A Piano Recital Story

My family moved from New Jersey to Wisconsin in 1984.  At that time, my oldest son, Victor, was 7 years old.  Victor took piano lessons when he was 5 years old. So when we settled in Wisconsin, we found him a piano teacher in our neighborhood.  The new teacher also taught adults.  Therefore both my son and I enrolled to the new teacher’s class.

We bought a decent piano in our new home.  In the evening after supper, both my son and I practiced at the piano.  To be honest, my piano musicality was quite limited.  But, at the time, I was thinking that my diligence in practicing piano could be a good example for my son to practice piano every day just like his dad.

There were approximately 5 adult students and 15 children students in her class.  The children's students were  playing music at their appropriate levels. Victor was playing the Suzuki lessons at level 4.  I was given Bach’s Invention. 2 in C-minor’ piece to practice.  Bach’s Invention was a challenging piece for me.

Three months later, the teacher said to the kids that there would be a piano recital for all the kids.

I then asked the teacher. Do parent stdents also need to play at the rehearsal ? 

The teacher said no. She said that the recital was only for kids.  

I didn’t know what I was thinking at the time. I said to the teacher that I would love to play at the recital.

The teacher then said, “For kids, everyone needs  to memorize the music. They would play the  piece without the music; but for adult, you can bring the music with you.” 

Again, I was overconfident. I told my teacher, I would memorize the piece and play the piece without music. 

So, my son and I were working very hard at the piano, at least half an hour a day. .  I felt very confident at the time of recital which was approximately 2 weeks after her initial announcement. 

The rehearsal took place at the  Houdini Museum, a historical museum of Appleton.  The museum had an antique piano.  Some antique piano might have keyboard stickiness issues. 

All the kids were at the recital. However, I was the only adult in the recital. I was at the last to play in front of the audience.

The kids seemed not to be bothered by the keys in that antique piano.  One by one, they all played their music well.  One by one, they bowed, and one by one the audience applauded.  

It was my turn. I suddenly felt tinkling with my feet and my fingers.  It was probably the feeling of a stage flight. 

I sat in front of this antique piano and hit the first C minor chord  on the piano; I immediately felt  the keyboard stickiness of this antique piano.  Worst of all, I froze in front of this piano while the audience was waiting anxiously for me to start and finish the music.  After few embarrassing moment pass, I do not remember how did I came out that embarrassment. My wife said that I did not play at all. But I think my teacher sat besides me to help me the initial phrases and I regained my composure to finish the rest.

Few years later, Victor switched from the piano to Cello, and after that, I did not touch that piano.  That was 1990.  When we moved from Wisconsin to Ann Arbor in 2023, we donated the piano to a church which needed a piano at the time.

Victor’s cello skills are really shining.  Today, he continues to practice and give  a cello performance.  On September 22, 2024, he and his friend played Shostakovich’s cello and piano concerto at the Ann Arbor Reform Church. 

Although my musicality is quite limited, I continue to sing in the choir of my church.  I also play recorders at Ann Arbor Recorder Society here.

Both the choir and the recorder group perform in front of the audience.  But one thing is for sure,  I will not perform solo in front of the audience. 

The Hawaii Trip

 In the August of 2023, my wife and I flew to Los Angelas to join other members of my wife’s family to board a Prince Cruise into the Pacific Ocean with the final destination of the Hawaiian Islands.  

There were 10 of us; the youngest was in the 60’s and the oldest in the mid 80’s. We were not in the prime age; most of us have chronicle health conditions. 

It tooks us approximately 7 days to reach the Big Island of the Hawaii.  

There are approximately 1000 islands, large and small.  But there are only 5 major islands, Kauai, Oahu, Malokai, Maui, and the Big Islands.  Kauai is the oldest which is approximately 5 million years old; The Big Island is the youngest which is approximately 0,7 million years old. Kauai is situated at Northwest of the Big Island. 

