The Brookston Family Blog
• • • • •

A couple of new pieces of art came home with Porter recently and I realized he hasn’t had a showing in a while.

This is Porter’s post-cubist take on the traditional turkey. Rather then render a straight interpretation of the Thanksgivig bird, Porter chose instead to play with the forms and boil it down to the essential parts. Personally, I think it looks eerily like Snuffleupagus.

This is a wreath of leaves that Porter made it O.T. on Wednesday. I find the use of dead leaves a sad reminder that everything dies, and so it’s a mature work exploring, as it does, the very sober issues of what it means to be alive. It’s nice to see Porter expanding his repertoire with such weighty issues. He chose the round wreath design because it symbolizes the circle of life and the changing colors represent the various stages of life itself.

So after the article in the Chronicle this morning, I did a little research on when it’s appropriate for a kid to start piano lessons. Not surprisingly, there’s no absolute answer, but there are some guidelines. Some sources say it’s best to start early, between three and five, other say four to six, and some say not until they’re around six. Most admit that if you start them by the time they’re nine, they’ll get the same benefits as learning a foreign language in the sense that they’re minds are still open and receptive to it. A few people whined about not starting too young because the kids wouldn’t be focused enough but I figure just stay away from piano teachers who hold that opinion; they’re probably not good with kids, anyway, if they feel that way.

So it sound like there are two things we’d have to do before we can start Porter on piano lessons.

1. Find a teacher who specializes in young children and perhaps even has some experience with special needs kids, if not autism itself.

2. Get a piano. The digital pianos with virtually the same action (how the keys respond to different pressure to play loud or soft) have come down in price a lot, so that seems like the best option. And not just because of price, they also take up a lot less room and can be stored out of sight, unlike a full size piano, even an upright. Plus, I’m not keen to have to move a piano up our stairs.

For those of you who haven’t braved the novel I’m writing on-line, it’s about a man going home after twenty years to confront the demons of his past at his grandmother’s funeral. You know, a comedy. The grandmother character, known in the book as Veronica “Chulkie” Schaeffer, was loosely based on my father’s mom, who I called “Bushie” throughout her life. Anyway, I just realized I missed her birthday, which was last week on the 10th. So here is a belated birthday wish to my much-loved and very much missed grandmother. She passed away in the mid-1980s when she was in her mid-80’s (she was born in 1900), but she succumbed to what was probably Alzheimer’s a number of years before that (in those days they still called it dementia, believe or not) so I felt like I’ll lost her well before she actually died. I had just moved to California shortly before she passed away and at that time I was too poor to attend the funeral, which I really regretted. Anyway, she’d be 105 years old today. Please join me in wishing her a happy birthday.

This is the last photograph I took of her around 1981 or 82. It was during the period of time I was experimenting with black and white photography and I developed the photo myself.

This was her wedding photo. I’m not sure exactly when this was, but a good guess would be somewhere between 1918 (when she would have been 18) and, say 1930 (you do the math). But that’s really only a guess. I don’t know when she married my grandfather, Stosh (That’s what everybody called him. His real name was Stanley). Sadly, I don’t remember him, except in very small flashes of memory. The other woman in the photo is Bushie’s sister, my Aunt Stella, but I have no idea who my grandfather’s best man was.

Alice, Grandpa and I were waiting for Porter when his school bus arrived. He was very happy to see us, but especially Grandpa, and he ran up the hill to give him a welcome hug.

Hurrying off the bus in a blur.

Running up the hill to hug Grandpa.

Woo Hoo! I’m 50% or half-way done with my 50,000 words this November. I wrote my 25,022nd word a few minutes ago in the middle of Chapter 28 (of 34) of the Ghosts of Autumn for NaNoWriMo. Only 24,978 words to go! I’m still around 2,200 words off the pace I’ve set for myself, which is 1,700 words per day. So I’ve caught up a little bit more, and I’m only about one and change days behind. Hopefully, I’ll be caught up again in a couple of days.

There was an article in the San Francisco Chronicle today about a study done at Stanford that appears to reveal that children who take music lessons are also better readers because of how learning music benefits the language skills. What stood out for me, specifically, was that they indicated it was especially helpful for kids “who aren’t good at rapid auditory processing,” which is Porter’s problem in a nutshell. I’ve always wanted him to take piano lessons but I had figured it would have to wait. But if it may help his language development, as this new study cautiously seems to say, then perhaps now is the time for him to Shine.

Napping was again a struggle this morning and Alice only got about an hour as opposed to her usual three. But she still seemed in a good mood. It looks like her cycles are changing but the challenge will be to figure what the new schedule will be and work with it.

Alice with her Aquarium of the Bay stuffed starfish.

Alice practices with her light sabre to vanquish the forces of evil.