My truth about Butterfingers...
I believe my mother paid her $40 a month back then. I only know this because she would hand me a check before my sister and I biked over to her house. In retrospect, she probably deserved a great deal more than that. You'll understand why. $5 a week times 2 daughters. 30 minutes a lesson.
Maybe you have to be Korean to understand that all of us Korean children must succeed in order to bring honor and not shame to our families, but we all, it seemed, had to play an instrument in that journey to success, and for most of us, that would be the piano. So we didn't have a lot of money, but my mom scraped her money together and bought us a piano.
My dad took us to somewhere far from home (at least in my adolescent mind) one day to pick it up. It was strapped in the back of our pickup truck, which now seems a bit of an irreverent transportation choice for a piano, but I don't assume that we had the money for the delivery fee either.
My sister and I were so excited! We started out taking lessons on the army base weekly. I'm not sure how long that lasted. Then my mom found a lady that lived a few streets over from us and immediately signed us up.
There are four distinct things that I remember from those lessons.
I hate Butterfingers. I'm not sure if they were cheaper than the rest, or if she had hit the jackpot on a life time supply, but our piano teacher, who I think was 100 years old at the time, gave us a snack-sized Butterfinger after every lesson. Now, we didn't have candy in our home so this should have been a delightful moment in our week. I tried. I ate them every week in hopes of developing a taste for them, but it simply never worked. To this day, if I see them, I think of the look on her face when she gave us our "treat" like she was surely giving us a treasure, and I think of riding on my bike with one hand with a partially unwrapped Butterfinger in the other hand nibbling on it like a mouse trying my hardest to enjoy the weirdest candy bar ever invented. (To be fair, I am Asian, and I don't really like a lot of candy in general. They are almost all too sickly sweet.)
I was her worst student. So, I know there are a bunch of you out there that are saying, "Oh no, sweetie, don't say that, you weren't the worst," but there was a chart. It was on the wall by the door. And shocker here, It had all of her students listed from best to worst, and guess whose name was at the bottom every week. I can't remember how many students were on it - maybe 30 or so. I'm sure the issue is my genetic lack of rhythm, and the fact that I did not practice. I know the whole chart thing is currently not politically correct, but at least I didn't have any false illusions of making it into Juilliard.
Her handwriting was stunning. So if you have ever received mail from me, you will notice that I write "and" just like she did. It slopes down from left to right. I'm sure that when she was teaching me, she was thinking to herself, "Why am I even trying?" but little did she know that 30 plus years later, I would still write "and" like her.
She was so patient with me. I didn't practice. Maybe it's because I knew how bad I was, and me being an achiever, only worked at things I was good at. I only remember one time she was impatient with me. I hadn't practiced at all, and she could tell. At the time, I wondered at this superpower of hers, but all you piano teachers out there seem to have the same superpower. Anywho, she kind of forcibly pushed my fingers onto the correct keys. I could tell she was upset, and from then on I tried harder and practiced more just for her.
I don't know how long I took piano lessons before my mom realized that this huge financial sacrifice for her wasn't going to be worth it. In spite of all of this, I did take away invaluable lessons like:
I never waste my money on Butterfingers. Through a lengthy scientific experiment of tasting them once a week for what seemed like forever, I have concluded that I dislike them.
It's ok to not be good at something, but you should probably still give it your best for the sake of the heart health of your 100 year old teacher (She was probably only 70, but each week I wondered if she would still be alive the next week.) You probably should also try for other reasons too.
You never know how you are influencing the people around you, and what they will take away from your relationship - like how they love, how they forgive, and how they write "and" for the rest of their lives.