Twenty-One (and some) Years Later

I see my dad on a weekly basis now. Unless he's sick or one of us is sick, we will have a visit every week. I've come to enjoy these visits a lot more. There was a time when I really dreaded going to visit him and felt burdened by having to do so. At the time, each of these visits would leave me drained and sometimes angry. I never wanted to go because I'd leave in a foul mood after. 

It's taken years to reach this point, but my relationship with my dad is the best it's ever been. Now "best" is relative.  We're on a low scale here...by best, I mean we see each other once a week, we don't yell at each other, and we can have some surface-level conversation. Maybe sometimes more than surface-level. But honestly, if we're talking at all, and it's not yelling or reprimanding, that's a positive. 

I never got to have an adult relationship with my mother. When she died, I wrote a letter. In the letter, I listed a series of events and experiences she would miss from my life : my high school graduation, my college graduation, my marriage, the birth of my children. All of these have happened. But one thing I didn't have foresight into: both of us would miss having an adult relationship with each other. She would never stop being my mother, but the relationship of a mother and child is not the same as the relationship of a mother and an adult child. 

I have a vivid memory of being in middle school. I trace the timeline back to about 7th grade because I don't remember my brother being with me. My mother had driven to pick me up from school. I don't remember when she stopped driving, but 7th grade was less than a year before she died. She never waited in the carpool line because traffic was horrendous. Instead, she pulled up a street around from the school, and I'd walk down and look for her car. 

Upon opening the door, I got in the seat and loaded my violin and backpack around me. Immediately, I got yelled at because my violin was in the way of my mother's ability to drive. I got angry she snapped at me. We drove home in a sour mood and didn't speak to each other. I vaguely remember her later explaining to me she couldn't reach the gas pedal properly due to my violin being in the way, and that was dangerous. 

She was right. All these years later, I know she was right. I was just being a bratty teenager who didn't want to be corrected, and in that moment, I was annoyed at how bulky my backpack and instrument were. As an adult and mother myself now, if my child did the same thing, I'd be snapping at him/her in an instant, too.

I never had the chance to drive my mother around. She died a year and a half before I received my driver's license. I've driven my dad around a number of times on adventures with my children. I often wonder if it's strange for him to see me now doing things for him he used to do for me.  For a while, I resented the fact that it wasn't her. Why didn't my mother get to be the one to play with my kids and hear their laughter? Why wasn't my mother the one sitting in the passenger seat beside me as I drove? 

I learned to stop asking why. No answers will ever suffice for these questions. For now, I'm just glad my dad and I have time.  

Mortified

15 years ago, I wrote an embarrassing note on Facebook asking my friends to vote for me in a piano competition. This competition had a voting aspect in addition to the live performance, and let's be honest, you have to play the game to even have a chance at winning it. 

"hey you guys. vote for me to win this piano competition my teacher submitted my cd to :D:D:D:D:D please please please omg.

go to krld.com

scroll down on the left and click on the section that says something about a young artist's competition
and then vote for me :D

and tell all your friends at college/school/work to vote for me too :]
(i had a late start on this, my teacher submitted my cd late...-.-")

if you have questions IM me/comment and i'll help you (i'm at the library writing this and i can't open multiple windows to show you guys....)

omggg pleasee vote for me thanks so much :D

and if you're friends with jason wang...well, our friendship is questionable then.

just kidding. but don't vote him, vote me :[
thanks."

The link doesn't exist anymore and the recording of my performance is long gone. I have a master copy of the audio on a CD, but that CD doesn't play anymore so there is no actual remaining version of my performance from 2007. 

18 tracks...and none play

This post was from October 10 of 2007. Just over a month later, I stopped taking piano lessons. I was still arguably at the peak of my piano career, and potentially the start of something greater. But why? A lot changes when you're a teenager, and I acknowledge my portion of responsibility for why I chose to stop. My interests were changing. I wanted to see my friends on the weekend instead of spending them at a piano lesson. But that wasn't the breaking point. 

At the awards ceremony for the same competition this voting was for, my dad and I sat in the auditorium and waited for the ceremony to begin. My teacher was not present as he was on a trip overseas. As I flipped through the program and read the different bios for the other competitors and judges, I noticed that my teacher was listed as a judge for this competition. I was in shock. He had told me he was involved in the competition but reassured me he was not a judge. And yet, here he was, his photo, his bio, on the judges page. Moments later, I heard a parent comment from the row behind me: this girl's teacher is a judge. 

I was mortified. 

How could he do this to me? I didn't care I wasn't a winner that evening. All I wanted was to leave and not have anyone notice me or see my face or recognize me from that horrid program book. 

When he returned from his trip he told me we could resume lessons at our normal time. I told my dad to tell him I was quitting and not having anymore lessons. My dad sent him an email and received the angriest reply filled with bitterness and hate. My dad forwarded me the email.

