“I told everyone that when I turned 70, I would start the cello and spend my retirement playing Bach,” writes Anne Burt on Thursday (6/16) at Time.com. “Fast-forward 30 years: I’m a 47-year-old working mother/stepmother of two teenage girls…. One day I listened in as my daughter and stepdaughter explored the exciting activities awaiting them as they prepared to start high school… ‘Why should I join the band?’ said [one]. ‘It’s not like I’m going to make a living as a musician.’ I was taken aback by their timidity in the face of opportunity. When did my kids absorb the message that high school extracurriculars were about pre-professionalism, not pleasure? I never had the talent to be a working musician, but from childhood to today, music was part of my life. Then I realized it wasn’t…. My kids knew nothing about my passion for making music. I realized that I couldn’t wait until I was 70…. So now I’m playing Bach. Badly. And I love it…. The child who balked at joining the band: encouraged (I can only hope) by my own flight of musical fancy, she signed up to play the baritone sax. It’s now her favorite extracurricular activity.”
Posted June 21, 2016
