Piano Lessons

I apologize for not writing since February. I had every intention to write, but March has been a whirlwind… seven sick children, a new baby born on the 4th, more sick children…

Then I found this essay amongst my writings, and it's a good one (if you don't mind my saying so). If I had a list of top 5 life lessons learned in my 39 years so far of living, this would be one of them: wherever God puts me, I am there for a reason.

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Piano Lessons

I was young.

I was naive.

I was in need of money.

All good excuses, but that’s what they were, nothing but excuses. I should have done better, even if I hated the job. 

Stuck in a closet of a room with a piano and a kid who was somehow coerced into coming was not my idea of fun. For thirty long minutes, I listened as the student stumbled through Bach and tripped through Mozart. Good thing Beethoven’s already deaf, I thought, because he would wish he was after hearing this rendition of the ‘Moonlight Sonata’.

Finally, the hands of the clock gave me permission to release my prisoner. I watched through the window as the student ran to the awaiting car, away from my chamber of torture. Oh, how I too longed to feel the breeze on my skin and sunshine on my hair!

But tick tick tick, there was another student, another lesson, another few dollars to pay for gas.

I worked this job for five months, always hating it. I hated the fact that I had graduated from college with a degree in music but all my passion, ambition, and idealism were demoted to tinkling on a piano. I hated the fact that my working hours started when everyone else’s was just ending. Most of all, I hated the fact that not one of my students really, truly loved music, that it did not sing in their bones, course through their veins, or haunt their dreams. Music, for me, needed to be a matter of life and death. 

But I could not inspire my students anymore than a match can set fire to an ice cube. They came and they went, without consistency or commitment. Just as I was learning their names, they were gone. 

Yes, I was a cynic. I admit it now. I had graduated from Berkeley with a Bachelor of Arts in cynicism. But I was a dependable cynic. Every week, I was in that closet of a room with a piano, ready to teach.

In comes a new student. Anyone could see from his face that he would rather be on a baseball diamond or a football field than sitting at a piano. I didn’t even try Bach or Beethoven with him. I went straight to the Star Wars Piano Music for Beginners. He didn’t love it, but he at least worked through it. We’ll see how it goes next week, was my thought. If he comes back.

And he did come back. He must have been bribed. I could tell that he hadn’t practice. We tried the Star Wars music again. Okay, lesson done. We’ll see how it goes next week, I thought again, if he comes back.

The next week, he didn’t come back. I wasn’t surprised. (Did I mention that I was a cynic?) His time slot was filled by a new student, Barbara. Barbara was not what I expected. She was genuinely happy to see me. In her early 60s, retired, and ready to tackle something new, she came in with energy to spare. We started our lessons as all lessons started, and thirty minutes were over in a flash. Refreshing, to have a student who wasn’t dragged in by a herd of elephants, but I was hardened already. She won’t last, I told myself. I’ve seen it before: start lessons on a whim, but quit when you can’t play like a pro in four weeks.

I patted myself on the back when, four weeks later, Barbara didn’t come for her lesson.

Too bad, I enjoyed her, I thought. And too bad, I was stuck at work for thirty minutes and not getting paid for it.

I left my closet to find my boss.

“Hey, Rita, I forgot to tell you. About Barbara...”

Oh, I know, she decided she needed a different hobby, I sneered in my mind.

“…about Barbara... she died a few days ago.”

I stopped breathing. “...it was sudden, in her sleep, her daughter called...” none of that mattered. I returned to my closet, shut the door, and sat at the piano, the very piano where, only seven days ago, Barbara had sat and played. In all my idealism, I never thought that this would really become a matter of life and death.

And what were my last words to her?

“See you next week.”

Or, maybe... “Keep practicing!”

What would I have said instead, if I had known?

“Barbara, you are my best student. I enjoy our lessons immensely.”

Sounds overly sincere, the very opposite of cynical, but those were my thoughts, were they not?

But I chose not to express them. 

No, I chose not to give any more than the minimum required, when I should have given all of myself, tap danced on top of the piano for her, baked her lemon bars, brought in CDs to listen to together, our hearts melting at the genius of Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven. No, I had thirty minutes every week with Barbara, and I threw them away.

I saw her only as a student, a paycheck, another lesson, when she was so much more: a mother, a grandmother, a friend, a human being. She was an inspiration, to strive to learn piano when most people would say, “It’s too late!” She was a music lover, to desire the key to music-making when others would say, “You’re wasting your time.” But she didn’t waste her time, not on piano lessons, not at my piano. For she taught me, when I was full of longing to be elsewhere, full of pride and apathy, full of myself. She had less to regret in her last week of living than I had in my last thirty minutes of teaching. She was the match that set an ice cube on fire. 

My ice cube.

Soon after Barbara’s death, I was hired to teach at a local junior and senior high school. I told my boss that I had to resign because I couldn’t juggle both jobs. He mentioned something to me about Barbara.

“Yes, I’ll miss her,” I responded. Because I’ll never forget her.

My new job was rough, my new classroom a little more than a closet. Instead of a piano, I had desks, textbooks, and a white board, and instead of one unenthusiastic student, I had twenty at a time. But for fifty minutes a day, five days a week, I gave all of me. My enthusiasm permeated the room like perfume, my fervor set them on fire. Even the most apathetic of students could not discourage me. And after finishing one quarter with a class of seventh-graders, I sat down and wrote a ‘thank you’ note to each of my students. I did the same with my high-school choir at the end of the year, my music class the next year, my graduates at the end of my third year. Whenever I had the chance, I told my students how much I enjoyed them, what potential they held, and how they made me smile, whether it took one minute, thirty minutes, or fifty minutes to do so.

There were no excuses anymore.