by Adria Dobkins
My mother started playing the cello when she was forty-six years old. She had always wanted to learn how to play, and finally, as a middle-aged mother of two teenagers, she decided to take lessons.
I listened to her scratch out “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” and slowly progress to more challenging pieces. To say I wasn’t her biggest fan is an understatement.
She would come to me with her frustrations, wanting to quit, and I wouldn’t say anything. I wasn’t very supportive.
It seemed to me a waste. Playing the cello wasn’t something my mother could put on her college applications. She was never going to play with the London Symphony Orchestra. I didn’t see the point.
But my mother’s point was not to please admissions officers or wow her peers. She did it just because.
It’s this strive for internal self-improvement that leads to a sort of glow. Knowing that you have done something special for no other reason but “because.”
