Let's Pretend

Music Appreciation, 101 with Mr. Kovac.

He was a small, fastidious man with a tiny mustache and a thick accent. He always wore a suit and tie, including a vest with a pocket watch, and he taught us to play "Country Gardens" on the flute. He encouraged each of us to find an instrument and then dedicate to it. The piano and the violin were the most popular.

He lived alone in a tiny apartment that he called a flat and gave after school music lessons to supplement his teaching income. The rooms were dark, heavy curtains kept the light from coming in and the furniture was ancient and massive. Small lamps were placed here and there in corners and they threw shadows over the furnishings. With very little imagination, an old wingback chair became a magic throne, the old fashioned sofa
turned to a creature. He insisted we close our eyes when playing - it would help us feel the music and lessen the stuffiness of practice sessions. A metronome clicked steadily during each hour - the footsteps of the creature as he approached, we pretended. We would be snatched from our instruments and thrown into an oven like Hansel and Gretel for surely Mr. Kovac was a witch in disguise, preying on children with his musical spells.

Coming into the light after a lesson was reassuring but still we left on the run, never knowing when we might be pursued by some apparition and dragged back. She reads too many fairy tales my grandmother advised my daddy
darkly. he's just a poor music teacher.

Being a down to earther, feet firmly planted in reality, my grandmother took a dim view of what she saw as my overactive imagination. When I told her about the village of Weeper Whineys that lived under the shelf in my closet, she gave me a swat followed by a serious lecture on letting my imagination run away with me. She believed that the world was a solemn place and that children should be prepared for it. "Let's pretend" creatures that lived in my closet - no matter how real they were to me - did not qualify as proper preparation and when I turned her kitchen broom into an Apache pony and warwhooped my way through the house, she sighed deeply and despaired of my future. But she also let me ride.

It seems now as though she was trying to find her way with her grandchildren as she had been unable to do with her own daughter and it was a difficult road for her. She was frightened for us, frightened that she would fail us as she thought she had failed my mother, frightened of what we might become. So she was strict, at times distant, often humorless and at the same time, generous, kind, good natured and loving. She was a paradox of conflicting emotions and I suspect that she never stopped struggling to do the right thing. Sometimes fairy tales and denial have a great deal in common - they're both "Let's pretend" games.