According to notes in one of my older journals, I was struck by comments that Oprah and Tyler Perry made in an interview for Essence. Both attributed experiences growing up as catalysts that propelled them to their extraordinary success. Perry said that he thought it took “all of that hell, all of that darkness, to become who I am now.” Oprah expressed a similar sentiment, saying, “being born in Mississippi, in the year I was born, was Providence.”
But what if their experiences had nothing to do with their subsequent lives, especially their good fortune? What if Oprah and Tyler Perry are the lucky ones? Many, if not most, people who had a hard life growing up get caught in a cycle of hard times and never escape. They can never seem to get a break. Is a hard life their destiny?
Then there are those of us who see ourselves as fortunate and blessed, not on the same kind of scale of success as Oprah and Tyler Perry, but lucky, nonetheless, because we have attained a better life than might have been predicted for us based on our younger life experiences.
I get a lot of satisfaction out of remembering the times that I thought were devastating when they happened and realized at a later time that it was these experiences that helped me develop some of the skills and values that have been most important in creating the life I want and cherish.
Most of all, I cherish those experiences that may have caused tears of sadness or anger and now bring laughter and sometimes tears of joy.
Remembering my brush with learning to play the piano makes me realize that I don’t give my mother enough credit for all she did to show her love.
When I was 14 or 15, I told my mother that I wanted to learn to play the piano and asked if it would be possible for me to take lessons. This was a big ask for someone in a family often just scraping by. But Muhdear did all the legwork of finding a piano, a music teacher, the $10 per lesson, and someone to drive me miles from home for lessons as often as possible.
The lessons were a disaster from the start. I thought the music teacher was too old, he had bad breath, and his method of teaching made me feel stupid. He was always harping about how I needed to practice. He had no idea what that was like for me.
No matter when I would practice, it was the wrong time for someone. If I practiced after school, my grandmother (and sometimes my mother when she was out of a job) would be watching one of their soap operas. They would beg me to practice later so they could hear the television. My grandmother would say, “Child, have some mercy on us and practice later.”
If I practiced on Saturday afternoon, in addition to relatives and friends just dropping by, my grandmother would have customers in the kitchen waiting to get their hair done, and my grandfather would have customers for haircuts sitting in the dining room waiting their turn.
The piano was in the dining room. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the men waiting for haircuts shaking their heads, covering their mouth, and trying not to laugh out loud as I practiced. My grandfather would say, “Gal, stop all that noise and find something else to do.”
Despite the discouragement, I tried to practice. The last straw, however, was when my favorite aunt—my grandmother’s sister—and her husband, Uncle, came by one Saturday when I was practicing.
As they were approaching the door to the apartment, they heard me practicing. I don’t know what she said, but I could tell by the tone and subsequent laughter that my aunt had said something derisive about my playing. When she passed behind my bench on the way to the kitchen where women were waiting to get their hair done, uncharacteristically, I ignored her. Uncle followed behind my aunt and, as he was passing, he placed a quarter on the piano near the keyboard and asked in his deep voice, “Is this enough for you to stop practicing?”
Apparently, there was already tension in the air because as the insult traveled like a rushing wind from the men waiting for haircuts to the women waiting to get their hair done, like the burst of a balloon, no one could hold in their laughter any longer. All the hair-cutting and hair-fixing stopped for a while so the pent-up laughter could come out throughout the apartment. Some laughed so hard tears streamed out and others had to go to the bathroom.
At the time, I was devastated. Years later, I could see the humor and would share the story with friends because it was funny!
Taking nothing away from the humor of this tale, in this young and ignorant phase of my life, I made some decisions based on this one incident that were rash, hurtful, and disrespectful. My decisions and subsequent actions as an ignorant teenager do not reflect who I have continued to become. They lacked values that I now hold dear such as reflection, respect, and empathy.
Though we may never know and understand the causes of events in our lives, we can use the experiences to shape the kind of person we want to be.
Gwen Dungy 