Salmon Le Sac

We went camping yesterday. Camping means staying in a hotel with my mom while my dad and brothers strive (and fail) to find empty campsites, and end up staying in a hotel down the road. It is hot and dusty on the other side of the mountains. After having breakfast at a cafe close to our hotels we went down to the river and watched people float by on inner tubes. I found little whirling eddies to dip Max's feet in. The sun had baked the rocks warm and the water was cold enough to turn your legs red.

I think about the Ciaconne. How it's spelled Ciacona and sometimes Chaconne. How I haven't practiced it the last two days. It lays inside me though, gathering momentum. Someone told me once that even if you don't physically pick up your instrument to practice, if you go through your music in your minds-eye, hearing and picturing all the movements that accompany practice, that your brain doesn't know that you actually are not doing it. And you will improve.

This sounds like an excuse to me.

I do it anyhow and let it assuage my guilt.

All day Max leaps with joy in my arms, delighted at the prospect of life. I whisper encouragement in his little Dopey ears. His exuberance is contagious.