Tonight I came across a stack of CDs in my bedroom that I discovered while grabbing some freshly recharged AA batteries for my camera. There is a little magazine holder there that really is just holding a robe I never wear and, much to my surprise, a stack of discs. Included in this stack is the Anner Bylsma disc of Vivaldi Concertos that I had been missing (!) as well as Pink Martini’s second album, the Pierre Fournier Bach Cello Suites and the Getz/Gilberto classic. I happily brought the stack downstairs and immediately ripped the Vivaldi and put it on while the girls ate their dinner, and happily announced to Tamiko that I had found the disc. We played it a lot when I first shacked up with her in her apartment on Arch St. in Berkeley, and I mentioned how hearing the music reminded me of that time. She said that it reminded her of when Celia was being born, and that is when I realized that this was the stack of CDs that we took to the hospital with us for Celia and, three years later, with Mira. Not that we did much listening during Celia actually being born (I really only remember hearing Bach Cello Suites that day, early in the process… after that is mostly a blur until Celia was out and all of us had quiet moments here and there over the next couple of days). We had a couple days in the hospital after both girls were born, and the well-known music playing in the background helped prepare both of them, from day 1, for the house of music they would be moving back into.

When I had the Vivaldi on this morning, Celia did some ballet like dancing. She is just as elegant as the music is, and though she is making up almost everything there is doing, I already see a bit of virtuosity in her mind for body movement. Mira laughs as I sing along with Joao Gilberto, and I love that in their life times, my girls have heard music from five continents and over ten centuries. They have adapted it to their own, and can focus on it at times, and enjoy it in the background. The Arvo Pärt disc we also had at the hospital still puts Mira (who turns two in a week) to sleep every night, and Celia moves between Bach and Dowland.

People often ask me if when I am going to start the girls on music lessons. Often I get a shocked glance back when I say ‘when they ask’. They have their hands on instruments whenever they want to, from violins and upright grand pianos to flutes for the bathtub that you tune with water. There is a two octave kid accordion as well. They both dance, and they are both around music everyday. They sing. I’m not worried about forcing anything musical into my girls’ lives. They are already musical, and I cherish that there is so much joy in their lives because of it.