Christmas in July

Most of the kids here will head back to school three weeks from today. It can’t come too soon for me. The past two months my students and their parents have been floundering. They come without their music. They come without having practiced. They get dropped off at their piano lesson in their swimsuits – dripping wet – because they were swimming in their neighbors’ pool. They come without a check for this month’s (or last month’s) tuition. All too often they don’t come at all; not because they’re too busy, but because they’ve forgotten what day of the week it is. I’m all in favor of holidays, but I think three months is too long to be away with the fairies. It’s frustrating for them and for me to spend several weeks just trying to regain the ground we’ve lost since May. But we’ll do it, because we only have 17 weeks before the Christmas recital.