Do adults realize what they're doing when they give a child a musical instrument and pay for lessons? 23 years later I still remember the first time my piano teacher had me repeat a lesson while the kid who took lessons with me sailed on ahead. It was my first musical failure, and there would be many more. Today when I drive the route to her house, or to any of my former oboe teachers' houses, I can still taste the dry-mouthed anxiety and feel the dread of underpreparedness in the pit of my stomach.

I didn't date in high school, so music was my only outlet for romantic feelings. If I was attracted to someone, instead of saying so I fantasized about playing music with that person. I fell in love with a flute player, a trumpet player, a violinist because they played so beautifully. I counted the hours till orchestra rehearsals, rode the tidal wave of emotions, and left feeling drained and unfulfilled.

Later I realized that people valued my oboe playing. Power! I could charm and attract. If I loved a musician I could seduce him or her into engaging in passionate acts of mutual pleasure. All the power lay in the long black object in my hands and in my skill in using it.

But such power is tenuous. A few years ago while preparing for a recital with an pianist I loved, my oboe malfunctioned. I was plunged into panic and despair. I made frantic long-distance phone calls to former oboe teachers and would have paid any sum of money to get the instrument fixed. This was my first glimpse of how it must be for a man to find out he is impotent.

Adults can listen to music coming out of a young person with an instrument, but they can never tell what is going on inside that child. It's probably best that way.

submitted by Lia Gima
age 30
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
submitted April 1998