. At that age he was geeked to be making intelligible sounds come out of that thing that his dad was so graceful with. Over the years he has gone through phases of insane, insensent practicing, and phases when it took pulling teeth to get him to eek out a half hour or so. Lately he's started to come into his own with the instrument. He has clear opinions about what he enjoys playing (recognizable pieces), and even clearer opinions about what he hates playing (scales), and he's started adding his own flavor to everything he plays. His specialty is elongated, drawn out, improvised endings to the most mundane songs.

He played his own endings to two of the pieces in his recital this weekend.

Greenfield's Ragtime Street Fair, 2015

Two years ago, Jon made the birthday resolution of playing in Greenfield Village's Ragtime Piano Cutting Contest. He played, and he took home the trophy (which was actually a handmade pitcher, and he didn't get to take it home because they made it for him and then sent it to him). It was a great, fun time, even in the heat of what was the hottest summer we'd had in years.

Then last year we missed the competition because we were out of town, but this year...this year Calvin participated in the eternally entertaining cutting contest. This was an amazing thing for so many reasons. Lately Calvin has been complaining of a sort of stage fright. He has mentioned being nervous or embarrassed about many things. I reminded him that to participate in the cutting contest he'd have to play in front of hundreds of people, but he was undeterred.

So he practiced his little butt off to prepare, and as the date got closer I got increasingly nervous that he would suddenly become nervous, but the shoe never dropped. Performance time came and not only did he handle it like a pro, he nailed his piece. NAILED it. We couldn't have been prouder, and he couldn't have been more pleased. The judges encouraged him to come back, and suggested challenging himself with harder pieces because, as they told him, he clearly gets it. With a few more years on him he's got the competition in the bag.

But I mentioned many ways in which this was an amazing event. Calvin's calm and poise in front of hundreds of strangers (at the age of nine) was an amazing thing. And the crowd's response was another wow moment. I think all those people watched this young kid walk up to the piano and expected a cute performance, and they were all utterly surprised by his actual performance. People who were just passing through stopped to watch,  others paused in their texting, etc. to watch him, and at the end the crowd, much larger than it was at the beginning, erupted in applause. I don't know if Calvin really heard it or not—I know I would have been too nervous to have registered my surroundings—but the awe and appreciation of the surprised crowd was the final amazing thing of the day. Well, that and the number of strangers who stopped us after, even hours after, later in the park, to tell us what a fantastic job he did (to which I always say, or at least think, "don't tell us, we had little to do with it, tell him!" but that's a subject for another time).

Spring piano recital 2015

 

Endings

There are so many ways to measure the years, and so many rituals by which to mark their passing. Our homeschooling group's spring play and talent show is one of them, and now that it has come and gone we know for sure that the days will be getting longer and warmer, and that our time will increasingly be spent out of doors. We look forward to it every spring.

This year the play was a little harder to follow, having been written by two girls no older than middle school, maybe younger. I know it had something to do with merfolk and fairies, and I think there was an evil cat, or maybe an evil ring that had been presented by a cat as a gift? There was some adventure that involved merfolk (of which Calvin was a key member) growing legs to rescue ocean water from the bathtub of a castle. There may have been an evil spell.

The plot was a little hazy at best, and the poor acoustics in the gym/theater didn't help any, but it was graciously short, and definitely sweet. And it was followed by the usual cute talent show, with talents ranging anywhere from piano or guitar performance, to running in circles on the stage, or reading aloud one's short story to leading the whole group in a dance.

Plus there were brownies.

Things about which we do not speak: frustration

It is easy to believe, even for long stretches of time, that this life we've created is charmed and perfect. We love what we're doing, what we're exploring and researching, the books we're reading, the topics we're delving into. In part, that's the point. Homeschooling allows us the freedom to make that happen.

But the truth isn't at all that simple.Even the things you love become tedious at times, and that old adage, about anything worth doing or having is worth working for, is true.

Things often come easily to Calvin. Over the years it has become increasingly clear that he expects this, and when something isn't as easy as he expects, he becomes frustrated quickly. It's a common reaction for bright kids, but it's hard to watch. My go-to response has always been to applaud his struggle and use that old adage about the greatest things requiring greater work, but it usually falls on deaf ears. And why shouldn't it? The more I've thought about it, telling him that the things he struggles with are worth more only negates all the things he's learned easily in the past. And aside from nobody wanting their knowledge demeaned, the truth is that it's a lie, and kids can see right through lies.

And there's another important piece to the puzzle, too, the piece that adds color to the overall picture. Our feelings, our emotions, add color to our lives, and frustration is one of those emotions. In telling my son that he should revel in his struggles and award himself for hard-won feats I'd hoped to aleviate his frustration and avoid what is ultimately a painful and frustrating experience for myself as well. But that's the wrong lesson. Frustration is part of life. And while I'd like him to learn how to successfully work hard for his achievements, and to self-reward, it is just as important to me that he learn how to be frustrated and self soothe, or calm, then move forward.

So over the past few months we've changed our approach to frustration. It started with admitting that I had been wrong, followed with the admission that we all get frustrated (as if he hadn't seen me deal with frustration myself), and ended with what I hope will be the ultimate lesson: that the frustration matters less than what you do with or after it. But frustration response is habit forming, and it can take time to change bad habits. Around here our go-to response to frustration has been negativity, like grumbling, physical outbursts, or even giving up. So we introduced positive and negative jars: in the face of frustration, when we choose to respond in a positive way a pin goes in the positive jar, and vice versa. A positive reaction can be laughter, a reframing of goals, or simply walking away, but most importantly, it can come after an initial outburst, because expressing frustration is okay.