"Your flute sounded nice last night," he said, as I remembered that he heard me play at Late Night Open Mic at the Depot with the house band.
"Thank you!" I said, feeling happy for his kind words.
"You must have been playing for a long time?" he asked. Maybe he was trying to gauge how long it would take for him to gain the skills he wanted.
"I learned in fifth grade, but there was a long break in there."
He stopped to tell me a bit about himself. Turns out that in 1972, he felt inspired to learn flute because he liked its sound. He tried guitar instead, but the strings hurt his fingertips, and his attention was distracted by other things, and time passed. Hearing our upbeat jazzy improv renewed his inspiration to learn how to play.
I hope he follows up on that.
I thank him here on this blog for confirming a pattern I noticed in several conversations like this:
One way for me to empower people is by first empowering myself and then living out loud. Lucky for me, I dig that design!