Gorgeous November

Words by: Marina Borsuk

November is a very special time in Dubai: you can enjoy the sun all day long not afraid of burning your skin as the summer heat is finally gone. Early mornings and evenings are chilly but great for meeting friends at a cosy cafés and restaurants or running along the coast. This was exactly what Miss Nina did yesterday. Her most favorite places for running are Dubai Marina seaside, the Palm – an amazing artificial island, and, of course, Jumeirah’s beaches. Yesterday she got there by the sunset. This choice of place and timing was not accidental. She had planned a long distance run to enjoy the sunset. For many people sunset is just a part of the day with a slight touch of poetic romance and a perfect background to take photos. But not for Miss Nina! These past twelve years she’s been going to the office in the afternoon. Her spacious office was located in one of the most popular shopping malls of Dubai with no windows, endless walls and doors, and air conditioners that would work non-stop. Nina would always plan her weekends. She usually tried to spend them outdoors and was extremely happy to catch the sunset. Unfortunately it did not happen often, mostly on vacation in summer. And every year it would be more and more difficult to go back to work in September to that spacious office without windows. But it’s all in the past. Nina’s life is totally changing now…

Imagine two musical compositions. Both are magnificent and equal in the content and technical details. Every musician would dream to perform both compositions to the audience. Just there is one essential condition: before you learn and perform at the concert the first composition you can’t proceed to the second one. It would take hours, weeks, months and maybe even years of hard but successful work on the composition to move ahead. The pleasure from learning is mixed with feeling of being tired. There is a very fragile edge between dropping everything and just playing the music and a hate even to look at those music notes. And finally here is the performance day! Everybody is sincerely happy to witness this and to listen to the composition! Now there is a green light to proceed to the second masterpiece. But the musician is not on cloud nine at all, he is effortless, totally exhausted. He needs the sabbatical or let’s say he creates for himself a kind of buffer time island to charge his batteries, revive and confidently step into the future.

So Miss Nina was now exactly on the same buffer time island that she has been searching for a long time, meeting different people and facing incredible adventures. But she was still hesitating for some time before stepping on the shore of this island. Now she is finally here. Waves of the circumstances had pushed the current of events and helped her to moor. It is hard to forecast what she would see and hear, whom she would meet but deep inside Nina is absolutely sure that she is ready for a new chapter in her life. And this will be her second musical composition, based on the experience of working with the first one. Probably this time it would be more serene but deeper. Her feelings, thoughts and actions would change the colour and sound new.

Only now, two weeks later, Miss Nina got used to her life on the island. She wakes up without an alarm-clock, takes her breakfast and… here is THE FREEDOM. Nothing limits her choices: going to the beach, non-stop reading, enjoying running at the coast, listening to the music for her own pleasure not as a background noise. She can simply sit and listen to each and every note of the soundtrack. Slight feeling of wonder that this is happening to herself and the guilt slowly reversed. She will be ready very soon! Ready to start the new curve of her life, where she can follow her principles instead of getting satisfied with what she has while being responsible for her family, for her son, for her job, for her students and their progress. Now all that is transforming from responsibility into Experience and Love. And the principals would be the guards securing her so she can recall she is not just a music teacher.

By the way, the question the music teacher traditionally asks his beginners: “What colour are the keys?” The question sounds useless and we can easily predict the answer: “White and black” or “Black and white”. Depends on how you see it.

Nobody was expecting her necessarily to become a music teacher, neither her mother while sending a six-year-old girl to a music school, nor her grandma who bought for Nina the piano. In 80’s in the Soviet Union a piano, a violin or a guitar were almost family members and could be seen in every house. Music coming from everywhere was a typical thing. Nobody used the headphones or the middle piano pedal, which Nina nowadays calls as a joke “the pedal for angry neighbours”. It was a sign of bad taste or even troubles in the family, if kids did not attend music classes or play sports. Music schools and sports clubs were usually fully booked. And these were public schools following state educational standard. Children used to spend in those temples of art around five hours a week: two hours playing an instrument and three hours of group music classes including solfeggio, music literature and, of course, a choir. Remember that there were no copiers or Xerox machines those days. So all papers for choir were handwritten during school breaks and after classes. That is why Miss Nina had this beautiful handwriting that became later on source of excitement for her students.

