244 Fridays

Every week for the last four years and nine months, 244 Fridays, this is my view.

I’m not writing to report any sort of milestone. She’s not about to quit playing the violin. She’s a very good musician, but we aren’t contemplating sending her off at age thirteen, to study in Europe with a super-duper-master.

We just show up.

She goes into a room smaller than my walk-in closet. Her teacher listens as she plays a scale. After that, they begin the journeyman’s work of learning a new concerto. They laugh at some joke I can’t hear because I’m outside the closed door.

Her lesson is private. She owns the experience. That’s how it’s been since the very first Friday.