I spent fourteen years of my life practicing – for ten minutes, for an hour, for four hours, always practicing: scales and etudes and sonatas and quartets and marches and orchestral excerpts. Hundreds of hours. I knew I wouldn’t be better unless I practiced. And I did get better. In inches and miles, fast and slow, and there was a joy in learning.

In spite of it, I think I can pick something up and be good at it first thing. If I’m not good immediately, intuitively, I can’t ever be good. As though we innately know things – how to paint, how to tell a great story, how to cook.

In the end, all things come back to practice. And then the “good” will come whatever way makes our hearts full. And almost never the way we expect.

So I am practicing. So many things. What happens next?