Four times a year all students had to pass the exams participating in the concerts in the Main Hall. The Main Hall was an essential for every music school. Only a thought about this place made kids’ hearts tremble. In the Main Hall there was a high stage with stairs and parquet floor, impressive curtains and… a real pride of any musical school - the grand piano! It was usually cherished as a baby. Every student got a special time slot for rehearsal before the concert. That moment kids’ hearts started to beat faster and they were dreaming to touch the magical instrument. Nobody dared to keep the composition not polished or not to learn it by heart. In daytime the Hall was filled with rays of sunlight coming through the massive curtains on the big windows. When it was getting dark outside during the performance, the Hall got a unique fine atmosphere. A huge antique chandelier decorated with dozens of crystal pendants looked like a princess in a beautiful gown. Many small lamps on the walls were matching it in style as if they are chandelier’s lieges inviting visitors to the fairy tale castle full of music, whispers of worried parents and applauds. Everybody was dressed smart, guests were smiling and radiant with happiness.

The school was always clean and cosy. In winter and rainy days all students had to bring a pair of indoor shoes. Teachers looked very respectful. Classrooms were decorated by plenty of flowers in the pots, paintings and other tiny décor accessories that were completing the bohemian atmosphere of the place. On the walls of corridors you could see framed portraits of famous composers. And the chairs by the classrooms’ doors were occupied by little students waiting for a lesson to start. To show their good manners children were usually standing up to greet a parent or a teacher.

The Music College and the Conservatory was actually an enlarged copy of a music school with the only difference that lessons got longer and there was no need to stand up while greeting the tutors. Oh, wait! There were more concerts and Concert Halls, more subjects and friends. Exams and homework got more complicated too. The only thing that got shorter was the break between academic terms and time to stay with beloved ones. The years spent at the Conservatory far away from her sweet home became the unique imprint in life memories. It was a charming town at the Black sea coast, also called “Little Paris”. Her Conservatory student ID could open doors of the Theatre and the Philharmonic as a magic wand, guaranteeing a free ticket. So Miss Nina attended a performance almost every day. As her professor used to say: even one concert can enrich you more than few hours of homework.

The Music College and the Conservatory was actually an enlarged copy of a music school with the only difference that lessons got longer and there was no need to stand up while greeting the tutors. Oh, wait! There were more concerts and Concert Halls, more subjects and friends.

Now we know the atmosphere Miss Nina used to live in. She made this long path from a six-year-old girl whose mother made her start the Music school, till a well-educated young lady. To get the Diploma with Excellency and obtain an honour to perform in concerts Nina completed a forty minutes long performance at the final exam. She became a real musician and would love to dedicate her whole life to music.

That was exactly what happened. But Nina could not even see in her daydreams that life would send her so far away… to Dubai. This was almost twenty years ago. As a start it took Nina long time to adopt and to get used to a different style of musical education in this amazing exotic place that is still so close to her heart. At first she got in troubles with herself and sometimes could not sleep from thinking about a way to teach her students. She felt as an alien landed at a new planet where only black and white keys on the piano were a common thing in her musical and artistic world. She could not accept the funny and nonsense issues happening around and pushing her to burst into either laugh or tears. The experience from her planet did not work here at all, as opposite, it was sometimes only adding fuel to a fire. She had to erase it all and start from zero. But Miss Nina did not want to give up. She put a plan to create her own teaching method with rules, tricks and secrets. Time passed, the method had changed and got mature. Miss Nina became more confident and free from needless negative emotions. Every trouble or puzzle could be solved. Every question could be answered. But now, twenty years later, she still occasionally faces the situations recalling that only keys on the piano at this planet are the same.