Hawaiian Islands are formed from the volcano created from a moving Pacific tectonic plate passing through a magna, a hot spot of Earth crust. The Pacific tectonic plate is moving in the  northwest direction with a speed of approximately 100 mm per year.  Just like a moving cake passing through a hot candle, the cake melt at the hot spot.  If the pressure is high enough, it erupts just like volcano.

The volcano creates mountain summit and deep base. Mauna Loa has an elevation of 13,679’ .  The trade wind and the summit height host 4 out of 5 climate groups.  Hilo is the wettest city on the Earth.  Aka Fall has rainfall almost every day.  They belong to the Tropical Continuous Wet zone.  However, coastal areas especially the south and west sides of the summit slides are dry year-long.  Example is the Mauna Loa Resort.  At the summit top, such as summit of Mauna Loe, occasionally, there are also snow falls. 

Hawaii is a dynamic living entity.  It is a place where work of wind and water, the rise and fall of the land; sun and long dances of time creates not just an island of culture and people but various climate zones between light and shadow, fire and ice, as well as rain and dry. 

Some of us hired a tourist guide on the Big Island. He took us to the summit to visit the Volcano National Park.  Although it was August, it was actually very cold at the summit.  At the summit, the guide introduced us to the Hawaiian state tree, the Ohia-Lehua which has a twisted tree trunk but a beautiful red flower on top of the tree trunk. 

It was not supposed to be the blossom season of the tree; however, one the tree had a beautiful red flower on the tree trunk. 

Being curious, I came close trying to smell the fragrance of the flower, accidentally the flower came off.  Here, the trouble began as the tree and the flower were created by the greatest Volcano goddess, Pele, of Hawaii. The legend says that the Pele was once in love with a young, strong and handsome man, called Ohia and made a proposal to Ohia to marry him.  Ohia turned down the proposal because Ohia agreed to marry his sweet heart, Lehua.  Furious Pele chased this couple to kill the couple and burned everything on her path.  

Many other god and goddess asked Pele for mercy. Pele agreed and  turned this couple into a tree and a flower on top of the tree.  The tree and the flower are inseparable; thus anyone trying to separate the couple would bring the misfortune.  

Now, I had accidentally picked the flower.  So what had misfortunes happened to us ? 

It had many.  Two days later after the incidence, the youngest member of our group had a Covid.  Although Covid did not kill her or even made her very sick, she was locked in her cabin for the rest of the journey. She could not enjoy the show, the line dance, the Hawaiian dance, even watched the sunrise or the sunset of the Pacific Ocean. 

On the day we were disembarking from the ship, my sister’s husband who has severe Type II diabetics and requires daily insulin injection had a racing heart and was out of breath during the disbarking process.  He had to be sent to the ER for emergency treatment.  He was OK.  

When I arrived home, I was worried about bad luck or misfortunes that could happen to me. Miraculously, I am OK so far.  Do you know what I did ? 

I paint the Ohia-Lehua tree on a piece of paper with a black pen and a red pen. I sketched the most ugly, twisted tree then on top of he tree, I sketched  red flowers.  Somehow, this effort of repairing the curse seems to work.  

Then it comes to the final question.  When the members of our group were sick, were they the results of the curse? Or, there were frail in the first place ? 

Sun, Beach, Ocean, and Grounding are tools for cancer healing

 I began to listen to “Christ beat Cancer” podcast because I recently had lost weight at an alarming rate and I am afraid of that cancer in me might be the cause of rapidly losing weight.  Today’s podcast s about Rob Prior’s success healing of his Stage 3 kidney cancer.  Before his diagnosis, the kidney cancer had given him many symptoms including swollen arms and ankles, headache, and fatigues, and tremor. A CT scan showed a 6.5 mm right kidney tumor.  His best friend, 10 years older than him advised him not to take surgery and chemo route.  Instead, he directed him to see an integrated oncologist who advised and convinced him that his own immune can heal the cancer giving the right conditions.  This is what Rob did in the next 13 months. Starting with diet, he cut out sugar, all processed food, and animal food.  He began to swim 1 km along the shore under the sun and jogged back 1 km on the beach.  He felt that the Sun, the swimming, the jogging, and the grounding had given him the healing he need. Additionally, the infrared sauna helped him detoxed the body.  

