stubborn hope

I’ve lit four candles to rebel against the darkness.

I’m at my parents’ house.  I came in the afternoon to do some recordings with Mom for a CD we’re making for Oma for Christmas.  I was supposed to then go downtown with Mom and Dad, to my sister’s apartment for more recordings, but I just wasn’t up to it.  I have been lounging here with P2, both of us coughing regularly …

Ms Spur has given in to a cough again too; this is the THIRD wave of sickness we’ve had since September!

There is sadness around me.  Ms Spur has had a rough weekend of suddenly going limp after eight weeks of "keeping going" no matter what.  P2 has had a rough weekend of finding out, at a party, that his ex-girlfriend is getting married (in fact, practically being there when she got engaged!).  My dad has had a rough month or so of wondering whether he will still have his teaching job next September (his school might have to make cuts).  My mom is sad that an insensitively-worded e-mail from an uncle of mine to a family e-mail list resulted in an escalation of responses that culminated in my uncle basically saying "screw it" to the family togetherness thing (exactly what Oma doesn’t need this Christmas, her first in her new life away from her little white house).

I was lying on the couch just now, dozing, I suppose, except that it felt more like being sedated against my will, and suddenly I had a picture of a completely different life: it’s difficult to describe except in the fleeting images that passed through my mind in quick succession – a girl on a chair reaching for something from the spice rack; a man playing a guitar in his living room while his family sings; someone reading aloud from a book and being *listened* to.  I got up from the couch and started a kettle boiling for tea, and lit the candles.

I think it’s partially my period that’s making me so susceptible today to the emotions swirling around me.  But I do have a little raft of Reason on which to float (I’m thinking of the passage about the bear in That  Hideous Strength … ), and I am now sitting here sipping my tea and reasoning with myself.

This morning Trooper picked me up and took me over to her house for the most decadent breakfast I’ve had in years (prepared by Mr. Trooper).  I brought the maple syrup (a can from A Curious Mango, which I’d been saving since the summer), but all the other stuff was there waiting for me: French toast, sausages, bacon, cinnamon buns, coffee … there was blueberry syrup and whipped cream and cinnamon frosting and flavoured coffee cream … and after the breakfast, Trooper and I played games with her younger son.  There was something where we "rolled" two little pig figurines like dice, and the way they landed gave a certain number of points …  Then "Rack-O" which I remember trying to figure out as a child (it’s still sitting in my parents’ linen closet, I believe) …  And finally something called "Apples to Apples," a word association game that was frequently hilarious …

Yesterday was a long teaching day.  From 10 to 11:30 I taught the three siblings who are of Mennonite extraction but who otherwise have nothing in common with me; they worry me with their unabashed materialism and laziness.  They all three have musical talent, and excellent ears, but it has been hard work trying to train them to practice efficiently at home.  They want to play pieces of music, not drill one measure until it’s right.  So they start at the familiar beginning, and give up as soon as it gets hard.  I have been using my backwards technique on the oldest girl, forcing her to get the last bar of a piece perfect, then the penultimate bar, etc., so that after learning the unknown bit, she finds herself suddenly in familiar territory, and confidently plays through to the end.  I think this reinforces concentration in a way that starting at the beginning of a piece doesn’t.  Starting at the beginning means that you tune out for a long time until you get to the hard part where you have to chisel your way forward.  Attention wanes, the mind tires.  Going backwards means that you have one supreme effort of learning something new, immediately rewarded with the relaxation of knowing the rest of the piece.  I am, of course, extremely careful to go forward mentally in my head first, in order to have the right fingerings at the start of each bar.

From 12 to 12:45 I had my last lesson (this year, anyway) with a Korean girl whose mother very badly wants her to take an RCM exam.  She can do it; she’s keen enough; but they are going back to Korea and aren’t sure when they will be back.  They have promised to come back to our lessons and do an August exam.  I feel we have barely started on the necessary stuff, but ah well.

From 1:30 – 2 I taught my youngest student, possibly the most knowledge-thirsty student I have ever had.  She’s five and zooming along in the Suzuki method at a terrific rate.  When I see her parents and her baby brother, I practically get misty-eyed.  All that love.  No wonder she is so secure.  The funny thing is that this girl was three years old when she took an Orff class with Ms Spur, that I assisted in at the time; so we have a previous connection, which neither of us consciously remembers!  Only the mother remembered who I was.

