I've always wanted to revisit piano. I took lessons on and off during elementary school and never got past the basics. Probably actually practicing might have helped. Since then, a combination of lacking time, money, and follow-through have prevented me from pursuing the aforementioned goal.
Part of the reason I ended up taking piano lessons was simply the rhetoric I've been fed around finding yourself during your service year. A piece of this is that people always seem to tell you, when you've told them you're doing a year of international service, that you're going to have so much time on your hands. This, they excitedly tell you, means you can pursue all kinds of new hobbies!
Honestly, this always made me cringe a tiny bit. I love and spend time on any number of average-middle-class-white-girl hobbies: cooking, writing, reading, Zumba, yoga, running, etc. But I didn't think England was the place to necessarily grow my affection for these hobbies; they're a big part of my life already and it was fine and all that.
Frankly, what I really wanted was more time to watch Netflix, which I never seem to make time for at home. But that is not a socially appropriate thing to say when people ask you what you're planning to do to entertain yourself during a year abroad. (Really, though, catching up on Gossip Girl has been soooooo goooood.)
I can't exactly recall when I decided officially I wanted to take piano lessons here and that was going to be it - my YAGM year hobby. I think it was partly because music is a huge part of life at St. Columba's (I'll write more about this later on in another post) and I was inspired by the gusto with which my host community is involved in musical endeavors.
When I decided to take piano lessons, I also decided I'd continue a little life experiment I've been practicing over the last year or two. I've been having the experience where if I actually voice my needs, they tend to be met more. Perhaps this began when I realized Shantonu couldn't actually read my mind and I needed to tell him how I felt if I wanted him to know (ugh. men.), but it got bigger than just growth in my romantic relationship.
If I had a weird medical complaint I started mentioning it to people to see if they had experienced something similar and had solutions. I started bringing up when I wanted to find something or remember something. If I needed a random item, I'd casually drop it in conversation as much as possible to people. Lo and behold, solutions to my problems/answers to my questions/things I'd need would start appearing!
Possibly this is one of those experiences that resonates deeply with you; you feel as if we are kindred spirits and you have had a similar awakening! Or maybe you're like, yeah...DUH. Either way, to me, it was a revelation and it felt like a validation that the bigger universe out there responds to energy and it leads to positive responses back at you. People experience this in different ways/call it different things: God responding to prayer, the universe listening to positive energy. Both are fine, but basically, I like that it works.
Anyway, no dice. Then I turned 25, continuing to hold out hope that I would find a piano teacher. The very next day after my birthday, I went to Coffee Morning at church. I ended up next to Isobel and sitting across from Helen. Helen comes into the church once a week to practice the organ on Tuesdays and happened to join us that day for our Coffee Morning.
The St. Columba's organ (that's a person in the background, not a ghost FYI)
Somehow the conversation led to music-learning and, as Isobel nodded encouragingly, I did my whole awkwardly/non-awkwardly mentioning that I really wanted to take piano lessons and did she know anyone and blah blah blah. Helen looked interested. "Well," she said. "I know how to play piano. I could teach you when I come in here on Tuesday mornings."
So I've been taking lessons for almost four months now and it's one of the highlights of my week. We meet in the church sanctuary, where the Organ is, and spend about a half an hour reviewing the pieces I'm working on. Helen is kind and patient (even though she tells me she doesn't consider herself patient) and she's really good at explaining things. She requires me to slow down and understand the piece, and even after she's heard "Miserable Mary" four times she doesn't seem annoyed by it.
Helen doesn't charge me for the lessons and hasn't even mentioned it ever, which is something I'm both overwhelmingly grateful for and kind of anxious about. Naturally, I think Westerners feel that things should be "equal" - money for services provided etc - and Helen's kindness is more than I can repay monetarily or otherwise. Maybe she knows I'm on a volunteer stipend and don't have a ton of money, but I think more likely she does it just because she's a very nice person.
Helen also showed me more about the organ, which was super cool. The organ is not that something I ever could imagine myself learning, but I'm starting to appreciate the incredible complexities of this beautiful instrument because of Helen. In short, she's a great teacher and I am so grateful for her.
The piano in the church space (where we do our lessons)
It didn't take long for me to remember why I'd quit piano in the first place. Practicing is super annoying sometimes, especially when my vision of myself is playing something like Moonlight Sonata and my reality is playing pieces like Ode to Joy. My goal is to practice a little bit every day, but it can be challenging. There are three pianos at the church and it's like two minutes away, so the only reason it's hard is that I'm lazy. When I do practice for a stretch of days, I find myself craving getting back to the piano and enjoying it more and more.
Helen has also encouraged me to keep it up, and when she sensed I was getting bored with my first piano book (an old one of her daughter's) she found another book that I could buy.
Buying that book reminded me of something I'd read in Gretchen Rubin's book, The Happiness Project. In it, she talks about how purchasing something that we really want, after having anticipated that want for a long time, can bring us so much joy. I thought of that when I went to the music store with a slip of paper given to me by Helen with the name of the piano book on it, and went through the actions of finding it, perusing it, and then purchasing it. Each action was accompanied by joy, even when we got to the check out counter and I slid my card and knew my precious money was leaving my bank account (a moment I always hate because I'm a cheapskate/poor/frugal).
It was filled with joy because the book was leading me to a goal - learning piano - and to a relationship - with Helen - that was (and is) increasingly important to me. We get to hang out, play piano, and learn about each others' lives. I asked the universe for piano lessons, but I also got a friend out of it too.
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