Mistakes are Good

I started this blog about 9 months ago. This is as far as I got:

Carter’s taking piano lessons. Every Saturday morning, Carter and I get our own special time to frantically dig up $25.00, cram into the car and race across town to make it there only five minutes late.

The post remained in the drafts folder because I couldn’t capture what the lessons meant to me. An entire new language was unfolding. I remember trying to describe it to Kevin- telling him that it was like learning French– when I was in high school, I could recognize it, and know that it was beautiful, but now, I could experience it, I was a part of it. Someone invited me into music.

I titled the post “Mistakes are Good,” because early on, our teacher, Sarah, took my piano book from me and wrote it across the page, underlining it and adding exclamation marks.

“Someone made you feel ashamed of your mistakes,” she said, “but that’s not right. You hear your mistakes and then you make it right. It’s how you learn. If you don’t make them, and then hear them, you can’t fix them and learn.” I had tears in my eyes that lesson, because it was so hard to let go of the idea that in order to play music, I had to be perfect. She gave me permission to stretch, to miss notes. No longer would I be the pianist that played the same piece two years in a row at our recital– I’d be trying new things– improvising even.

The rare times I came to the lessons alone, we got to know each other a bit. I shared my parenting insecurities, she reassured me. We talked about divorce, and she made a point of reminding me that my parents both loved me even though they weren’t together. She told me not to worry about adolescence- that my boys would still talk to me because I was laying the foundation in the early years. She spoke so fondly of her own adolescent son.

Wednesday, Carter decided he was too tired to go to piano lessons. I got to have the whole time to myself. We talked more than we played the piano. We talked about the holidays, how hard they are on victims of divorce. I told her it’s still hard for our family, that we all struggle with the same demons that haunted our earlier years, just in different clothes.

She worried she’d be alone on the holidays. I invited her to join us, and much to my surprise and delight, she accepted. She’d join us for Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve. We promised each other carols and good conversation and laughs. It was a bittersweet connection, because I was doing for her what I wanted someone to do for my family– leave no one alone on the holidays.

She taught me the first part of Fly me to the Moon something I’d wanted to learn for some time, and then we agreed to touch base on Thanksgiving. For a brief moment, I wanted to hug her, but afraid, I settled for patting her leg instead, and reinforcing the holiday invitations.

Thanksgiving came and went with no visit from her. At 10:10, exhausted, I fell into bed. at 10:19, the phone rang, jarring me back to alert, but not fast enough for me to actually find the phone. I could have answered on the last ring, but I was so tired. I saw her name and thought, “she’s calling to tell me she wound up going to a movie with her son,” and told myself I’d call her today.

My friend called me this afternoon. “This is rock your world kind of news,” she said, “are you somewhere away from your kids?” I stepped into the kitchen. She told me our piano teacher died during the night. Thanksgiving night. Some time after I didn’t answer the phone. My mistake. I don’t know what I’ll learn from it, or how I’ll adjust, because I’m still trying to hear it.