The most important message of the podcast are: mindset, Sun, ocean,beach, grounding, exercise, sauna and other detox help Rob to heal from the stage 3 kidney cancer without the brutal surgery and chemo therapies.  

Helping other people could be the best therapy for survival

 The following notes came from the book, “Love, Medicine, and Miracle”.  

When Louise then was a teenager was told by her doctor that her metastasis ovary cancer could kill her in 6 months even with chemotherapy, she told her doctor that only God can tell her how long she could live.  She was an exceptional patient.  First, she moved out of the old home and rent an apartment  This way, she could move away from a stressful environment.  With only $10 left, she put an aid in a newspaper that she is willing to help any cancer patient who answered the aid.  Six months later, all her tumors disappear.  

What does this true story tell us?  

1. Do not allow the doctor to tell you how long will you live.    Only God can give us this number.
2. Leave the stressful environment behind.  If you have a toxic relationship while you are sick, don’t get stuck with the old toxic relationship.
3. Willing to help other people while you are still sick is a great therapy.  

Virgin with child and St. Ann

The Bible had inspired many artists.  With the subject about baby Jesus, Virgin Mary, and Mary's mom, Saint Ann, there were more than 1000 paintings.  Yet the painting showing in this blog by Albrecht Durer is quite unique in its simplicity and haunting devotional painting of Saint Ann.  Anne's hand on her daughter takes on a consolatory meaning.  Anne's distant gaze suggests a premonition of Christ's Passion.

Praying Hands

 The drawing of the "Praying Hands" by Albrecht Durer (1508) is not only an art work by a famous German artist in the 16th century, but also a show of sibling love.  

Albrecht Durer grew up in an impoverished German family with an elder brother.  Both Albrecht and his older brother showed artistic talent when they were young.  By the time for finding an art teacher for the talented young artist, the parent said to the children.

"Even I love to send both of you to art school, we can only afford to send only one to learn from the master.  The other needs to stay home and work."

Albrecht's brother said to his young brother to take art lessons from a master and he would stay home to work and make money for the household.

Albrecht's paintings became very popular and made sufficient money.  He said to his elder brother to take classes from art master.

His brother told him that he was not able to do the painting because of his hands, after many years of hard labor and lost their fine skills to do the paintings. 

One day, when his brother was praying before an altar, Albrecht caught this moment to draw his brother's praying hands.  With  his brother's praying hands with many signs of hard labor, Albrecht showed both gratitude and his respect to his brother.

Eliezer and Rebecca. by Nicolas Poussin

The story is from Genesis, Chapter 24.  Abraham exiled at Canaan wanted to find a wife for Issac.He sent his servant, Eliezer with. 20 camels to his homeland, Chaldea/Haran. at Mesopotamia.  Abraham instructed Eliezer to the center of the town where there was a well.  Village young women would gather to fetch water. Eliezer would ask among the young women to give him and 20 camels to drink.  Whoever give Eliezer and camels water, Eliezer would ask the lady her name and her parent to see if the lady came from the same ancestors of Abraham.  Among the ladies, it was Rebecca who gave  Eliezer and his camels drink. Rebecca was the daughter of Bethuel who was the son of Nahor.  Nahor was the brother of Abraham.  Eliezer then presented to Rebecca with a ring and the bracelet and told Rebecca that she was chosen to be Issac’s wife. The painting by Nicolas Poussin in 1648 showed the reactions of Rebecca and other ladies upon hearing the news.  Enjoy yourself with the painting.