Black and White

I miss the piano. The condo I'm living in doesn't have one near by. Some complexes have pianos in the rec room or something--not that I ever use them. My fear of playing for anyone other than myself runs old and deep. Just knowing I can be heard puts me on edge and makes my fingers sweat and splay all over the keyboard. Recitals were always mortifying experiences. I would sit there, waiting for my turn to play while hacked out versions of "Jingle Bells" "Star Wars" and "Fur Elise" plinked and stumbled along. By the time it was my turn to perform my limbs were weak and perspiring coldly and I wouldn't have the faintest idea how to play anything. I would then proceed to make the most elementary of mistakes, lose my place, and flood the pedal.

Despite that, I love to play the piano. By myself. The only people I can play for are my parents--and that's only when they are obligingly bustling around doing other things. The moment my mom sits down near the piano to listen--I lose it and make mistakes like mad. But if she's quietly rustling about in the kitchen while I'm tramping through some new age something, I'm fine.

I play very poorly. I took lessons in elementary school, but hated it so much my mom let me stop. Then (my freshman year of high school...?) she said that she wished someone could and would play the piano, so I started lessons again, only by that time I couldn't remember a single thing and had to start from square one, or at least near it. Unfortunately, I was embarrassed at not remembering anything and didn't admit to my teacher that I didn't know what the counts were for any of the notes for maybe a month or so. I got by because I would try and play something, then she would play it correctly and I would just mimic exactly the way she played it. She thought I was understanding, but really I was cheating. When I finally fessed up she told me, "that's the second time I've heard that today. But the other girl was six years old." Ah, pride.

Piano is something I love. Playing relaxes me, clears my head and seems to pull me together. Sometimes it makes me feel the same way running does, or even praying. There's something simultaneously exciting and frustrating about learning to play something new, and there's something satisfying and freeing about playing something you've played a thousand times before.

Music is a different language. The more I learn about it, the more it shares with me.