A Big Fan
During the last few months in the studio, I have been assigning summer-themed student compositions. Summer foods (watermelon, ice cream, snow cones), summer insects (mosquitos, bees, crickets), summer holidays (summer solstice, July 4th), summer activities (swimming, hiking, baseball), summer vacations (going to the beach, Hawaii, backpacking), summer weather (HEAT! monsoons, thunderstorms). You get the idea.
On the last lesson of the summer session, Peter and I were in deep discussion about the title of his next summertime composition. Peter is ten years old, a charming and ornery kid, both. “I know what I want to do!” Peter said. “A Big Fan.”
“Perfect.”
“And, you Miss Amy, have to guess the brand.”
“What?”
“When I play the composition for you, you have to guess the brand.”
“I have to guess the brand?”
“Yes. You have to guess the brand of the fan.”
“I have to guess the brand?”
“Yes, Miss Amy,” Peter was getting impatient. “You have to guess the brand.”
“I have to guess the brand?” I could hear that I was repeating myself like a parrot, but I couldn’t help it. I just couldn’t wrap my mind around this.
“YES MISS AMY! YOU HAVE TO GUESS THE BRAND.”
I should back up right now and say that the game of my guessing what students are playing is something we sometimes do. Sometimes kids create color compositions and I have to guess the color. Or shape compositions and I have to guess the shape. Or animals and I have to guess the creature. Never before have I had to guess a brand, however.
“Can I have the pencil please?” Peter asked. “I need to write something in my practice notebook.”
Next to the composition assignment, A Big Fan, Peter wrote, “Miss Amy guesses the brand!”
Good grief.
Fast forward a few weeks. Our summer break is behind us. It is the first lesson of the school year. Peter marches into his lesson. “I want to start with my composition.”
In the bliss of the two-week break from teaching, I have forgotten everything, which means I walk into this scene innocent of what is coming next.
“Ok. What’s your composition?”
“A Big Fan.”
“Ok. Let’s hear it.”
“You have to guess.”
“I have to guess what?”
“You have to guess the brand.”
“I have to guess the brand?”
This is starting to seem like the old children’s song “There’s a Hole in the Bucket.”
“MISS AMY! YOU HAVE TO GUESS THE BRAND! Remember?”
Not really.
Peter plays A Big Fan (“It’s really long,” he warns me. "Great," I think. "More time to come up with a brand.").
“Hunter!” This is the only brand I can think of.
“No. You have three guesses.”
“I have three guesses?”
“Yes! Guess another brand.”
“I don’t know any other brands.”
“Yes you do. Come on. You know, like American Standard.”
“American Standard is a brand of a fan?”
“YES MISS AMY! How come you don’t know fan brands?”
“How come you do?”
“I like fans.”
And so another school year has begun. I am struck, not for the first time, that in a season where everything is new, piano lessons are the thread that stays the same from year to year. Kids come in the sunroom, slamming the screen door behind them, full of news: new schools, new teachers, new shoes. I am the constant, and I can almost sense their relief: Miss Amy. Truffle and Trollope. Practice Boxes. Check. Check. Check.
Last Friday was the first performance class of the school year. I am always apprehensive going into performance classes. I know how to handle one kid at a time. But 28 of them? That’s a bit intimidating.
And inevitably, the first performance classes of the year make me a bit nostalgic for the kids that have grown up and gone on to other life adventures. I find myself thinking, Oh no! My older kids have left and I have lost all my wonderful, smart, fun leaders in the studio. Whatever will I do?
Then looking around at my rambunctious current studio, I find myself thinking: Oh my goodness! There are SO MANY Little Ones. And they are SO wiggly. Whatever will I do?
But by the end of the first performance class, another class of older kids has stepped into place. I see my high school kids managing the wiggly Little Ones, and I know we will be OK again for another year.
It happened again last Friday. Another Ten Thousand Stars Studio miracle. Whew!
In July Matt and I celebrated our 20th anniversary of moving to Albuquerque. We never thought we’d stay in New Mexico, but two decades later, here we are. We understand better now that while the grass is literally greener elsewhere, we can survive without grass. We can grow succulents and cacti instead. At the May recital I said goodbye to a family that I had been teaching continuously for 18 years (three kids, each in the studio from first grade through their senior year of high school. You do the math.). On Tuesday evenings this semester, I have a sophomore who is the fourth child of a piano-playing family. Already, she is scheming that her family will beat the record for the longest running piano family in the studio. It is totally possible. On Sunday morning, her oldest brother—home from college—came over for breakfast burritos (Sometimes I joke: Once I taught these kids, now I feed them. Maybe same thing?). Our lives intersect, relationships crisscross as time goes by, another season tiptoes into view, a new year begins, practice continues. There is comfort in all of this.
(By the way, the fan brand was Diamond Ring. Whatever.)