These beautiful pastels are hand rolled and air-dried by a small company in Northumberland, England. This may be a place where work and play are used as synonyms. Those colorful sticks remind me of the ones my older brother and I used to make when we were little. I recall one of our main games of playing pretend centered around the idea of 'work'---where we worked, what we did at work, that we were either going to or coming back from work. At one time, my 'office' was up in a pine tree. These games of make believe lasted hours, days, months, years.
Yesterday the rain poured on and off and kept my husband away from his usual tasks. He is a landscaper and an arborist, and for the most part he loves his work. He is also a musician, a composer. After tending to the kids and their needs all morning, he set aside some time in the afternoon to sit down at the piano.
He started off with a familiar tune, some classic jazz standard, and then kept going until he got through it without a flaw. As he warmed up, he went into some of his own compositions, playing them in rounds, changing a few notes here and a few notes there. The house filled not only with the chords, but also with the memories and feelings, the times and situations when he first sat down and played the bits and pieces of what would become full songs. Whenever I hear him play something new that sounds bright, distinct and special, I put in a gentle request:
"Oh, I like that one. Can you write it down?"
