Issue link: http://latinschool.uberflip.com/i/773382
Around School My Story Around School W hen Ms. Sauer interrupts my playing, I can tell almost immediately what she is going to say by the way she calls my name. "Lia" is frequently followed by, "Why haven't you fixed that part yet?" "Lia!" probably means that I'm not counting. But, "Lia..." is always followed by one of the worst questions: "What are you doing wrong?" In piano, there's something called an anchor. It's the muscle, the teres major, under your shoulder blade, by your armpit, that crosses over onto your arm. If you pull all of your weight into your anchor, your arms can float. ey are flexible to move and jump, cross over one another. But these movements are not powerless, not wandering. ey are grounded by your anchor. To be honest, sometimes when Ms. Sauer asks me what I'm doing wrong, I have no clue. I can guarantee you, though, that in these instances, if you answer that you're not using your anchor, the wrinkles between her eyebrows will dissipate, and she'll say, "You're right. en use your anchor." Ms. Sauer really is a beautiful woman. She is ageless – literally. I have scoured the Internet, read her biography on the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's website, even looked on her Facebook. I've asked her other students, too, but no one knows exactly how old she is. From what we have gathered, she is at least 85. When I first began studying piano with her four or five years ago, her blue eyes were more piercing and not as milky as they are now. Her hair was darker, and there was more of it. She layers black stockings underneath her dark fleecy pants and wears clip-on earrings that haven't fooled anyone. At a recent lesson, Ms. Sauer told me that she'd be retiring as the principal pianist for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra after 57 years. Fifty-seven years. ankfully, though, she'll still be teaching her students, but her coming absence in the orchestra makes me wonder what will happen when she is absent from this world. Ms. Sauer represents a generation that didn't jump from job to job like millennials are almost expected to do: Ms. Sauer's generation is a generation of traditionalists. She joined the orchestra in 1959 – just as the first wave of feminism was budding. As one of the first women to join the orchestra, she was discriminated against by the male musicians. To overcome her adversities and triumph now for 57 years? at's a kind of commitment that makes think about my future. I'm now at the cusp of making, apparently, one of the biggest decisions of my life. What the hell am I supposed to do with my time on earth? It's interesting that as a teenager beginning to think about the rest of my life, I get to watch one of the most influential people I know approach the end of hers. Ms. Sauer's retirement makes me wonder if she is content with having spent so many years doing the same thing. Was it mere coincidence that she chose something that she happened to like and was extremely talented at? Or was it that once she reached May Life Be a Sweet Song – Lia Kim '18 20 Around School