Red, Yellow and Brown.

I reported our experience in Baton Rouge over the past weekend when Erik participated in the piano competition. Here is a photo of Erik and his Dad getting acquainted with Mozart who sat solemnly on the first floor of the music building at LSU listening to all the music played in the building. We made a comment about how early and young his life ended. His life was full of defeats, discouragements when it comes to musical accomplishments. He definitely had good times and more bad....

Sven had an idea of making Erik polish Mozart's shoes with a cloth but I did not have an appropriate cloth or the nerve to attempt such a thing in the middle of the hall with over hundred people standing around waiting for the judges' announcement. But one of the young men who saw Sven converse with Mozart about one of the pieces in our book as shown on the photo above approached Sir Mozart after Sven was done. The young man consulted with Mozart on his own piece while his mother snapped a few photos. Get the picture? Sven started a trend.

On monday, Erik seemed to have recovered from the fatigue and opened up his mouth to express a bit. On the way to the Tennis lesson in the afternoon, he said, "I felt like blue and gray when I was not called. (meaning that his name was not called as the top three)."

I told him, "Well, mama felt for you and for your teacher. I just felt hurt for the feelings that you were experiencing, I hope you knew that you did not disappoint any of us".

He smiled. Now, Erik is a man of few words. Expressing feelings would not be an every day thing. He would express in his grin, bright eyes, little jumps, or a tongue hanging out like a puppy dog.... etc but he would not easily articulate. His quick answer with a tone of excitement stated, "At lunch time, it started to change in to Red,Yellow and Brown. Remember? at lunch, Dr.I and we did a toast with our coke? That is when the color changed". Wow. I will forever remember this conversation. It validated that my son, did feel sad, even though he did not show much emotion at all or he said everything was fine. But yesterday, at the time of our conversation, what impressed him the most was the fun he had afterwards. So, I emphasized to him again that he shined right up there with all of them. No one really outshined him like I have seen in the past when he first began playing. The judge would be totally blown away if she knew how long or short Erik has been playing vs how long the top three have been playing. I reminded Erik, "You definitely win an award if there is such a thing that rewards you for how much you accomplish in a year". And, only we know how much he has done in a short time. The reward does not have to come from others. We as parents must create that sense of accomplishment and joy from within. Can you tell? I am recovering as well.

Yesterday morning, he could not wait to get to the piano to re-play those pieces he played at the competition on Saturday as if to see if he could play it better than what he did. It was interesting to watch what may have been going through his mind. I told him that I would always enjoy hearing those pieces so use them as his work out or whatever to keep them as his repertoire. He agreed.

Today, he and I both felt exhausted. I do believe that, although he never seemed terribly nervous or mentally tensed about the prep toward the competition, he had been holding some part of him with tension of some kind. We both felt like deflated balloons. He snuggled up on the couch with me and took a short nap. Sweet moment.

I did ask him yesterday if the experience in Baton Rouge made him re-think about how much to put into piano in the future. He looked at me like "what are you talking about? I want a new piece". was the answer. I told him to take a break. He agreed and said he would take half a week off. Don't know where he came up with "half a week". But I caught him at the piano for a very short time this afternoon thumbing through the book I recently bought. He knows that I struggled through the piece. He does have a bit of competitiveness emerging. If I say, I can't play such and such, he seems to want to give it a try to see if he could.....

OK, you would probably not read again about Baton Rouge or Mike the Tiger on my blog in the future. This is behind us.