The Piano Lesson

There is one place in the world that I can go when I feel overwhelmed, confused, nearing the apex of my anxieties and doubts of myself. It is in the dark warm corner of my parents living room, seated at the old piano, my fingers resting gently on the cool familiar keys, whose pression responds to my fingertips with delicious recognition.

When I'm there, the whole world melts away. I can only really play a few songs for memory, songs I taught myself as a girl, and sometimes the passages come and go, but when my heart and my body meld, they just pour out of my fingertips and for once in my life, serenity is simple and effortless.

Thoughtless muscle memory unlocks something miles deep inside of me, to the place that no one has ever touched, and when that music comes breathlessly I feel like it's my heart singing.

I love that piano. It's old and probably out of tune and sometimes the keys stick a little. Its full of dust and it's wise.

Last night, in a terrible fit of paralyzing stormy thoughts, I sat down to play and I kept hitting traps. Passages I couldn't remember. My fingers felt frantic, amnesiac, like strangers, as if all the energy and weight inside them had flown out. Nothing felt right. I touched key after key, searching for the right note, determined to find it, determined to get through that song. But I couldn't. I sat with my eyes closed and my hands resting on the keys and I felt completely lost.

I abandoned the song that would not come, and I played some low and mismatched chords I made up as I went along.

I went to bed. I woke up in the middle of the night with the sheets twisted in knots close around my body. I'd thrown the comforter completely off. I was shivering.

When I woke up this morning, I silently made myself breakfast. I read the paper. I glanced at the work I'd done the night before, still sprawled out on the dining room table. I pulled a blanket around me and I walked into the living room and sat down at the piano.

I put my hands out to play a different song, afraid to tackle the same as the night before in case the loss of memory was permanent. That's what kept me tossing and turning all night. I can't bear to lose that song, that song in particular. It was the first love song, and the only one.

But anyway, my hands took over and I played it. With a few mistakes but I played it through and by the end I felt the door unlock.

I knew I couldn't lose that song forever. Its too much a part of me. There are some things that get inside of your bones. And they'll never leave you.