January

Dear friends of piano music,

with children, as is so often the case, everything seems a little different. I am always a little gloomy in January anyway - Christmas is over, winter with its gray, mush of snow – monotony seems endless. It always helps a little to leave the Christmas tree standing - for Catholics the Christmas season lasts until the beginning of February anyway, and that's a good thing because January is, as already noted, a synonym for dreariness. On walks my children pity the colleagues of our little tree, as they have already been thrown carelessly on the street, although they really still had a lot of needles ... we also wonder whether the residents of the higher floors really bother to carry the trees all the stairs down (here in Heidelberg there are very seldom elevators ...) or whether they just throw them out of the window ... The sadness of this Corona January is increased significantly by the fact that the birthday parties are also omitted, especially my son´s children's birthday, which has to be postponed to the post-Corona period. We are very optimistically planning a big, colorful party for May, but there is still a lot of time until then. Last year I still thought that it would be time for the little ones to learn an instrument, to start a new sport ... which is still puzzling, everything is canceled anyway, including school and kindergarten. Our car hasn't been moved for four months. Where should you go if you are not allowed to visit your friends and relatives, if all museums have closed, ... the thoughts become as monotonous as life, the conversations too. What else to talk about, besides Corona? But it's January after all, so what more could you ask for - I've never liked this month. And the equation input = output, it actually doesn't always work, as you can see with the children, who play so lively as always. The best example is one of my parents' neighbors, a five-year-old boy who does mischief all day. He tips over garbage cans, plays bell men, annoys the cat ... a lot of output, without any input! I'll take an example from him. January will be finally over, a third is already done ...

 Many Greetings!

Kerstin