First, a cute picture of Clarissa. 🙂
And now about Lydia and the harp. For four years, I have watched as Lily and Lydia have spent so many hours wrestling over the harp. Lily trying to get Lydia to practice, and Lydia resisting or struggling with tears through her pieces. Finally, this week, Lily told Lydia that if Lydia wanted to keep doing the harp (and if we are going to buy her next harp required to continue at $10,000) that Lydia would need to take the initiative to practice on her own. Lily made a 100 chart for Lydia and said if it is complete by the end of August (that gives Lydia Sundays off and 8 or so freebie days), then we would continue harp and buy her next harp. We even told Lydia she could pick out her next harp if she decided to stick with it.
To our amazement, the very next day, Lydia was at her harp early in the morning knocking out her harp practice without anyone asking her to. And this has been going on for a few days now, where completely on her own initiative she gets it done. This IS a miracle. Lydia is so special, and Lily was so inspired to change the dynamic in this way. It reminds me of when Lydia and I went on a walk recently (Lily and I walk around the block multiple times almost every night, but one night, I did rounds with just Lydia), and Lydia told me that if someone asks her to walk she wont want to, but if she’s able to just walk as much as she wants on her terms she could go forever.
In addition to this practicing breakthough, we had another breakthrough in her performing. Lily got a video of Lydia playing today to submit for a competition. Lydia played remarkably.
Here is the link to the video.
Here is a message Lily posted on facebook about it.
“These are Lydia’s festival pieces. Can I please just say that I am SO PROUD of this girl!! As a perfectionist, she struggles a lot a lot a lot during harp practice and over the years has probably spent at least a hundred hours just weeping at her instrument. (Actually that’s a gross underestimation.) We have given her multiple real opportunities to quit. But she has so much grit and even though she does not like practice, she loves the harp and always chooses to keep at it. Also she has the best harp teacher, Anamae Anderson, and I feel so grateful she has patiently and diligently invested so much into my daughter.”
Lydia got so many comments and likes on Facebook. I am soo proud of Lily for getting Lydia to this moment and especially proud of Lydia for sticking it through and now taking ownership to find mastery in this beautiful instrument.
I.Love.My.Family.