Music
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Naptime
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When we were children, our mother was adamant about my brother, David, and me taking naps every day. I was probably five or six and David was two years younger. It would have been in the summer because otherwise she was at work in the afternoons. Or maybe it was after she had had a baby (two more after David) and was staying home for a while. We hated those naps. Or at least I did. I hated them fiercely. We had to stay in our rooms, not necessarily on the bed. David and I were always separated, he to my parents' room and me in the children's room. Most days my mother would sit down at her grand piano and begin to play. She was a musician and played both the piano and the violin.
I would be lying on the floor or my bed when she would start to play. As soon as I would hear the notes, sadness would well up from somewhere inside and I would begin to cry. The music she played was so sad! Tears would stream down my face and I would sob. I just couldn’t help it. I wasn’t thinking of sad things; it was the music that made me cry. I have disliked classical music all my life because it makes me sad. Now that I am older, I wonder if I was sad because, through her music, my mother expressed her own sadness. She was a woman who rarely ever expressed her feelings in words. In fact, she seldom told us children anything that was related to feelings. She did talk to us and carry on the day-to-day-living conversations; but she never explained why we did certain things, why this or that was important nor did she ever ask us what we might be feeling at any time. I am certain now, after all these years, that that nap time music made me feel sad because it was expressing my mother’s feelings. Four young children, a difficult husband, demanding work, and, we lived far, far away from her family of origin and where she grew up. All those challenges and how she felt about them, were, I believe, expressed through her music. To this day, my first response to classical music is sadness. |
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Barbara Applegate is a retired administrator of Early Childhood Education, mother of three daughters, a traveler and contemplative. She enjoys writing but finds it challenging to write consistently. She loves taking writing classes—not just because she learns from them, but because they give her structure for writing.
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Vistas & Byways Review is the semiannual journal of fiction, nonfiction and poetry by members of Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at San Francisco State University.
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Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at San Francisco State University (OLLI at SF State) provides communal and material support to the Vistas & Byways volunteer staff.
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