We wrapped up a week of bluegrass camp in July.
This is significant, I feel.
We are at a fork in the road where a half dozen years of very expensive cello lessons–thousands of dollars–just might about be tossed out the window because my boy wants to be a flatpicking guitarist, the next Tony Rice. I don’t know why, but it scares me a little.
I have a couple of kids who can tune an instrument by ear. Perfect pitch, it’s called. They were little boys who had unending energy and I needed them to have a more focused outlet (something other than racing bikes down mountains–we didn’t have insurance at the time), so I signed them up for music. A cutie patootie ⅛ sized cello and ⅛ sized violin. They practiced their Suzuki lessons every day while I slapped my knee as a metronome. They listened to Piano Guys like they were the Rolling Stones.
We are part of a larger family that plays bluegrass. Growing up, my Saturday mornings were filled with the smell of bacon frying and the sounds of Doyle Lawson and Ricky Skaggs, my dad’s nasal tenor striking high harmonies.
But my own kids are Colorado natives, and we sure weren’t experiencing much gospel or banjo in the Rockies. Ska and pizza were the Saturday vibes in Durango, with Bach festivals and Music in the Mountains for the more refined. The old cowboy way was teetering on its last two legs over at the Bar D Chuckwagon, surviving on tourist dollars that drifted into southwest Colorado and divided itself among rafting and riding the scenic train to Silverton.
My impression was that bluegrass hadn’t ever rooted in Colorado quite like it had in my Missouri blood. And so we adapted, and we made our home among the more classy orchestral musicians instead of old time fiddlers. We ate artisan pizza and snowboarded on the weekend and joined the youth orchestra on Tuesday afternoons.
Until we moved back east and, on a whim, signed up for bluegrass camp.
He loved it. Loved the energy of fast-paced picking and grinning. He fit right into the scene, the heritage. I was excited for him, but also a little worried. It’s the investment in learning an instrument–this is exactly why I felt nervous. There’s hardly room for cello in bluegrass, and boy that cello has cost me a lot of money. I rented for the first six months before I could even afford to buy it outright. I prayed my six year old wouldn’t drop it on the hardwood floor or touch the horse hair bow with his grubby fingers. And now, right when he was hitting his stride ripping through the fifth Suzuki book, he traded Brahms for Bill Monroe.
When we started, I had pure motives: music is my favorite form of worship. If you can equip others to worship, you multiply the effect. But what happened is my kids started getting pretty good at playing–cello and violin being the instruments. And before I knew it, I had vested myself in their talent.
I was part of the investment.
Me.
It wasn’t so much about organic worship anymore, but doing what I (their mom) envisioned them doing. Naturally I thought I had a say over what happened at the fork in the road.
But the mom in charge of choosing a six year old’s first instrument doesn’t usually know the long-term plans God has for such a child.
One of my dear, dear friends has two grown boys who are very, very talented. They are genius smarty-pants but they’re also roving musicians. Their mama rolls her eyes because she would have never imagined it. The boy who could be anything is now somewhat of a starving artist.
And one thing she said several years ago has never left me. She said this:
Your faith has to be bigger than your fear.
I really do believe I’ve got faith. But sometimes the fear edges its way into view. It happens before I even know it’s happening. I get into the habit of thinking (without verbally expressing it), I trust you, God, just not with my kids. What I mean is this: I think it is complete reliance, but I’m still secretly banking on my own ability to cultivate my ideal family and their ideal talents.
When I’m persuaded I’m headed in the right direction, God sometimes turns me around and points me in the direction that better pursues Him. He wrenches my hands free from a situation I think I’ve got under control without His help–and He gently reminds me I’m not the boss.
It isn’t about dropping cello for a guitar–I’ve already decided I can tune the cello to upright bass strings and we’ll have a pretty sweet setup for the next kid in line to join our family bluegrass jams.
But I need small reminders that I’m not in control of things, including my budding musicians.
I’m not in control of how things turn out. This mom gig is a whole lot of preparing kids to spread their wings, and not a whole lot about how I think they should do it. (Something you don’t think about while changing their diapers, but something you must come to terms with as they grow.)
Some of the things I think are essential–methods, theories, manners, goals–turn out not to be quite so essential. Some day they will encounter a fork in the road and it won’t be up to me to decide which path to take. And it won’t be scary; it’ll be gratifying, because I’ll be watching new wings take flight.
My boy cellist can play any instrument, it turns out. The ukulele tunes turned into guitar melodies when I told him I’d give him twenty dollars if he could learn “Here Comes the Sun”. In an hour’s time he had a crisp twenty warming his pocket.
After listening to me painstakingly learn “Redhaired Boy” on the mandolin, he snatched the instrument from my hands and announced, “it’s supposed to sound like this–”. Okay, fine.
My dad brought over an upright bass and my kid began thumping out “Blackberry Blossom”.
My brother handed him a banjo, which his fingers took to quite naturally. He’s saving his money to buy a resonator guitar. There’s a drum kit in his closet, and he just acquired a trombone for the sixth grade band.
He hasn’t touched the cello since bluegrass camp. It made me sad for a little while, but I think I’m getting over it. There’s an instrument in his hands nearly every free waking moment, so who am I to decide which one gets the attention?
It’s better than I’d even hoped when I first rented that tiny cello and put it into the welcoming arms of that tiny boy.
Our home is filled with music, and deep down, I think I wanted that even more than I wanted control over how things turn out.
God knew–He always knows. Faith over fear.
I trust you, God. Especially with my kids.
