TUESDAY EVENING IN FIVE CHAPTERS

I

If you had been my passenger last night as I drove to teach a piano lesson, you would have seen the clouds.  These were the kind of clouds that you might paint cherubs over, if you go in for that sort of thing, which I usually don’t.  They were that perfect.  I never notice the clouds until I get out into farmland.  A lid is lifted off of reality just outside the city limits, and the sky opens up.  The clouds are always there, but they don’t really ask for your attention until they can have it undivided.  Then they do more than ask – they demand to be noticed.

II

The palace to which I journey weekly sits, kingly, on a hill above a rarely-traveled gravel road.  As far as the gravel knows, it is truly a palace.  From below it is enormous and speaks of grandeur, but if you had been my passenger, you’d have come along for the ride up a very steep driveway, and you’d have had a chance at getting to know the house better.  Up close, it is just a large farmhouse, and the house itself knows that.  It is more humble than you might think at first.

III

The land around the house is a few sloping acres, and home to a country zoo.  The sheep and goats and horses are safely behind fences, but the turkeys and chickens and ducks roam free.  When I was about to leave after last week’s visit, I found two turkeys resting comfortably on the roof of my car.  Fortunately they were only interested in their perch as long as it wasn’t moving.  Once it was mobile, they left.

IV

My student had not, if I am correct, practiced her lesson for the week.  This is not an unusual state of affairs, and it used to frustrate me.  At some point I stopped worrying about it.  We both enjoy her lessons more if we learn together instead of assuming the roles of scolding instructor and penitent student.  I learn how to teach and she learns some basic music theory, and in the end it isn’t important that her fingers have trouble with the rhythms and with finding the right notes.  There have been several famous composers who wrote fabulous music without being gifted musicians themselves.  My student has a beautiful German name that would look excellent on the score of a piano concerto. 

V

The speed limit, once you’re out of town, is fifty miles per hour.  Slower speeds are recommended for sharp curves, and even slower speeds are recommended for cloud-gazing.  I don’t think the person in the truck behind me as I headed home was cloud-gazing.  Once I’d increased my speed out of deference to him, neither was I.