Once upon a time, there was a little girl… Her parents wanted to give her the best start in life. As parents do. They enrolled her on all kind of classes in the hope she would find something she likes and stick to it.

First she did music theory. Her dad was a dedicated follower of classical music – a proud owner of a huge collection of vinyl records of all operas and symphonies known to men. He sang in a professional chorus and was very keen on turning his daughter into a piano player. Or at least a chorus singer. She was making good progress and one day her tutor recommended moving onto the next stage – playing the piano. Then mum put her foot down and said: no way, this is far too noisy. We will be disturbing the neighbours and it will give me headaches. So, no! That was that.

Then she joined a school chorus. She really liked singing, but what she didn’t like was her own height. Standing on the back row on the platform on stage was ever so scary. Plus… she hated to tower over the rest of her classmates – as if she needed yet another reminder of how tall she was! And she didn’t like the idea of having raw eggs to enhance her voice. Yuk. That was that!

Then she took swimming classes. Or, shall we say,  a class. This is how long her swimming lasted for. It happened during a very cold winter season. Her family didn’t have a car and the swimming centre was not particularly close to their come. Whether she didn’t dry her hair properly, or for whatever other reason, she got a nasty chest infection, so mum said No, you will get ill every time you go swimming, and your health comes first! And… that was that.

Then she joined a drawing class. Wow, that lasted for months! She really enjoyed it (in fact, she still keeps her pieces of art on her shelves at her parents’ place). Nice hobby it was.

In the meantime, it turned out that she was very tall for her age. And that was the end of any other aspirations. She had to be a basketball player. Or, first, a volleyball player? Nah, she didn’t like that. Then a handball player. Really couldn’t be bothered, but kept going to the training sessions, as she was a good girl. Which went on for long enough to get her into the habit of throwing the ball in a way typical for handball only – really irritating for her basketball coaches in the next years to come. And, basketball it was – for many years. As much as she hated running, jumping, anything to do with sports, she had to do it – because it would have been a waste not to! After all, she was ever so tall! Even her dad abandoned his music dreams, as he would have loved his daughter to become a successful basketball star.

Years later… she didn’t end up doing any of these so called hobbies. She took her own path. While searching for her way in life, she realised that music was one of her biggest passions. The only thing was… she was no longer able to read notes.  She had lost all her musical skills and knowledge. She also realised that she loved writing. So she decided… to write about music. While being at uni she started hanging out with local bands. This is when she found her real self. That was what she loved doing. Going to gigs, interviewing the bands and writing about them became her thing. Alongside this, she took up more serious literature exercises and ended up being published in a prestigious nationwide literature magazine.

She thought she found the meaning of her life. Until one day she got married and moved to another country. Then life became a daily struggle. Music and writing moved to the bottom of her priorities. Doh.

But one day she connected with herself again. Let’s get writing. About music!