Picture if you will a bedraggled new mother in the greeting card aisle at Walmart. I forget whose birthday it was, but I was frazzled and in a hurry. In just under an hour, I was supposed to be on the other side of town in East Boise to help load and transport a piano that my mom was able to procure from a dear friend of hers who was moving to another state. I didn't really even know where I was going to put it, but it was a blessing too good to be true to have a real piano coming into my life.
As I squinted at the cards, turning them over and tucking the rejects back into their slots again, a lilting, vaguely familiar voice startled me: "Mollie!!" I looked up over my smudgy glasses and felt a little embarrassed that I was bumping into someone I knew. There was certainly messy, sad hair and a jogging suit that may have been doubling for jammies at the time completing the People Of Walmart ensemble. It took me a second, then I realized the woman who recognized me was my across-the-street neighbor. We had only spoken a few times, as the Pettys were fairly new to the neighborhood nestled under the Boise Foothills. She and I made light small talk for a moment, then I looked at my watch and said, "Oh, I don't mean to be rude, but I REALLY have to get going! I have an appointment in East Boise and I'm really pushing it for time! See you soon! Take care!"
We smiled and nodded our heads in farewell, pushing our silver carts past one another. Then she turned around and blurted, "Mollie! Wait! Do you teach piano lessons?" Now, she had NO IDEA - no previous concept at all - of my love for and background in music. We had never talked about anything like that at all. What in the world would make her say that?
I stopped in my tracks and considered her question. "Well, no, I don't teach music," I said plainly. "I've never given a piano lesson. I don't even have a piano." She nodded that she understood and asked me to let her know if I knew any piano instructors that might want to take on another student, as she wanted her son to get started. I said I would ask around.
Then she queried, "By the way, what are you doing in East Boise today?"
I answered half-mindedly, "Oh - I'm going to meet some people to pick up a piano..." We looked at each other. She said softly, "But...I thought you said you didn't....have a piano."
I shook my head and laughed, "I do now, I guess! Gosh, I wasn't even thinking! Hah! When shall we start?"
So my neighbor's son was my FIRST student, and we began that very week. How's that for Providential leading for you? He is now a world-famous concert pianist, that young man from the story. Just kidding - he's not. He only lasted for a month and a half or so and got bored. But he was the first of many great kids (and a few adults, too!) that have graced me with their presence in my home over the last nine years. I've helped teens with audition preparation for musical theater auditions, and one of my sweet students even took home a medal from an Irish Feis (festival) vocal competition in Portland for which we'd prepared a tear-jerking Gaelic folksong. I look forward to meeting more wonderful people and their families through the gift that came into my life that day in the greeting card aisle at Walmart: Spirit Studios.
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