Facing the Music (3 page)

four

I
f I wasn't ambling in the countryside, or nestled away somewhere scribbling in my diary, I was equally enthusiastic about being in school. Beyond the relief it provided in being away from home, there were so many adventures to be had. I could spend hours fossicking around the library for a new and exciting book to read. I loved it all, be it math, social studies, or history. The thrill of rising to the top of the class and getting praise for my excellent marks made me an unabashed contender for teacher's pet. It was a safe place, where I felt inspired to succeed. It was also the place where I fell in love with music.

One day a week, a music teacher would visit our country school. We had no proper music room, only the gymnasium. The same gym that served as basketball court during phys ed also served as concert hall and cafeteria, depending on the time of day. When it was time for music, our teacher, a spritely little woman, would throw her shoulder into the side of an old piano and roll it out into the center of the gymnasium floor to begin our lessons.

Heaven only knows how she managed to wrangle a class of energetic country kids into standing in place. I, for one, was more accustomed to running around outside, kicking balls, and climbing trees. The idea of standing in place for an hour at first
seemed like a cruel substitute for entertainment, best reserved for rainy days. Still, she managed to keep my attention.

She always greeted us with her startlingly wide smile and vivid appearance. She was like Rapunzel meets Janis Joplin turned school librarian. Her long, wispy blonde hair cascaded down her back, where it seemed to join in conspiracy with her usual long, cotton print skirt.

There was always some part of her in motion. Her petite hands often guided us with light, feminine gestures, like a ballerina cum traffic cop. No matter that her directions made no earthly sense to us as she pointed and waved in rhythm with the music. When her hands were busy on the keys of the piano, her legs would tap and dance beneath her as she sat precariously on the edge of the piano bench, her hair joining in the perfect choreography of fully embodied sound.

So what if the songs we were singing had only one-part ­harmony? That she led us in rousing renditions of the latest Muppets movie soundtrack didn't limit her enthusiasm or purpose. For many of us, she was the first, and perhaps, the only, human being on the planet who could usher us into a world beyond that which was visible. That one day a week was a window into a world beyond our books, capable of launching us into a new realm of imagination.

Long before I would learn to express my insecurities by saying “I can't,” she began to teach us how to read the language of music. With limited resources, she found a way. There weren't any blackboard or textbooks for her to use to help us decode the magical language of the music staff and black dots called notes, so she took to the hardwood floor. Ignoring all the markings of the basketball court, she found a clear spot where she could map out
five perfectly straight parallel lines, with four uniform spaces in between. She called the creation a “staff.” With the aid of a stuffed toy frog, she'd place it at various positions in the diagram and called out the representative letter that we would later call notes. The lines, we would learn by using the acronym “Every Good Boy Does Fine” and the spaces as “F.A.C.E.”.

As we learned what to call the lines and spaces, she let us tap out these notes on the piano. I found it the greatest extravagance when I would have my turn to take the quiz. I would sit alone at the keyboard, where I could strike the corresponding key indicated by the stuffed frog. But one note just didn't seem enough; I felt the urge to link the notes together, in rhythm and order to make what seemed so fantastic  . . . a song!

Eventually, part of our musical curriculum would come to include learning how to play an alto recorder. It's a plastic, flutelike whistle of sorts that looks somewhat like a small clarinet. Once I got my hands on my very own, I couldn't get enough.

Learning to read the code of music as fluently as the written word was like cracking open the door to a magic world. I was mesmerized that I could take those little black dots on the page and breathe them into life. What to some appeared as frantic nonsense scored on the page, was, to me, something that I had the power to sing into recognition. I just couldn't get enough of it.

Some way or another I got my hands on a book of old American folk tunes. I must have played the tune “Erie Canal” a thousand times in this state of amazement. I played that song so many times that I began to feel, in my soul, that I was there, on the canal, walking and pulling my burdens alongside the famed waterway with the aid of my trusty mule. My parents, on the other
hand, found themselves quickly exhausted. And who could blame them?

I've got a mule her name is”
(Wrong note, start again.)

—(Okay.)
I
've got a mule her name is Sa—
(Oops, okay, start again.)

I've got a mule her name is Sal, fifteen miles on the Erie Canal.
I would sing along in my head as I played the notes on my trusty recorder.

On and on it went until my poor parents, in hopes of maintaining their own sanity, demanded that I play no more than one hour inside the house and, if that weren't enough, I'd have to go outside. So, outside I went. I played under the shade trees and in the boughs of the trees. I'd go to the barn and serenade the horses. I'd crawl up into the hay loft, make a hay bale my music stand and play every last song I could manage.

Much to my father's amusement, my talents never reached the same magical effect as the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Though my playing failed to abate the never-ending raid of oat-pilfering field mice from the barn, as far as I was concerned, I was a virtuoso.

In those rare moments of youth, when we are oblivious to facts, logic, and our insecurities, everything is possible. Nothing is beyond our reach. I played my songs with abandon. I looked to the notes on the page, I sent my breath through my recorder, I moved my fingers, and the world came alive. There was not a dream I could conjure that wasn't possible. Every song was an invitation to an experience that would otherwise be too far away for a little girl from Kansas. It had never occurred to me that the music that I heard might be received as noise to ­another person. It never occurred to me to judge it as good or not good. It never occurred to me that I was performing for anyone's pleasure
other than my own. Music was a part of my body, a part of my experience that allowed me a safe space to feel and express my heart. Before music, I was just another kid who cried when they didn't get what they wanted. With music, I was becoming a person who began to see emotion as the tangible, real stuff of being.

