L is for Lessons

I didn't grow up in a home that contained musical instruments. We had a stereo and lots of my parent's LPs: Zeppelin, Paul Simon, The Stones, the Who, Rod Stewart, Phoebe Snow, Linda Ronstadt, Willie Nelson and Judy Collins are the album covers that immediately come to mind. I also was taken to many concerts as a kid, but not out of a sense of exposing me to music as much as not wanting to pay a babysitter.  There was a guitar at one point. I might have been twelve when my father, living with his second wife in Santa Fe for five years at that point, bought me an acoustic guitar for Christmas. Extravagant. It served as a constant reminder of what I wasn't: a kid who took music lessons. I couldn't afford to learn how to play it, didn't know how to tune it and it sat, mute, and ultimately was sold when I moved out of my mothers house and left for college.  I think I got 50 bucks for it and put it towards my first semester's books, so it served some useful purpose.

My kids started playing instruments when my middle son was in fourth grade and Santa brought a drum kit.  His older brother started taking classical guitar soon after. Then the drummer added bass lessons, and his older brother added electric guitar, then suddenly they both played everything you could shred. My daughter was in fourth grade when we inherited my mother-in-law's piano, so I had my first piano player.  At one point I was employing four musicians for six lessons a week divided amongst the three kids.


It goes without saying that I feel very fortunate to be able to do this. I am grateful that my kids love playing music and very blessed with the caliber of musician mentors in their lives.  It is a language of expression I never had, and I appreciate how it grounds them and enriches their lives and their interactions with others. 

This weekend I took my middle son to check out the college he will be attending in the fall.  I hung back as he strolled the campus and eventually fell into a conversation with some music students.  He became a different person before my eyes. We stopped at a music store on the way back to the hotel and he happily sat for 30 minutes playing a vintage dobro.  Total bliss. Harmony.

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ring of fire

After nineteen loops around the sun, my parenting journey has included a lot of firsts.  Especially in these last few weeks, and while a better mother might never admit that she has a favorite child, an honest mother would snort at such bullshit, and top off my Pinot Noir.  For firsts like these they don’t make scrapbook pages. 

My daughter turned twelve.  She’s my youngest, so I have met twelve before. Twelve is heart breakingly tender and sweet and funny. Twelve has a foot in childhood and a foot in adolescence. Twelve is ready for anything.  Twelve thinks mom can’t possibly know or won’t check.  With a questionable ensemble stuffed in her backpack, she attended her first middle school dance last week. 

Seventeen moved into his college bound brother’s basement lair as soon as it was abandoned.  Seventeen is a militant locavore, unless he finds perfectly good bananas in the dumpster behind Mill Valley Market.  Seventeen is occasionally a vegan, or a vegetarian, depending upon whether rennet free parmesan is available. Seventeen cycles all over the Bay Area, not wanting to contribute to the burning of fossil fuels, and guerilla camps all over Mount Tam, not wanting to be associated with the family unit. Seventeen is a talented artist and musician and is currently in  his awkward social-protester-eco-terrorist phase. Seventeen is such an adorable age.  He stayed out all night last week for the first time, eventually texting at 1:43 AM to say where he was sleeping. 

Nineteen is currently my least favorite. Nineteen leapt from the nest and was insulted that I had bought a desk lamp, sheets & towels for his dorm room. We don’t have a shared world view. Nineteen rode his bicycle 960 miles up to Olympia to start college, which made me crazy but proud when he successfully arrived.  When I heard Nineteen’s recorded voice saying his name after the King County Jail collect call prompt, my chest compressed like Scarlet O’Hara’s when Mammy cinches her corset.  I now know what it feels like when your heart stops.  Two weeks ago Nineteen spent his first night in jail.

In just a few weeks I’ve navigated middle school dress code, eleven o’clock curfew and posting bail.  Just in time for Mother’s Day.  I never got around to doing a birthday cake for twelve, so a nice thick layer of guilt to pair with the Pinot Noir. 

Twelve was at band practice, Seventeen on a ridge near Fairfax and Nineteen under a blanket of clouds in Olympia during the annular Solar Eclipse.  I sat on our deck and stared at the eclipsed sun through a double layer of  Twelve’s shoulder x-rays from years ago.  There’s a juicy metaphor in there somewhere, weighting the branch like a ripe plum.  If I weren’t so singed by my maternal ring of fire, I’d easily see it.

Mary Allison Tierney's essay The Gingerdreadman is included in the anthology Mamas Write, available at Amazon, or your local independent bookshop.

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