I recently started teaching voice to an adorably driven
first grader. This girl has plans. She is going to be a singer. She wants it with every fiber of her little
being. She is also six. This week our lesson fell on a gloriously
sunny day. It was warm, the air smelled
like flowers, and her friends were playing right outside the building. We could HEAR them. We were plugging along with scale warm ups and
pitch matching exercises, and I could see the slight sway of her body
intensifying, her little hands moving like trapped birds at her sides.
“Miss Shannon, I can’t!” she
finally bursts. “I’m too wiggly!”
I bit my lip to keep from laughing, and sent her out to
check in with her mama. I listened at
the door as her mother gently and firmly told her that she didn’t have to
finish her lesson, but that if she wanted to continue with lessons, she needed
to stick to it. Plus, she only had a few
minutes left, and then she could go out to play. Little Miss trudged back in and stood solemnly
by the keyboard. Wanting to reassure
her, I pulled out some teacher-y wisdom.
“Sometimes it is hard to work on
stuff, even when it is something that you want to do very much.” I tell her. “That doesn’t mean that it isn’t important to
you, just that it can be hard.”
Looking for a way to make our last five minutes more
engaging, I made up a simple tune and asked her to help me write lyrics for it. We ended up with a sweet little song about
spring, and she left our lesson smiling.
I, on the other hand, was feeling a bit sad.
I saw so much of myself in her wiggly, six year old struggle
to stay the course when sunshine and friends were calling. Listening to her mother’s loving insistence,
and watching myself find a way to make our work a celebration of sun and spring
that honored her desire for play, I was deeply stricken. I couldn’t help but compare it to the way I
talk to myself when my mind has the wiggles, when I want to do pretty much
anything other than set pen to paper and keep my promise to myself. Let's just say it wasn't a pretty comparison. I would never treat one of my students the way I treat myself, and that made me wonder. What would it look like if I was gentle, but
firmly insistent? What would it feel
like if I told myself that YES, this is hard, and that doesn’t mean it isn’t
important to me? What might happen if I
found a way to make my wiggles a strength, to make my work a celebration of the
shiny things that pull at my thoughts?
At the very least, I will have been kind to myself. I might also find it easier to get through
the minutes required to stay faithful to myself. I might even create something worthwhile from
my struggle.