The feeling of freedom and escape was similar to when I found writing. Yet it seemed to assuage a burden that my writing could not. I could write until my fingers bled, but there were times when words didn't seem sufficient. There was still more inside of me. There were emotions that failed to be fully expressed without words.

Music seemed to give voice to what I knew in my heart but could not spell into being. I might write down words about sadness, but with the help of a minor key, I could make all the world vibrate with resonant empathy.

It's easy to wax poetically about it now, but, at the time, I was just a nerdy little girl who failed to have an age-expected obsession with Cabbage Patch Kids or My Little Ponies. Nope. I was enamored of a noisy hunk of plastic, that, along with my love of writing, would form the fabric of how I learned to communicate with the world.

As with my private writings, I had grown wary of letting my need for creative expression lead me to a place of vulnerability with my stepmother. While I found ways to keep my enjoyment in writing out of her reach, it was more difficult to keep my love of music a secret. By the time most kids' recorders were gathering dust and our music classes were no longer amusing, I was still blowing away. But, as I got older, my recorder appeared more like a child's toy rather than a proper instrument. If I wanted to ex
pand my musical horizons, I needed to devise a plan to step up my skills with a more grown-up instrument. Doing so would mean taking a risk and appealing to my stepmother's own love of music.

My stepmother was a respectable piano player herself. In the summer, she played for the children's Vacation Bible School at the United Methodist Church in town. Some Christmasses she'd even take a break from our wars and play a few carols on the old piano she kept at her mother's house. Maybe, if I was convincing enough, she could see that I shared a similar passion? Maybe I could give her a reason to respect me?

I spent a season begging my parents for piano lessons. I wasn't particularly drawn to the piano, but there were other girls who spoke of their weekly lessons and periodic adventures in something they called “recitals.” I didn't even know what a recital was, but I wanted it so badly. I wanted to play a grown-up instrument.

“Please,” I bargained, “let me stay after school. I'll do whatever it takes. I promise I'll be good! I'll feed the dogs every night. I'll water the horses so you guys don't have to. I'll mow the lawn every weekend. I'll clean out the stalls.” I named every loathed family chore I could think of, trying to convince my folks of my sincerity.

“The piano teacher is walking distance from my school. I'll do more chores. I'll dust. I'll do the dishes every night!
Please
 . . .!”

Though I hoped my enthusiasm would spark my parents' sympathies, there was little discussion about it. My campaign was short-lived, the answer came down firmly:
No.

It was risky business in my household to voice such an obvi
ous desire for pleasure. To ask for anything that might have required an extra effort from my father and my stepmother seemed to always be met with restraint, if not outright denial. Through the years I had discovered that speaking up often came with the risk of upsetting whatever rare calm might have been. A simple request like asking to be allowed to spend a Friday night at the skating rink or to be taken to the movies had the potential to erupt into full-blown drama.

It's not that my sister and I were completely denied the pleasures of childhood. It was just that it usually came with a cost. There were times when my father would splurge. Joy would wash over us when he gave my sister and me a twenty-dollar bill and dropped us off at the skating rink. However, that joy would be short-lived. When we would return home, our parents would be in an all-out war. My father would be relegated to sleeping on the couch, my stepmother having locked herself away in their bedroom. My sister and I reckoned that it was our fault for having wanted to go play; it was because of us that our father was in trouble because he had given us money that would have been better spent on something more important.

Through the tension of it all, my sister and I learned to stifle our desires for adventures away from the farm, especially those which required a little spending money. I wasn't surprised at the denial, but I was disappointed all the same.

My sister and I began a ritual of bartering between us. We would draw straws to see who would have the unenviable task of asking our parents for permission for an activity. Only one of us could be crowned the loser. The winner was the one who pushed the other forward to be the lamb to the slaughter. I found the
whole exercise to be an excruciating ritual of disappointment. I never wanted to be the one who returned with the report that I had failed.

The whole exercise was fraught with danger. Get a
yes
and there was potential for family turmoil. Get a
no,
and live out the reality of feeling isolated and unsupported. The only thing that seemed to help us handle the disappointment is that we shared the journey together. If we had success, we were equal beneficiaries. And, when we failed, at least we could entertain each other.

For so many years, my sister and I relied on our unified front. In a way, we were a single identity in our family unit. “The girls,” we were often called. One body. One space. What was good for one often seemed to be good for us collectively. We were, after all, twins. But, as we grew, our individual personalities and interests each began to take their own shape.

I had already found a way to explore my own identity with writing and now, my interest in music was one that seemed to be my own as well. I found that I couldn't rely on my sister to speak for me in my desire for learning music. It seemed that it was unique to me.

By the time we were in the fourth grade, my sister and I were being allowed to spend entire summers living with Mom. Three whole months to release the cares and stresses of life back home. A place where we felt free to be our true selves. With Mom, we were encouraged to dream. We could ask for anything without worry of upsetting the applecart. We didn't always get what we hoped for, but there she was always inspiring us to see all of life's possibilities. I felt safe enough to tell her all about how I wanted piano lessons, knowing that even if it wasn't
something she could afford, at the very least I would be heard. I could count on her to listen, to feel and appreciate what I was longing for.

One summer, she found a way. For the few short weeks that we were together, Mom managed to set enough money aside so that both my sister and I could take piano lessons. My sister seemed to like it enough, but I was beside myself.

After a few short lessons I began learning to read chords and play more complex music than I had ever imagined. To my delight, I ended the summer with an ability to pound my way through recognizable works from Chopin and Beethoven. I relished that I had my very own books filled with all manner of songs, each that I now had the skill to dance into life.

It was a life-changing gift. No matter what happened now, I knew that I would always have music. I couldn't unlearn it. As much as I knew how to read and to write to express myself, music had expanded how I experienced the world around me.