Twilight on Amsterdam after a snowy day

Snow days never get old.   A whole day off!  I slept in, practiced for awhile, did some administrative work, and then because I wanted to get out and had some coupons to use, went for a longer than anticipated walk to a CVS 25 blocks away.  Every corner was a puzzle of icy water and snow mounds.  I once stepped around a man that was concerned about an elderly woman, overseeing her step.  Another time, offered my hand to a gingerly stepping gentleman that chose to go solo.  People were out and about, being New Yorkers again after a beautiful appearance from mother nature in our urban jungle.

Twilight on Amsterdam after a snowy day

High Time

What is the value of a person?  What is their time worth?   It's impossible not to think about it, perhaps especially so, living in New York.  People are paid a lot of money here, and people are not paid a lot of money.  Many of them work very very hard for the high salaries they have, and unlike California, the new trends of ball pits in the office seem very unfamiliar to the attitude here.  People are expected to work hard.  It's a hard working city.  But how hard can a person work?  $100/hour, $200, $1000?  How much can we value a person and their time?  And what of all the people that we need that are not valued at such a rate?  Who will run the subways?  Who will check us out at the grocery store?  Who will teach our children?  Who will administer our health care?  Who will fix our elevators and escalators to take us up to the top floors?

End of the Day

Usually after my last lesson on Tuesday I use the restroom, refill my water, double-check the room and turn off the lights.  It means that my last student and her father head out a bit before me.  But tonight I had been able to pull things together quickly enough that we shared the elevator down to the first floor and walked along the street.  Her father speaks English but seems a little shy to do so, and her loquaciousness easily balances it.  I found myself walking between them, listening to her tell me a story about her teacher.

About halfway down the block she skipped to my other side to say something to her father, something in a language I don't know, but which I understood well enough to mean, "Hey aren't we going to Dunken Donuts?"  It was a bit of a tradition for them after lessons, but he said something and she skipped back over by my side and said they would walk with me to the subway and then go back.  It turned into them going back to their neighborhood where there would be another opportunity, about an hour away.  She so happily talked the whole time, a stark difference from her tall, silent father, who says as much with his eyes, smiling very gently at his daughter.

How wonderful to share the end of the day, walking between these two.  So often as a teacher I feel the need to oversee students, to guide and protect them, but sometimes they teach me far more.

S. M. And L. E.

There are some days when a student comes into my room and immediately proceeds to play on the piano that I think, "OMG, get out your cello and sit down."  And other days, like today, when I somehow have the good will to say, "Waking up the piano?" And then guide them through getting out their instrument and starting a productive lesson.

In a later lesson, after guiding a student through a mentally taxing pattern, he took the opportunity while I spoke with his mother about it, to ask to get a drink of water.  I said, Of course, and after he had left the room his mother somewhat apologetically said, "You know he has ADHD so I just let him...."  It was a funny thing because I have been working with him for over 7 months and while a diagnosis had never come to me, his attention span is quite noticeably short and hard to grasp (for both of us, I think).  Also funny because she sets high expectations for him, really digs into his work, is one of the most attentive parents in the lessons and loyal in their home practices.  I had no problem with him getting water, but that she didn't protest it was more surprising.  She pushes him out of devotion and love and although she spoke of fits in their practice, she has raised an incredibly polite and courteous child, despite the challenges he must experience with his focus.   Her saying this to me, opening a wider picture of their existence individually and together, made it easy to keep finding him in the rest of the lesson, to get closer to him, to guide his attention a little more tightly.  

How wonderful are people.  What beautiful beings. 

To Listen

Where does control begin and end?  How much can I hope or expect to confer to the parents of my students, or to my students themselves?  How much do I assume?  How much am I  blinded by that assumption?  

More and more listening seems to be the best path to walk.  It is also often the hardest one to remember.  How deeply can we listen to one another and to our own intuition?  For me, the act of listening more deeply to a student is similar to a wish I might make of their flattened fingers, their straight thumbs, their crooked bows.  Look at what is there, notice what is happening.  Be aware of yourself and how the world is falling upon you now, how you are treading upon it.  It is a delicate but direct dance.  Something that is open, but powerfully aimed.  

Field Trip to Jazz at Lincoln Center

The M5, usually quiet on mid-morning weekdays was full of pre-adolescent children.  The few adults that were riding it, found a seat here or there, or were offered one by some of the children, politely following the guidelines of their instructors.  And when they got off, I think we all kind of missed their boisterousness, filling up a space in a very unique and sacred way.  It was suddenly so quiet, the world was no longer something in need of commentary, it was once again the world we all knew after a number of years.  But several of the riders chuckled to one another at the change, a little jovial lingering of what had been there before.  

Longer Phrases

I would like to take it as a sign of my growth as a teacher that I no longer finish a day and think, "That was brilliant!"  Or "That was totally off."  So much depends on the reception of the student and I can't really know that after one lesson.  It also depends on persistence over time, the building up of expectation and trust.  Maybe I delivered an excellent lesson, but if they were checked out for some other reason, it doesn't count.  Or maybe I was tired and less patient than normal, and it caught their attention in a way that woke them up and made them own their mistakes and focus a little more.  Made them go home and practice.  It's so hard to say, but kids are really perceptive and so there is always a feeling of a mirror being there.  They see through me in a way I can't really see, and I can't help but find it reflected after time.  How nice to have a chance to be with a group for awhile, to hone myself for them and to learn from what they show to me.  It's far more than a single day.  It's time to think in longer phrases.