This is, by the way, the question the music teacher traditionally asks his beginners: “What colour are the keys?” The question sounds useless and we can easily predict the answer: “White and black” or “Black and white”. Depends on how you see it. However this simple question fills a kid with excitement that he knows the correct answer. This is simple! And Miss Nina tried her best in easy and simple manner to teach brave students who decided to dive into an unknown but wonderful ocean of music. She asked herself the same question but in different way: Why are the keys only black and white? The answer was not found quickly but was very simple: Black-and-white is the best background to see the brightness and unique colours of kaleidoscope of happening stories. All those sad and funny, serious and weird, interesting and instructive, true and mysterious stories Miss Nina keeps in a very special place, in her memory. Once Nina saw how her memory looks in her own imagination. It was a library without usual walls, shelves and windows, all covered with a thick fog. High shelves-units were floating in the air. Sometimes shelves moved to a new location being pushed by the colour-changing fog. These shelves made a big house for stories that were also moving non-stop. Some were floating ahead so you can reach them and use any time, some were diving deep and hiding away. All that was mixed with the low sounds of music and kids’ voices. Now it became hard to find a gap in the shelves because number of stories is increasing. To empty some place for new stories and make old ones last longer, Miss Nina has to share them with other people. Recently she has started to share a lot.

Every student had one music lesson a week - precious and expensive sixty minutes! Nina always had a draft plan for every class, but sometimes it did not work out. A student could arrive late or be in a bad mood, could not feel well or be not ready for the lesson. Then the draft plan was changed or even collapsed. What was Miss Nina doing in such case? Oh! There were two totally different Ninas. That one from the past was very frustrated and started moralizing and stuffing a poor kid with instructions and left-overs of the lesson plan. “What a sad scene” – the present Miss Nina would think looking at all that. Now she clearly realises that one lesson is just a small part of the chain. And if that part turned to be weak she needs to fix it not to ruin all the chain of the studying process. She can start a kind conversation of trust and remember a couple of stories from her memory. This works perfectly. Even if this lesson was more about words but not playing the piano, this would definitely help. Maybe one of those stories could influence the student in a good way. Miss Nina also uses short episodes to take a break during the lesson if she feels that children are tired. The stories really helped her to build solid bridges between students, their parents and herself. People surrounding Miss Nina realised that she was more than just a music teacher, she was a kind person and a friend whose heart could listen to kids. She could always keep a good balance between being tough and kind. Sometimes only one of her smiles could release the tension in the class. Once the mother of Nina’s Chinese students (“a Chinese mama”) told her: “You are strict but fun. They run to your lessons but are a bit afraid of you. That is why they always do their music homework”.

All the thoughts and memories are now floating in her head. Miss Nina is pretty sure that she would not meet some of her ex-students again, but others might be brought back to her life by the hand of destiny. Nina feels neither sorry nor regret. Everything happens in its proper time. She is deeply thankful to life for people she had met, for a chance to plant in hearts and minds of students the right understanding and love to the music. Now it depends only on them how they are going to use it. As for Miss Nina, she is planning to keep and enrich her experience that would always remain the apple of her eye.

Tomorrow morning she will take her bicycle and drive to the desert to the special Al Qudra Cycle track. The sunrise is a beautiful and picturesque antipode of the sunset. They do not confront, every day they replace each other with glory and majesty without a drop of rush. The sun rises and charms us with its shining rays, it illuminates the sand dunes, hugging them and inviting to start a new day. No one is around. Only the sunrise, dunes and Nina who has received an invitation to a new trip in her life. She will ride 50 km enjoying the view of dunes and fighting the wind. “Imagine Dragons” would inspire her from the headphones to complete the ride. This afternoon she will decorate the apartment and put the ornaments to the Christmas tree.

Yes, it is November yet, but showcases all around Dubai have already been decorated for the Christmas and New Year. Why not! Let this festive and magical feeling surround us and last as long as it could. New Year is Miss Nina’s most favourite holiday. The holiday for everyone. It is time for family gatherings, love, happiness and miracles. Time to give and get presents. Decorating the Christmas tree is a true mystery.

The tree has stayed in the carton box for almost a year, has recharged and is ready to shine again. Christmas ornaments were packed separately in the other box. They are out now to play their part too. Miss Nina will take every ornament, recalling in silence where and when she got each of gems in her collection. Then she will slowly put every pine, every bird and an angel on the branches as if the ornaments are alive. Starting from today Miss Nina will light candles every day so they can illuminate the way for dreams to come true. Such a gorgeous month November is!

To be continued...