I've shared a lot of my childhood memories, so it's difficult to think of an original one. However, I think I'll take it to music.
I lived in Lubbock, Texas until my mother took a job with the University of Michigan when I was thirteen years old. When I was six years old, somebody (it might have been my biological father) told my mother that I should start taking piano lessons. She set me up with a teenage girl who played the piano who attended our ward. I took from her for only a few months, before I headed off to Florida for the summer.
My grandmother just happened to know a concert pianist, Margaret Meisse, who was faculty at Florida State University. My grandmother figured she would make a worthwhile piano teacher :-). Those three months changed my piano playing career. I came to Florida with a basic knowledge of being able to read notes and such, but Margaret Meisse (yes, that's what I have always called her) saw much more in me. She sent my grandmother out to buy the first Beethoven piano concerto. And the rest was history.
I want to remember Margaret Meisse for the beautiful person that she was. She had had a stellar career as a professional pianist when I came to her, and she was leaning towards retirement. She had moved back to Tallahassee to live closer to her brother, and she had bought an old house, but it was the renovations that I remember.
She had built a piano room onto the front of her very small, unassuming home. The room stretched from one end of the house to the other, and it had a large vaulted ceiling. While it was brick on the front, the sides were complete glass, and they looked over walled-in gardens, complete with tropical foliage, waterfalls, and a stream that actually ran underneath the room.
The room itself held three grand pianos, all of them Steinways. She had the "student" grand where she taught lessons. I remember the keys playing so loosely. I have no idea what the second grand was for, because I never saw it played, but the third piano was HER piano. It was the piano where she practiced, and nobody ever touched it. The floors were hardwood except for a small sitting area that had an area rug. Without exception, my grandmother would have a nice, hour-long nap during my weekly lesson in that sitting area :-)
While Margaret Meisse attempted to teach me all things technical, she instilled in me the importance of understanding all things musical. She believed that even a six-year-old child could grasp the beauty of a piece of a music, and could then transfer that to the fingers. Throughout college, I could "get by" on technicals issues of any piece, but I always received high marks for my musicality.
Speaking of fingers, I will never forget hers. The skin on her fingers was glossy. I think she must have soaked them in moisturizer every night, because her skin literally shone. And her fingers were permanently bent in the rainbow shape that every teacher tries to teach beginning students. I honestly don't think her fingers could have straightened if they had wanted to.
And here's the most vivid memory I have of her, even after forty years have passed away. I was attempting to learn a piece in 3/4 time. A waltz feel. I wasn't understanding the idea that the first beat is stressed while the following two are lighter. She took my hand, walked me around the piano, and had me "dance" with her around the floor of that room. She knew that if I could feel those beats in my soul, I could play those beats with my fingers. I remember the gentleness of her hands and curved fingers, and remember seeing the patient smile on her face.
She died four years later from cancer. It was a devastating blow to me, but even more so to my grandmother who had developed a beautiful friendship with Margaret Meisse. In fact, her framed picture remained in my grandmother's bedroom until my grandmother died thirty years later. And my grandmother never found another teacher for me in Tallahassee. There was no replacement for her.
~Johannah~
It's kind of funny, because I've had some random reminders of some childhood memories lately, and I want to write them down so I don't forget again!
I consider the majority of my childhood to be Germany, despite spending the majority of my life in Pennsylvania. Maybe because once we moved back to the US, I felt older and typically more out of place among American teens than I did among German kids. Anyway, these are Germany memories.
When I was old enough (4yo, I think), I began attending German kindergarten. I remember that everyone had their own cubby, and each child was given a bag, with which to hold anything they would need for a day. Each cubby and bag had a symbol so that we wouldn't forget which one belonged to us, and funnily enough, my symbol was a tomato (see Food post). My teacher's name was Rita, and she was a character. When you hear "Kindergarten teacher", you might think of a sweet, practical, young woman. Yeah, that's an American Kindergarten teacher. Rita was German to the core. While she was sweet, she wasn't exactly practical. She wore these crazy high heels every day, which was fine because it wasn't like she was chasing kids around all day, and from what I remember, she always wore this super red lipstick. Honestly, I can't remember her super well, but I was only four, and four-year-old memories aren't exactly reliable, but I do remember that I loved her.
