Since my anxiety shows up as guilt and overthinking, any gratitude practice can fail. It goes like this: I start to think about people in my life to whom I’m thankful, which is a good start. I write them cards to express my gratitude that I know cannot be repaid with a piece of cardstock that has a drawing of bananas on it with “Thanks a bunch!” drawn in bubbly cursive at the top. Knowing that a card cannot match the endless hours, patience, meals, rides, and experiences that these people have provided for me does not stop me from trying.
After my first year as a teacher, I did it with my 10th-grade history teacher who used to attempt to refocus me in class because she knew I was smarter than I was acting (blowing bubble gum bubbles and popping them loudly while applying mascara instead of listening to the horrific conditions of World War I). I did it with my best friend from high school’s parents who were like second parents to me. I think in my junior and senior years of high school, I spent more time with them than with my own parents. I did it with my friend’s dad who owned a local bookstore in town and fostered and encouraged my love of reading. Books were an escape from the small town that I lived in and I don’t think that I would be a teacher or have had the will or guts to move to the San Francisco Bay Area after college without books fanning the flames of my imagination of what is possible.
In case you forgot, I want to remind you that this practice mutates from something good-intentioned to something ruminative. I start to think about the people who I will never be able to do this for and then I feel overwhelmed by the guilt that I cannot pay them back and that I could have ever been the asshole that I was. This most recently happened with my piano teacher, Mrs. Battson.
Mrs. Battson was a small-town-famous piano teacher who looked a lot like the main character of the 1980s sitcom “Mama’s House.” She had curly gray hair, wore gold wire-rimmed glasses, and had a no-nonsense demeanor with high expectations. I started lessons when I was six or seven, and I continued lessons until I was in middle school when Mrs. Battson told me that I had to choose between playing basketball and volleyball or piano because a true piano student needed to dedicate time to the practice that would not be available if I played sports.
I didn’t know it when I started, but taking piano lessons as a young girl without an idea of what anxiety was (and definitely some undiagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder) could really sink her teeth into it. I've lived my life actually leaning into my anxiety; overthinking makes for really productive preventative practices. I wanted to be seen as good, and, with piano, I could practice enough to be predictably good. A metronome could ensure that I was always on beat (and good at keeping a beat). The cadences and the time measurements let me know how to perform (and be good at that, too). I could memorize pieces and perform them in front of piano guilds and concert halls (and the rounds of applause were confirmation that I was good). I would practice every day, breaking down my pieces in digestible chunks and I would make goals for when I needed to have the left-hand of the piece down, the right-hand of the piece down, certain pages of the pieces, and if really complex, I’d even plan the lines and measures that I would learn and when (I guess I was a born backwards planner?). It was a fun game, but then it turned into something stress-producing. I remember that piano performances were the first time that I ever had the nervous poops. I would wear gloves to performances, even in 100-degree weather, because my hands would be cold before. I once threw up AFTER the performance was over because I had not eaten anything in two days and then scarfed down three tacos and a bowl of tortilla soup. I made piano not fun anymore because my ever-hungry ego needed ever more praise from the people. As I am writing this, I also realize that this might be where I started to really crave public approval.
And then Mrs. Battson integrated something into the recitals. The recitals were choreographed. There was a program that was featured with the newer, younger students performing first. We would be lined up on chairs outside the stage with programs on our seats for us to follow along, watching the person before us stand up and enter the stage. We had all been trained in how to bow appropriately to our audience and then how to properly move the bench to accommodate our bodies seated at the piano. The silence between the applause of one performer and the first notes of the next filled in my imagination with the mechanical movement of well-trained students bowing, sitting, measuring the length between their bodies and the piano, and then crisply moving to adjust the bench and our booties on said bench. The more advanced students who could play longer and more complicated pieces would be the second half of the recital, usually ending with Mrs. Battson performing pieces herself, reminding everyone, students and audience members, that she was the best in the room.
At the time that I was playing the piano, there was a popular television show called Family Matters that included a nerdy neighbor named Steve Urkel who was a child that annoyed his neighbors, the Winslows. Steve had a signature look: a striped t-shirt, suspenders, large eyeglasses, and the slouched torse of an old man. He also had a signature catchphrase, “Did I do that?” asked in a nasally whine when he made mistakes. In the later seasons of the show, Steven Urkel developed the technology to transform himself into a suave persona named Stefan Urquelle. Stefan didn’t wear glasses. He dropped his shoulders, stood up straight, and deepened his voice, and charmed everyone instead of annoying them.
A few years into being Mrs. Battson's student, she started changing the format of the recitals. At some point in the recital, a woman would run through the aisles of the theater that we were in and would be looking for Mrs. Battson. She was outrageous, loud, careless with her movement, and did funny things like banter with audience members and crack jokes at Mrs. Battson’s expense. She claimed to be Mrs. Battson’s long-lost sister, but it was Mrs. Battson dressed up in a wig and loud, bright clothing that I would never imagine her owning. I remember I did not believe it at first. People started whispering, “That’s Mrs. Battson,” but I could not believe that my militant, controlled, and non-emotive teacher could be so…unleashed. It confused me at first, but then I loved it. I loved that even this woman who I thought was incapable of fun was having fun. Imperfect, self-deprecating fun, and letting us all in on the joke. I never saw her with as much joy as I did when she was performing as her alter-ego, letting us enjoy her as a whole person. She created an experience that was like a secret and we were in on it. A la Steven Urkel, she Stefan-ed herself into an alter ego.
She later organized large-scale recitals called the Monster Concert that had several students from other teachers performing pieces together on stage. She brought people together in seriousness, but later she added fun. I was never mean to Mrs. Battson, but I didn’t see her as a real human beyond being my piano teacher who leveled popsicle sticks on my hands to check the arches of my hands while playing and scolded me when she could tell that I hadn't practiced enough. I always met her with the same seriousness that she met me with because, I’m sure, that in my childhood, I didn’t want to feel guilty for letting her down, for letting my parents down for paying hard-earned money for my lessons.
Mrs. Battson died in May 2020 before I could write her a thank you card and while I was deep in reflection that made me re-evaluate everything in and about my life. In fact, it made me turn my life upside down (in the best way). I Googled her when I started writing this to see if I could find the name of her alter-ego. In the photo that was featured in her online obituary, she had the same short, gray haircut and gold-rimmed glasses, but her smile was not what I remembered. It was so warm. A smile that was inviting and softened the edges of her eyes and mouth. The kind of smile that someone in the grocery store might give you, and instead of avoiding it, you smile back. If I could write Mrs. Battson a thank you card, I’d let her know that beyond teaching me piano, she modeled for me the patience that is necessary for dealing with an anxious student who tried too hard. I’d thank her for not just teaching me, but showing me how to work and play equally hard and I would apologize for only seeing her as one thing as a child. But she also showed me that anyone is filled with the capacity to be many things, even through the course of one piano recital.
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