I Am a Gemstone

This week I attended a meeting of lady professionals who gather to encourage each other to dream bigger.  When my turn came to introduce myself, I explained how I liked so many different things that I felt fractured and in need of direction.  I was reminded that I was not “fractured.”  Instead I have many “facets.”  I am a large gemstone who is new to the Northern California area as the majority of my family has migrated up this way and I have eventually followed.  I am looking forward to what this year will bring as in -  new friends and opportunities and more family involvement.  It’s quite exciting really.

Walk In Peace

Peacetime and Childhood Fun

When I was young I lived on a block with many children.  Directly across from our side of the street was an empty field filled with tall green weeds.  There was a large mound of dirt slightly in the middle.  That was home base for when we wore green and played hide-and-seek.

We rode scooters and bicycles.  Some of the neighbor’s yards had tether ball or a swimming pool.  We played badminton, croquet and board games.   Monopoly was my favorite.  We all shot basketball hoops. 

On the week-end we would go to the neighborhood park and dance four-square or make crafts.

I liked to do large puzzles on the floor.  My four younger brothers liked to stomp on them.  Ugh!

My brother collected snakes and rats and frogs and guinea pigs.  I had a canary that would sing so beautifully.  I also had parakeets.  Our family had a series of dogs, the last and longest being Jeannie, a chubby and sweet Weimaraner.

I also remember jumping rope for many years.

What fun!  One of my favorite memories is when my father would sand and refinish our wood floors with wax and then we would invite all the kids over, give them big white gym socks to wear, and they would help us polish the floors by sliding and gliding on them.

Eventually they sold the land across the street and built new fancy houses.  Then came a day when all the appliances were delivered in huge cardboard boxes, which we kids brought over to my back yard.  We had a huge kid city.  Everyone had their own cardboard house.  Fantastic!

We got TV when I was four years old.  The tube would blow out once and awhile and sure get my Dad mad.  We watched many cowboy shows, the Mickey Mouse Club, Lassie, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Robin Hood, Howdy Doody, Woody Woodpecker, Rin Tin Tin, Superman, Popeye, Road Runner and Huckleberry Hound.  So many of the shows had classical music behind them.  Quite educational!

One of the best things are remember about my childhood was that there was PEACE, as in – no wars.  Peacetime and learning and fun with many other children.

John Lennon Piano Lesson

John Lennon Piano Lesson

When I was a child I studied the piano for an hour a day for six years.  I was a very thin child and had a frizzy permanent hair style done up by electric curlers and chemicals in a student salon.  I performed for the relatives when they came to visit.

The piano was beautiful with many curves and curliques and it was my responsibility to dust and polish it.  I had a piano bench that opened and my sheet music was kept inside.

I started playing when I was six years old, taking lessons from a woman who lived a couple of blocks away.  I loved the long walk to her mysterious house past large yards with fruit trees growing in them.  I was her youngest student and could not comprehend chords and chord progressions, but I was good at reading the notes.

Eventually , when I was about eight years old, I was asked to perform “Fur Elise”  with an adult orchestra at the Hotel Biltmore in Los Angeles.   I was the proverbial child in a pinafore dress being highlighted during the middle of the orchestra’s performance.  As I began to play, my consciousness shot out of my body and lingered on the ceiling.  I was amazed  that my fingers kept playing as they should.  I figured that that is the benefit of practicing a lot.  As my part ended and the orchestra started back up I slipped back into my body and never thought of the incident again until I was in my early twenties and heard of astral travel.  H-m-m-m,  I wonder if that is what happened to me.

After awhile I became resentful that I always had to practice while I heard the other children playing outside.  When I was eleven, I had asked my Mother if I could play modern music (folk music and pop songs).  She said no.  I got mad and told her to get rid of the piano.  And so she did because she thought another was going to be given to us by a relative, which didn't happen. So sad.

Fast forward to my mid twenties and I had another piano.  This was an old high boxy piano that I had painted pictures on.  One night John Lennon and Harry Nilsson came to my house and I played piano with them sitting on each side of me.  I called it my John Lennon piano lesson as it seemed he was showing me how to loosen it up and tinkle on the keys a little more.  I was playing “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling.” 

The next day May Pang called me on the phone and we talked about piano lessons.  After that John’s tour manager came to visit and wanted me to travel to South America with him, which I said no to.  He told me that no one liked Yoko Ono and showed me a photograph of Salvadore Dali that he had pinched from her.

John Lennon was my favorite Beatle so I'm sure you can imagine how astonished I was to play piano with him.