"What's the best thing that happened to you today?" I asked over coffee last week. He thinks for a moment before answering.

The reply is usually as simple as the question itself:

A moment of creative inspiration
A feeling of accomplishment
A kind word

It's a simple question and a meaningful daily practice. One that tilts our perspective toward the positive. It's an invitation to recognize those small moments that may be too easily forgotten, dismissed as too small or insignificant, lost in the shadow of something bigger and more dramatic.

(Because we all have those moments in our days.)

But what's really important? What do you want to remember?

A few weeks ago, I pulled out one of my old piano scores:

”The Italian Concerto” by J.S. Bach

It's a piece I played for my Eastman audition, a piece I knew almost backward and forward at the time. I've come back to it at various points in my career when I want to reconnect to the art or remember why I started.

I was thumbing through the pages one night after dinner, admiring all the markings my teacher added into the score—a different colored pen for every lesson. I stumbled through the first reading, my fingers stiff, struggling to remember how the notes go.

But then, something surprising happened.