I would like to know exactly why Cathy wants to quit her piano lesson? Something has to do with my teaching?  To just thank me for all the years and say nothing else are completely unconscionable!

 

It's a waste that she quits piano altogether before she finishes her high school years.  She has such a great potential, but I guess her priority has changed.  To be honest with you, she could have won the first prize with The DALLAS SOLO PIANO COMPETITION if she had tried a little bit more harder [sic].  I didn't think she was focused on the competition because all she talked about was her birthday party, her friends, her homework, etc........

For the past three months, the only other piece that I asked her to work on is a movement of a Schumann's piano concerto.  She absolutely refused to work on it, and regarded that piece of music as a piece of shit.  I couldn't believe thay kind of disrespect exhibited to a revered Classical composer by any piano student.  I could have given her another piece to work on, because I thought she would change her mind if she tried a little bit harder.  But no chance! 
  
Cathy, all I want to say to you is that if your mother were alive, she would be very disappointed that you quit studying piano with me because if she knew I wasn't the teacher meant for you, she could have told me to stop teaching you long ago!

Before closing this e-mail, I just want to make it clear that I accept Cathy's termination of piano lessons, and with such an acceptance she will also no longer be my student in the near or distant future. 

For more than 10 years after he sent this email, I've held onto this forced guilt because I've always felt like I did something wrong. It's only been in the last five or so years when I've been able to understand that I was not at fault at all. In fact, 99% of what he wrote about in the email is just an angry rant with no truth basis to it. 

1. He said I could have won 1st prize at that piano competition (different one from the voting submission) instead of the 3rd prize I was awarded. That is incorrect. He was not a judge. He did not hear how the other competitors played. He didn't even hear how I played. He wasn't there! To make that statement is an assumption and completely wrong. I actually met the young man who won 1st prize a year after that competition completely by chance. He had moved from California the year before, and he was very talented. We are friends on Facebook.    

The other thing my teacher never knew was I drove myself to that competition. Having an awkward relationship with my father, I did not tell him I had a competition until the morning of. He told me he had a conflict and couldn't drive me to the competition. My dad just shrugged and told me not to compete. I told him I'd drive myself. I'd never driven into the city before, but I set my mind to drive myself and take local roads all the way down. Because I had practiced and worked hard for the competition. If I was going to lose, I was going to lose honorably and take my chances instead of skip out. My teacher never knew. 

2. He said I wasn't focused on the competition because I was too focused on my birthday party, my friends, and homework. Can I not prioritize my birthday? Is that so wrong? Should I not value my friends as important? I don't want to be friends with someone who doesn't! I valued my homework and thought it should have a priority to get done! Wow! Blasphemy! 😑

3. He said I regarded the Shumann concerto as a piece of shit. Those words he made up and said himself. I never said anything to slam the Schumann concerto. All I did was not practice and make 0 progress on the piece. Now you have to understand, I was working on other pieces. I had other competitions with other pieces to continue practicing. I just did not learn that new piece. I was still practicing and playing other pieces. Those are two very different issues at hand. He said he could give me another piece to work on but he never offered. I never got offered another concerto. He was focused on me learning the Shumann, and when it didn't happen, he kept pushing. If I thought this concerto was a piece of shit, I would have burned it a long time ago. I didn't. I still have the music on my shelf in my studio. A part of me wants to learn it, but I haven't been able to bring myself to because of the memory it holds. What a shame...the one person who was supposed to foster and encourage has destroyed and uglified. 

Irony - if I had told my teacher I didn't want to learn it, he would have given me some response as to why I should learn it and me not wanting to learn it was my problem. How do I know he would have said this? At one of my piano competitions when I was around 14 or 15, he asked me if I was ready. I actually decided to answer honestly and shook my head "no". His response? He scowled at me and told me that was the wrong answer! That's the kind of person he was. 

4. He said if my mother were alive, she would have been very disappointed that I quit studying with him because if she knew he wasn't the teacher meant for me, she could have told him to stop teaching me a long time ago. Well this one takes the cake. He doesn't know that before she died, she asked my brother and me if we were progressing with our teacher. She asked us if we wanted to switch teachers. We said no because switching teachers and getting to know someone else is hard and takes work. My mother did not believe he was the teacher meant for me and she would not be very disappointed that I quit studying with him. In fact, I truly believe my mother would be so proud of me today for everything I am and everything I've done. If she were alive, she'd probably have given me an earful about quitting piano at the time. But I would have told her the truth. I would have told her everything. And she would have understood. 

She definitely isn't disappointed in me if she could see me now.

You know what I hate the most about him? This was 2007 when he said this about my mother. My mother died in 2004. He didn't go to her funeral. 