My second memory is also from Kindergarten, but it isn't quite as sweet. I will admit that I am a devious person, and as a child, I was incredibly devious, and growing up in Germany only further solidified my inner evilness :) See, there was this kid in Kindergarten named Lukas, and boy was he mean to me. Some people may think that he liked me, because apparently that's what boys do when they like you, is be mean to you, but he was mean to everyone, so I think he was just a mean kid. He was the kind of boy that would go over to everyone's projects and ruin them, and no one would stop him. No matter how much you tried to get him to stop he wouldn't. So one day at Pause(or recess), I was out in the strip of forest behind the Kindergarten( we had a space to run around, and then a bit of forest before the fence keeping us all within eyeshot). I was alone, and I came across a young tree that had been broken off. Probably a foot of the tree was still there, and I found that when I pulled it back and let go, it would whip forward at a great speed. I had recently come away from another bad encounter with Lukas, and was super mad. As I whipped this sapling back again and again, I thought of a devious little plan. I thought that if I could get to him to come up to this sapling with me, I would be able to get him to stand in front of it, and then I could smack him with the tree! I was so excited about getting my revenge, but unfortunately, karma's a real thing. As I stood there snapping back this tree, I moved a little too close, and managed to smack myself right in the face #classic. My nose began spewing blood, and I had to run inside, where Rita took care of me. She did this by getting a lot of Kleenex, and gave me a cup of something, which I drank without hesitation, but it was crazy hot, and I ended up spitting it all out. Overall, not my finest moment.
Last memory: Once I left Kindergarten and moved into the Gründschule in our village, it meant I got to go to school with Mark. We both got scooters, and that was our mode of transportation to school everyday. I must admit, we were pretty dang cool. We would hop the curbs, and fly around corners without a thought. However, my favorite moments were the Fountain. Yes, the Fountain. Probably halfway between home and school was this cobblestone fountain. It was super simple, and who knows how old, but it was this beautifully curved fountain, shaped kind of like a skate park ramp. In the summers it would be like any other fountain, with water in the dip, and water coming out of the spout in the middle of the wall behind it, but in the winters, it wouldn't be running. So, on my scooter, I would ride up and down the walls of the Fountain, just like at a skate park. Now that I think back on it, it was probably really dangerous since scooters aren't really solid, and the cobblestone was uneven, but we never had any accidents, and I loved that Fountain. I loved feeling cool and a little dangerous. I don't know if the Fountain still stands because really, it was old, but it will forever stand in my memory.
I lived in Lubbock, Texas until my mother took a job with the University of Michigan when I was thirteen years old. When I was six years old, somebody (it might have been my biological father) told my mother that I should start taking piano lessons. She set me up with a teenage girl who played the piano who attended our ward. I took from her for only a few months, before I headed off to Florida for the summer.
My grandmother just happened to know a concert pianist, Margaret Meisse, who was faculty at Florida State University. My grandmother figured she would make a worthwhile piano teacher :-). Those three months changed my piano playing career. I came to Florida with a basic knowledge of being able to read notes and such, but Margaret Meisse (yes, that's what I have always called her) saw much more in me. She sent my grandmother out to buy the first Beethoven piano concerto. And the rest was history.
I want to remember Margaret Meisse for the beautiful person that she was. She had had a stellar career as a professional pianist when I came to her, and she was leaning towards retirement. She had moved back to Tallahassee to live closer to her brother, and she had bought an old house, but it was the renovations that I remember.
She had built a piano room onto the front of her very small, unassuming home. The room stretched from one end of the house to the other, and it had a large vaulted ceiling. While it was brick on the front, the sides were complete glass, and they looked over walled-in gardens, complete with tropical foliage, waterfalls, and a stream that actually ran underneath the room.
The room itself held three grand pianos, all of them Steinways. She had the "student" grand where she taught lessons. I remember the keys playing so loosely. I have no idea what the second grand was for, because I never saw it played, but the third piano was HER piano. It was the piano where she practiced, and nobody ever touched it. The floors were hardwood except for a small sitting area that had an area rug. Without exception, my grandmother would have a nice, hour-long nap during my weekly lesson in that sitting area :-)
While Margaret Meisse attempted to teach me all things technical, she instilled in me the importance of understanding all things musical. She believed that even a six-year-old child could grasp the beauty of a piece of a music, and could then transfer that to the fingers. Throughout college, I could "get by" on technicals issues of any piece, but I always received high marks for my musicality.
Speaking of fingers, I will never forget hers. The skin on her fingers was glossy. I think she must have soaked them in moisturizer every night, because her skin literally shone. And her fingers were permanently bent in the rainbow shape that every teacher tries to teach beginning students. I honestly don't think her fingers could have straightened if they had wanted to.
