As I sit here listening to Reflections by Thelonious Monk and gazing at my one week old baby daughter, my first child, and my last, my girlfriend informs me ;-), I find my thoughts drifting back across time to my own childhood. More than that, I reflect over the paths that I have chosen and how they have led me here to another country, often another language, and as a jazz musician all over northern Europe and Scandinavia. I’m living a life that my child self would never have dreamed possible, even ten years ago I had no idea life could be this fulfilling.
As I look at her impossibly tiny, and extraordinarily long and elegant fingers, I wonder where will her choices take her? With fingers like that, will she be a pianist like the great Thelonious Monk? Or a champion dartswomen? or a professional pick pocket?
Whatever she does in life I hope she has the courage to chase her dreams, and the good fortune to achieve at least some of them.