He didn't go to the funeral of the mother of two of his very best students. My orchestra director was at her funeral. My 7th grade science teacher was at her funeral. My algebra teacher was at her funeral. My English teacher had already told me she couldn't make it but she had shown me her condolences in other ways. My school principal was at her funeral. These four women took a day of their own PTO to come. My piano teacher could not rearrange his schedule to come.

Let's let that sink in. 

And to think he has the nerve to say what he did to me in 2007?

5. As if I want to be his student in the near and distant future. I'm ashamed to even tell people I was his student at all. 

What kind of a heartless jerk was teaching me piano for 12 years? 

There were a lot of red flags over those 12 years. I just missed them all or didn't notice them the way an adult would have. After all, I was 17 when I quit. How many 17 year olds have great intuition? How many 17 year olds are perceptive enough to read people? Not to mention, my own father did not defend me. It took almost another 17 years to begin to see everything clearly for what it was. For how abused I was in this student-teacher relationship. 

I still cry thinking about this and reliving these memories. I cry because I was once this excited little teenager wanting to get votes for a music competition who is now filled with anger and hate at these memories. I still cry because I know I will never be separated from these memories or from him unless I cut music and piano out of my life completely. And I know I will never do that. But I don't give him any credit for anything beyond textbook knowledge. I went from someone who swore off music at 17 for the rest of her life to someone who made it into a career.

He didn't create any of that. 

Tainted Grace

On February 22, 2020, I got a text from my dad: Call me.

My dad never sends me texts like this. It felt weird. I wasn't sure what was wrong. It couldn't have been that urgent since he texted and didn't try calling me numerous times to reach me right at that instant.

I was at dinner with some friends so I sat in my car in the parking lot afterwards and called him back. He told me he'd received a postcard in the mail saying there was an unpaid $300 fine for a speeding ticket from 2010. I told him I'd been stopped by an officer that day for speeding, but I didn't receive a ticket. I definitely would have dealt with it if I had received a ticket. We hung up and came to the conclusion that it was a scam for someone trying to get money.

When I got home that evening, I went online and looked up my driving record. Sure enough, that alleged unpaid speeding ticket was listed there dated 10 years prior. It was not a scam, but it was not accurate. Unfortunately, it was Saturday evening, and I had to mull in this false accusation until Monday when I could call the offices.

On Monday, I called the office first thing in the morning to try and get this straightened out. Nobody picked up their phone. I couldn't get the phone to ring. I called at least 3-4 offices trying to reach a person to speak to regarding this. Apparently the town was small enough where all of the administrative positions were located in one building. And yet nobody would pick up the phone. Finally, about two hours later, the phone line went through and I got a hold of someone. She told me if I wanted to dispute it, I'd have to write a letter to the judge and fax it over.

Did I mention I was 34 weeks pregnant at the time with a toddler to watch during the day?

My dad came over later that morning to show me the postcard he was mailed. I told him I needed to write a letter and fax it over to the court since I wasn't going to be driving an hour and 15 minutes to go to court. Thankfully, he stayed and entertained my daughter for an hour while I wrote my letter, back in the day when you could see people and not be afraid of spreading a deadly virus.

The day of the alleged ticket, I was driving two friends back to Dallas with me that afternoon for the weekend. I messaged one of them to ask if he/she remembered the incident. I was even careful in the way I asked the question so there wouldn't be any bias in the answer.

"Do you remember that time in college when I drove you back home?"

"Yea."

"Do you remember me getting stopped for speeding?"

"Yes."

"Did I get a ticket?"

"Nope! You didn't. I remember thinking you were very lucky."

I don't expect friends to remember much anymore, much less something from 10 years ago, because I've been let down so many times by people whom I thought were close to me. So the fact that this friend remembers this particular incident is quite special to me. 

I drove to the library that afternoon to fax the letter over and made it home in time to teach my first lesson. There was no way they could possibly accuse me of this ticket, because I had some of the strongest things going for me:

- I had a friend with me in the car 
- I wasn't told I was getting a ticket
- I didn't sign a ticket or any piece of paper

But I still ended up waiting three agonizing days to hear back. 

On Thursday afternoon, I finally got a call. They "looked through my file and the judge dismissed the ticket." I don't know what was in my file or how they somehow came up with this ticket 10 years after the fact, but I can guarantee you there was no signed ticket in my file. So how in the world they came up with this case, I have no idea. I. Have. No. Idea.

10 years ago today, when the officer handed me my license and registration back without a ticket, I felt a sense of relief but also sadness. As I started up my car again to resume driving, I began crying, and the car was silent for a long while. I cried because I knew I'd been shown grace by an officer. For nearly 10 years, I always remembered this fondly with a special respect. Now, I just remember the trouble I went through to dismiss a case that never existed in the first place.

What a shame.