I had decided to take the entire summer off from music composition lessons, because I was feeling worn out from work and lack of sleep. Meanwhile, Livia had expressed interest in taking piano lessons, and I thought, “Why not give her my time slot with the teacher? Then I’ll have my vacation, she’ll get some lessons, and the teacher will get paid for the summer. Win, win, win!”
Yeah, no. It’s always the perfect-sounding solutions that turn out worst. Livia hated the lessons and wanted to quit. I could have forced her to continue going, but it didn’t seem worth the fight. I also knew that my teacher had noticed she wasn’t happy (he’d mentioned it to me on the phone), and it occurred to me that she might not be the only one uncomfortable with the situation. Who wants to teach a student who’s clearly miserable? So I let them both off the hook.
Because the plan had been for her to take lessons for the whole summer, I felt obligated to pay him for the entirety. Then, having paid him, the obvious thing to do was to use the lesson time for myself. Only I hadn’t done any composition for weeks or even played the piano. Yikes! I took Friday off from work and hastily composed a few lines of music, just enough to base a lesson on. He liked what I’d composed, and we had a good lesson, but I already miss my mental vacation.