One of my sewing students was waiting for her mother to pick her up when she noticed my piano. Perhaps I am presumptuous to call it mine. Only John ever sits at the bench. In any case the child asked for permission to plunk. 

"Sure!" I answered, turning it on. Her petite fingers hopped like puddle jumpers across the keys. Those eyelashes were long enough to bear weight, and her blue eyes gazed at me with enough clarity to disarm a prosecuting attorney. 

"These ones are for scary," she confided, as her small hands hovered over the lowest octave. "These are for Christmas. And spring," she explained while tickling the high notes. 

Words were superfluous. She only needed the single strand of music to keep me spellbound.

A few weeks later her mother, who is both a jazz singer and composer, gave a workshop on writing lyrics as part of a writing retreat. She invited us to splat a random word on the page, then add connecting words like spokes. I began with "hidden", branching off into treasure, surprises, hunting, exploring, discover, lost, yearn, masked. The presenter handed out the lyrics to two well known songs for a starting point. The participants jimmied their phrases into the spaces left behind when you extract the originals. 

"Repetition is good," she promised us. Her assurance fit. There have been enough come-around-agains between me with my guitar and the silhouetted campers by a smoky fire, or the lingering worshippers after an evening vespers to resonate. No one ever griped that we did that part already. Lyrics come from a different fountainhead than parsimonious  thought. 

Reentering into regular life after the retreat, what splatted me in the face was the repetition. Dishes had waited for me in a sloppy stack. A slump of clothes. much like the one I had run before I left, loitered in a basket. Benjamin wanted lunch, even though he had enjoyed a fine enchilada the afternoon that I had said goodbye.  

Yet it was familiar too, in its redundance. This is my haven. Where the refrain is familiar enough to sing while I sort colors, chime in while I stack bowls. The retreat had been fresh, like a new verse. But it was simple to slide back into the routine. 

I hope her daughter comes back for another sewing lesson. Maybe we can even end early so she can play me the music that sounds like Christmas.