My daughter sent me some wonderful music today that was on YouTube. On the screen was an eleven-year-old boy who was participating in the Menuhin Violin Competition that took place in 2018. The young man played several pieces, and from my perception of musical talent, will be one of the great violin virtuosi of the future.

Listening to him play, I couldn't help remembering the years I spent at the Julliard School of Music in New York City back when I was five years of age. Although I studied piano, being accepted into their program was predicated upon competition. But what really mattered was how much the music added to the rest of my life.

From that time until today, I have continued to love music, and spend much of my time listening to YouTube.

As a piano student, music became the center of my days until I was in my early teens, and what remained was a person who loved music for the rest of her life.

Now at eighty four, I consider it a blessing to be able to listen to this amazing child play the violin, and it came to mind that hopefully he will be guided to continue studying and perform for the rest of his days.

Sometimes I regret that I left the piano and went on to other interests. However, I can't blame my parents for agreeing to that decision. I chose to discontinue my piano studies, and although they tried to convince me that continuing would be the right direction for me to take, I no longer wanted to devote my life to the piano. Though they threatened to get rid of my baby grand piano, I wanted to go to a certain junior high school that required my full time attention, and I did so.

Ironically enough, life carried me in still another direction, and upon graduating from junior high school, I took the test for the new High School of Performing Arts and had the ultimate joy in having been accepted in the first drama class and getting to know people like Dom Delouse and others who turned up on the movie screens while I became a college professor who tried to help my students find their way to where their dreams took them.

I regret not a moment of the trip I have taken in life, and I must remember to send a copy of what I have shared here to my daughter.