Chapter 18
Grace lost herself in the enjoyment of teaching, the excitement on the children's faces, and working with someone who had her back constantly.
In the cutthroat world of professional musicians, sure, she had friends, but she had never had anyone who had her back the way Noah did.
He wasn't out to one-up her, or take her chair, her position, or to try to play better than she did or schmooze up to someone better than she did, but was behind her, trying to make sure that she was successful, as she was doing with him.
Plus, working with children was far less pressure than working with a professional group.
They had fun, they enjoyed it, they laughed and their eyes sparkled.
This was what music was supposed to do to people.
Not make them so anxious that they ended up having panic attacks and couldn't play at all.
When had she lost the joy of performing, of playing just for the sake of playing? Of performing just because she loved it?
As Noah got the children started, and they got their music out and played their first notes, it didn't sound great. But the kids were having a good time, so was she, and Noah seemed to be enjoying everything as well.
About forty-five minutes into the practice, which they had agreed would only last an hour and no longer, Mason came to the door. She knew Mason from the medical center where he worked after school.
None of the children noticed, because they were in the middle of playing an arrangement of "Silent Night," and she casually walked to the door without drawing attention to him.
"Noah is a natural with these kids. I've heard them practice before, and they sounded terrible." Mason shuddered in mock horror.
She laughed and pitched her voice low.
"When you're first starting out learning an instrument, horrible is probably what you should expect."
"Well you should've seen the other teacher trying to work with the kids.
They got angry and frustrated and slammed books around and insulted the kids, and they were nothing like Noah.
I've been listening cause I've been working in the office across the hall for some extra credit to make up grades, and I've been listening.
Noah is amazing with kids. I just thought I'd pop in and give him a thumbs-up. But I don't want to bother anyone."
"I'll tell him what you said. And I know he'll appreciate it. He's bitten off a pretty big chunk, and he's not sure he can chew it."
"But he's got you to help him. What more could a guy want?" He grinned and then ducked back out before Grace could ask him what in the world he meant.
As they came to a particularly hard part of the passage, Noah stopped and motioned to her to give him a hand.
She went up, and they helped some of the children individually with that spot.
As she did, she thought to herself that teaching was performing without performance anxiety.
She was helping others to perform, and they were taking what she was giving them and using it for themselves and their performance.
They would take a little bit of her with them wherever they went.
She loved that idea. Loved that she was pouring into a child and that what she gave would last for the rest of that child's life, possibly making them a better person, and definitely a better musician if they took her advice and utilized it.
She was still thinking about that after the kids had left and they were cleaning up the room. They wanted to leave it spotless since the school had been gracious enough to allow them to use it without giving them a difficult time.
"I thought that went really well," Noah said as he closed the door after the last student left.
"Far better than I thought it was going to. The kids were such a joy to work with. They love what they do."
"I think anymore you almost have to love the idea of music or playing it yourself or something, because so few people actually put the work into learning an instrument."
"You could be right. Or maybe the love of music is fostered at home somehow?"
"It could be. I know my parents were instrumental—no pun intended—in my love of music. All of my siblings have it. Some of my favorite times with my family were when we all sat around together and sang in the evenings. What a great time as a family."
"That sounds really nice," Grace said, thinking about her own childhood and how it was nothing like that unless the extended family got together. Definitely not on a regular evening.
"How would you like to go out for hot chocolate? As a celebration for how well things went today. I don't know if the rest of the groups will be this easy, but I'm excited about it now, when before I was... doing it mostly for duty and dreading it a good bit."
Grace laughed. She knew exactly what he meant.
"Hot chocolate sounds amazing."
Whether he was asking her out to celebrate or just because he wanted to go, she didn't care. She wanted to spend more time with Noah.
It didn't take long to finish cleaning up the room, and they decided to walk to the diner.
It wasn't far. Plus, it was a warm, sunny day, which matched both of their moods.
They chatted easily about the practice session, what they thought went well, a few things they thought they could improve, and strategy for younger children and older children, along with adults and special needs.
That was the group Grace was really looking forward to.
They would be especially enthusiastic, she suspected, and probably the most fun to work with.
Not that she wanted to play favorites or anything.
"I'm glad it went so well," she said as they sat down across from each other at the diner.
Their conversation had flowed so easily, and while they hadn't talked about anything deep, their silences had been easy with no expectations.
She felt completely at ease with Noah. More than she had with anyone else in her entire life, including her parents.
"Did your family sing together when you were a child? I said that earlier, and you kind of got quiet. I wanted to ask you about it, but... I didn't want to ruin the good mood."
"Oh, I don't know that you'd be ruining a good mood," she said.
The waitress came to take their drink orders, and they both ordered hot chocolate with extra whipped cream. Then, after she walked away, Grace continued.
"My parents were very strict. They were demanding and perfectionistic. They were both very wealthy, very successful in their fields, and I know that the way they raised me came from an attitude of them wanting me to be successful too, you know?"
"It's good that you can see that. I think a lot of people can't." Noah sighed and moved his placemat around a bit.
"I think they just see their parents as being mean and unkind, but there are very few people whose parents actually did not like them.
There are a lot of people whose parents made mistakes.
Mine included. And I made a lot of mistakes raising my siblings, but that gave me a different perspective.
I see that my parents weren't being mean.
They were trying to raise me to be a better person. They were trying to show me the way."
"Exactly. I figured that out. I didn't have any siblings to raise. But I wish I had more affection from my parents. I wish that they would have not forced me to practice for hours and hours and hours on end. I wish I could've gone out and played with my friends, or watched TV sometimes, or just hung out and sung for the fun of it like you described. But everything was always so serious. I had to practice, I had to make the audition, I had to be first chair. I had to get the part. Get the A. And again, I know they loved me. And they were doing that out of love. But yes, there was a while when I resented it. Still, when the extended family got together, we sang and played and I loved it. That most often happened at Aunt Vivian’s house. Which is why it has such special memories. I just wish more of my childhood was like that, and that I didn’t resent what my parents did. "
"Of course. Your childhood is gone, and it was a pretty tough one. But, let me ask you a question."
"Okay." She was curious. What in the world could he possibly want to know?
"Do you think you would be a successful musician today if your parents had not been so demanding?"
"That's easy. No. Absolutely not. I thought you were going to ask me a hard question."
"I think that there are some people who would have to think about that for a while and might not give their parents the credit they deserve. But it's obvious to me that, while your childhood maybe wasn't ideal, you appreciate it anyway."
"I think sometimes we don't appreciate the hard things."
"I agree. Like my parents dying. I didn't appreciate that for a really long time.
I thought God was being mean. Honestly, I was tempted to walk away from my faith.
The only reason I didn't was because I knew I had my siblings coming after me, and while I was angry at God and wanted to walk away from Him out of spite, I didn't want my siblings to not have a relationship with Him.
" He shook his head, a little grin tugging up his mouth.
"That just shows how immature I was. Right?
Because obviously, I knew there was a God, and I knew that He was right about everything, but I just didn't want to give Him credit because I was angry about losing my parents. "
"I'm not saying you were right, but that's a totally justifiable feeling. I don't think that there are too many people who wouldn't have felt that way."
"I don't know. Some people seem to be able to go through hardships and handle it so much better than I do. But I doubted myself. I didn't think I was good enough. I didn't know how in the world I could raise my siblings, because I was such a mess."