And here's the most vivid memory I have of her, even after forty years have passed away. I was attempting to learn a piece in 3/4 time. A waltz feel. I wasn't understanding the idea that the first beat is stressed while the following two are lighter. She took my hand, walked me around the piano, and had me "dance" with her around the floor of that room. She knew that if I could feel those beats in my soul, I could play those beats with my fingers. I remember the gentleness of her hands and curved fingers, and remember seeing the patient smile on her face.
She died four years later from cancer. It was a devastating blow to me, but even more so to my grandmother who had developed a beautiful friendship with Margaret Meisse. In fact, her framed picture remained in my grandmother's bedroom until my grandmother died thirty years later. And my grandmother never found another teacher for me in Tallahassee. There was no replacement for her.
~Johannah~
It's kind of funny, because I've had some random reminders of some childhood memories lately, and I want to write them down so I don't forget again!
I consider the majority of my childhood to be Germany, despite spending the majority of my life in Pennsylvania. Maybe because once we moved back to the US, I felt older and typically more out of place among American teens than I did among German kids. Anyway, these are Germany memories.
When I was old enough (4yo, I think), I began attending German kindergarten. I remember that everyone had their own cubby, and each child was given a bag, with which to hold anything they would need for a day. Each cubby and bag had a symbol so that we wouldn't forget which one belonged to us, and funnily enough, my symbol was a tomato (see Food post). My teacher's name was Rita, and she was a character. When you hear "Kindergarten teacher", you might think of a sweet, practical, young woman. Yeah, that's an American Kindergarten teacher. Rita was German to the core. While she was sweet, she wasn't exactly practical. She wore these crazy high heels every day, which was fine because it wasn't like she was chasing kids around all day, and from what I remember, she always wore this super red lipstick. Honestly, I can't remember her super well, but I was only four, and four-year-old memories aren't exactly reliable, but I do remember that I loved her.
My second memory is also from Kindergarten, but it isn't quite as sweet. I will admit that I am a devious person, and as a child, I was incredibly devious, and growing up in Germany only further solidified my inner evilness :) See, there was this kid in Kindergarten named Lukas, and boy was he mean to me. Some people may think that he liked me, because apparently that's what boys do when they like you, is be mean to you, but he was mean to everyone, so I think he was just a mean kid. He was the kind of boy that would go over to everyone's projects and ruin them, and no one would stop him. No matter how much you tried to get him to stop he wouldn't. So one day at Pause(or recess), I was out in the strip of forest behind the Kindergarten( we had a space to run around, and then a bit of forest before the fence keeping us all within eyeshot). I was alone, and I came across a young tree that had been broken off. Probably a foot of the tree was still there, and I found that when I pulled it back and let go, it would whip forward at a great speed. I had recently come away from another bad encounter with Lukas, and was super mad. As I whipped this sapling back again and again, I thought of a devious little plan. I thought that if I could get to him to come up to this sapling with me, I would be able to get him to stand in front of it, and then I could smack him with the tree! I was so excited about getting my revenge, but unfortunately, karma's a real thing. As I stood there snapping back this tree, I moved a little too close, and managed to smack myself right in the face #classic. My nose began spewing blood, and I had to run inside, where Rita took care of me. She did this by getting a lot of Kleenex, and gave me a cup of something, which I drank without hesitation, but it was crazy hot, and I ended up spitting it all out. Overall, not my finest moment.
Last memory: Once I left Kindergarten and moved into the Gründschule in our village, it meant I got to go to school with Mark. We both got scooters, and that was our mode of transportation to school everyday. I must admit, we were pretty dang cool. We would hop the curbs, and fly around corners without a thought. However, my favorite moments were the Fountain. Yes, the Fountain. Probably halfway between home and school was this cobblestone fountain. It was super simple, and who knows how old, but it was this beautifully curved fountain, shaped kind of like a skate park ramp. In the summers it would be like any other fountain, with water in the dip, and water coming out of the spout in the middle of the wall behind it, but in the winters, it wouldn't be running. So, on my scooter, I would ride up and down the walls of the Fountain, just like at a skate park. Now that I think back on it, it was probably really dangerous since scooters aren't really solid, and the cobblestone was uneven, but we never had any accidents, and I loved that Fountain. I loved feeling cool and a little dangerous. I don't know if the Fountain still stands because really, it was old, but it will forever stand in my memory.
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