it went so fast

I haven’t been documenting my life in the usual Music Shiverian manner.

I can’t believe I’m a mere … nine days?! … away from being received officially into the Orthodox church.  Suddenly I’m realizing I need to get *clothes* for this occasion.  Godmomma has a cross for me that she bought in Greece (have I mentioned Godmomma yet?  She was my grade one teacher and happened to end up in this church too, and Father M. thought it would be fitting for her to be my godmother).

On Saturday I had an informal Christmas recital with approximately half of my students.  I’ve taken to having more recitals with less of my students attending each one.  Everyone gets out to at least some of them, and the little kids are able to sit through the whole thing.  The twice-or-thrice-a-year marathons can be tough.  It’s a bit more work and time to have more recitals, but honestly, I find it more pleasant.  And those of my students who are keeners get the chance to perform more often, which makes a huge difference to their development.

I watched with delight some of the community that is growing among my kids and their families.  One girl who started with me when she was 4 used to stare in shy awe at the girl who started with me a year before her.  Now they are friends who visit each other (though the younger one still is in awe of the older one, who is in Suzuki Book TWO!).  The older girl has a friend at school who was inspired in part by her to start piano lessons this year.  I’ve already mentioned him on OD before.  He wants so badly to get through Book One to catch up, and he’s zooming through it at an amazing rate.  This was his first performance.  I saw him and his friend comparing their "sticker caterpillars" in the fronts of their books (I keep track of when they have learned their right hand, their left hand, and hands together in each piece.  This makes three columns of happy face stickers on the Table of Contents.  This evolved in my Suzuki teaching for two reasons: I like them to see their progress, and it helps me to keep track of where everyone’s at because with more and more students, I don’t always remember … ).

After the recital, as I was putting something away in the school’s kitchen and everyone else was just outside the kitchen eating refreshments, the younger girl I mentioned came running around the corner to the kitchen door.  She burst out, "Miss Music Shivers, I LOVE you!"

I wasn’t sure I’d heard her right, so I cupped my ear with one hand.

She hesitated, eyes big, then said, "I LOVE you!" again.

I said, "Oh!  I love you too!" and gave her a big hug (she flung her arms around my neck).  She ran away afterwards, smiling shyly.

In the moment it felt absolutely Right.  I had a little twinge of paranoia later – is it "okay" to tell your students you love them? – but that’s just silly.

On Sunday, my church choir and my mother and I went to see Oma in her nursing home.  We sang carols and a few liturgical Orthodox nativity things, and then Mom and I played German carols on violin and guitar.  A few of us stayed longer to chat with Oma in her room.  I was so, so proud of her.  She was mustering all her energy to be a gracious hostess.  I could cry thinking of how she motioned to my friends to please sit down.  When it was time to go, I asked if she’d like to pray with us before we left (she often likes to pray with guests when they say goodbye).  We stood in a circle with her, holding hands (she stood up and leaned on her walker with me on one side, Mom on the other).  She prayed the longest, most exuberant German prayer I’ve heard from her in a long time, with an old voice that sometimes outright disappeared.  But I understood most of it.  She was talking about heaven and singing and friends; and at one point she very clearly said (in German) "I can’t praise you enough."

RUOG said to me when we left, "When your Oma said goodbye, and that when we met in Heaven, we’d know each other, she looked JUST like Father G."  Father G. is a "living saint" according to some of my Orthodox friends.  He lives in a hermitage with some other monks, and RUOG goes to visit him once in a while when he feels "dried up" or like he needs some peace or guidance.  Mother A, the nun who hangs out at our church, says that it’s impossible to be worried or confused around him.  So I gather that RUOG comparing Oma to Father G. is a huge compliment.  But I always knew Oma was saintly.

I look around at my little apartment and see, not perfection, but contentment.  Hmm.  I need to vacuum.  But my teaching stuff has been put away for once, and candles are lit (there’s a Christmassy scent in the infuser), and on the piano is the music I might sing tomorrow night at Vespers.  The "marriage afghan" Oma crocheted for me is shmooshed into a corner of the couch.  The stockings I made for the twins are hanging over the fireplace.  Astronomy magazines are piled on a shelf.  Tomorrow I’ll bake bread again and venture out into the cold for soup ingredients.  I like my life.

The other day I had a bit of a headache.  Luckily I wasn’t supposed to be anywhere at the time, so I just took a warm bath and relaxed.  I dozed in bed, and suddenly I was having a flashback.  I was 19, full of hideous doubt about choosing music instead of science.  I remembered the exact feeling of floundering.  Wondering if I could ever make a living at this, and wondering if I would ever be good enough at any aspect of it to really be satisfied with it, and … so, so heartbreakingly in love with it all.  Going to the Orpheum whenever I could to sink into new music I hadn’t heard before.  Listening to CBC2 at night to catch the VSO performances I’d missed (CBC2, rest in peace! but that’s another story and too depressing to insert here).  Crying over the keyboard when my wrist troubles acted up.  Anyway, as I dozed, I felt as if I was telling my younger self, who was floating in anxiety, "It’s okay.  It’s ten years later, and you’ve landed.  You’re okay," and I floated right over the ten years it took to get here, and landed solidly in the present, opening my eyes and sitting up with a huge sigh of relief and no headache.

I think I’ll read Romola over the Christmas break.  It’s one of the few George Eliot books I haven’t conquered.  And from what I gather, it’s the hardest one.

Vespers.  The "marriage afghan" Oma crocheted for me is shmooshed into a corner of the couch.  The stockings I made for the twins are hanging over the fireplace.  Astronomy magazines are piled on a shelf.  Tomorrow I’ll bake bread again and venture out into the cold for soup ingredients.  I like my life.

The other day I had a bit of a headache.  Luckily I wasn’t supposed to be anywhere at the time, so I just took a warm bath and relaxed.  I dozed in bed, and suddenly I was having a flashback.  I was 19, full of hideous doubt about choosing music instead of science.  I remembered the exact feeling of floundering.  Wondering if I could ever make a living at this, and wondering if I would ever be good enough at any aspect of it to really be satisfied with it, and … so, so heartbreakingly in love with it all.  Going to the Orpheum whenever I could to sink into new music I hadn’t heard before.  Listening to CBC2 at night to catch the VSO performances I’d missed (CBC2, rest in peace! but that’s another story and too depressing to insert here).  Crying over the keyboard when my wrist troubles acted up.  Anyway, as I dozed, I felt as if I was telling my younger self, who was floating in anxiety, "It’s okay.  It’s ten years later, and you’ve landed.  You’re okay," and I floated right over the ten years it took to get here, and landed solidly in the present, opening my eyes and sitting up with a huge sigh of relief and no headache.

I think I’ll read Romola over the Christmas break.  It’s one of the few George Eliot books I haven’t conquered.  And from what I gather, it’s the hardest one.