From 2:30 – 3 I had my second-last lesson with a boy who will be moving away next year.  He’s working on a Chopin Nocturne.  We analyzed its form and tracked the differences in ornamentation in corresponding parts.  He shaped phrases expressively.  He is capable of real music.

In between all these things, I practiced some new pieces that I had to perform at a gig in the evening …

I ran home (stopped at Safeway to get a bulb of garlic), made meat sauce a la Mom (secret ingredient), boiled pasta, wolfed down meal, and walked to my evening gig with a change of clothes and my music in a bag.  When I got there, I found an electric keyboard instead of the acoustic grand I had been expecting, but oh well, I’m nothing if not flexible.  Did a mic check with the two singers, hung out with them in the back feeling inexplicably  incapable of nerves while they chattered and "warmed up" (sang a few songs they liked), and then … ta-da; it happened, the music that had been new and scary in the morning was just something to toss off in the performance, the singers did well, and some people told me they cried.  I looked around the venue and thought how cheerful and Christmassy it was, but I thought this in a very detached sort of way.  Other performers included children’s choir and fiddling groups, and I felt like an isolated floating element in a very family-oriented event.  The only thing that broke through was when I passed the line of fiddlers about to go onstage, and no kidding, about eight of them were kids I knew from the music school, waving happily, calling "Music Shivers!!"  One girl knows me because she often has to wait in the lobby for her sister to finish her lesson before going home, around the time that I work in the office, and when I have no office work left to do, she will come over and talk to me about everything under the sun.  (Her older sister, while she waits, brings along craft projects for us to do!)  Another one knows me because I used to accompany her years ago when she studied voice with Ms Spur.  Two young boys on the verge of growth spurts acknowledged me shyly, one whose mother used to be in my adult orchestra, the other a violinist in a chamber ensemble I’ve been stepping in to coach when the regular coach isn’t around.  Yadda, yadda.  This was the moment in the evening that felt like Christmas.

Now back to Friday.  Baby classes in the morning with Trooper, a quick lunch, and then one lesson, and then preparation for my class recital.  It was remarkably short.  One girl, with whom I hadn’t been able to have a lesson this week, came half an hour early to do a playthrough for me on the grand piano.  But when she arrived with her dad, I said, "Would you like to try out the piano and the space by yourself first?"  She nodded gratefully.  I escorted her puzzled father out of the room and shut the door and led him down the hall into the lobby so that she wouldn’t happen to see us hovering outside.  This student in particular has been occupying my thoughts, because her parents have been so eager for her to do music, while at the same time breathing disappointment down her neck.  (I’m going to suggest that she’s old enough to come to lessons alone after the break.)  Ms Spur used to teach this girl in baby classes and Orff, and Ms Spur is certain that she has dyslexia.  Ms Spur has dyslexia herself and she knows some of the signs.  And Ms Spur thinks that the parents of this girl are sort of in denial about it.  I actually suspected it before Ms Spur mentioned it to me.  It comes up all the time when we work with notation.  Her ear is fantastic, and her sense of rhythm and expression and all that is, I believe, rather advanced, but I had the dickens of a time getting her to admit that she needs to read music on her own.  She also acts, so I said, "Just imagine if you had to learn every line by having someone else read it to you."  I used a scene from Toy Story one day, which seemed to really work on her imagination as well as make her laugh: You know those toy soldiers who spy on the birthday party to report on the new toys being unwrapped?  Do you remember the one who gets trampled or something, and he says, "Go on without me!"?  And the leader turns back and gets him and says, "A good soldier never leaves a man behind!" …  Well, I compared that to her eyes and her ears.  I said that her ears have to go back now and help her eyes catch up.  She seemed to get that.

Anyhoo, this girl, whose parents had seemed rather worried about her, totally shone at the recital.  She was one of the most prepared and the most confident.  A week before, I remember her saying to me anxiously in her lesson, "Do you really think I will have this ready in time?"  I said without blinking, "I know you will, if you work hard every day.  You can do it!"  And she did.

I’ve finished my tea.  I have made myself feel accomplished by going over the things that have happened in the last few days.  But I still feel wistful.  I’m yearning for those two weeks off.  I want to goof off and play happy music and dance and be silly.

Oh yeah.  I did that this morning.  I put on one of my Christmas collections, and Trooper, her son and I head-banged to "O Come All Ye Faithful" (I forget the artist), dancing around the living room while her son used his toy guitar to do cool licks.

—

I haven’t really said anything I wanted to say.

Oof, my heart.  Don’t be stupid.  It’s just the human condition.  Who do you think you are to wallow this way?