Never let them win!

Birdie Jaworski — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 15:59:47 -0500

I wrote this real-life story about my guitar class, but when I sit and think about it, the lesson isn't just for my students. Taking a stand on what is important - be it something small like guitar class, or something large like reproductive rights - is something we, as connected beings in this crazy world, need to do.

I teach beginner guitar at my boys' school two mornings a week. Most weeks I let the students decide which songs to learn. They pick music that would make most instructors flinch - thick brassy chords under coochie mamma lyrics - but I don't mind.

"Just don't sing too loud. I don't want Megan hearing us."

Megan teaches art in the room next door. She wears dirndl skirts in pastel hues, cutesy artist's smocks with embroidered teddy bears, her curly hair twisted back in a perfect pre-Raphaelite halo. I wear my usual Avon Lady duds - whatever jeans are clean or at the very least not too dirty, a vintage 70's t-shirt, my hair in pigtails under my black Let's Party baseball cap. Megan likes order on the tiniest scale, likes still life with banana and pear, likes careful students who mix acrylic paints in exact amounts. I'm like my students. Chaos is my lover, I walk the halls with a pirate's swagger, eat still life for breakfast and burp when I'm done.

I start each class with a ritual. We raise our guitars overhead, high, high, almost to the cracked stucco ceiling and chant our chosen affirmation, one hand on neck, one fist raised in six-stringed unity.

"We're the Chicken River Rock Stars!"

We rock stars are a little too much for Megan.

"Could you keep it down in there? We're working on daffodils today and the students need to concentrate."

Megan's ready admonition is our signal to begin. I place my guitar on a desk and pull a tube of Avon Moisture Therapy hand cream from my backpack, pass it around the room. My students resisted the Avon at first.

"C'mon, Ms. Birdie. Avon's for sissies. We're men!"

The lone girl in the class sneered.

"You're gonna be sissies at the end of class. I've been playing for a year and my fingers are tough. Just wait."

She pulled a porkpie hat over one eye and loudly tuned her A string. She was right, of course. One hour into class the boys' fingerpads throbbed in steel-cut misery, and I whipped out the Avon. They extended hands without a word.

This morning I crossed the river late, huffed and puffed up the last steep hill, my guitar bag slapping my right leg as I ran. Megan drove past me. I recognized her hair in the Toyota's rear window. I tried to flag her down, bum a ride, but she breezed past, her eyes dark and angry in the rear view mirror. I slunk into school ten minutes late, found my students practicing the latest Limp Bizkit song.

"Could you keep it down in there? We're working on landscapes today and the students need to concentrate."

Megan's voice carried a hint of superior edge. I laughed, closed our door, unzipped my backpack and grabbed the Avon.

"Guys, let this be a lesson. If you're gonna be a rock star, you gotta understand this sooner or later. There's Us. And then there's Them. Never, ever let Them win."

We raised our fists, yelled our mantra, plopped butts into tiny school chairs, and began to rock the east wing of the school. Limp Bizkit never sounded so damn good.

Birdie Jaworski lives in Las Vegas, New Mexico, and teaches guitar at an Expeditionary Learning school. She also sells Avon door-to-door and dreams of the day she can write full-time.

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Never let them win!