I resisted learning to play the piano for a long time. I think my mother first broached the subject of my taking lessons when I was six or seven but it wasn’t until I was 10 that she finally ended the discussion and signed me up for lessons. I was surprised to learn that I loved them!
Now I will never be a concert pianist, I can only read music- not play by ear- and as far as timing goes… the less said about that the better! However sitting down and playing a few of my favorite old hymns feels like one of the biggest luxuries. There’s a connection that is formed, something beautiful that happens when I make the piano sing out. When I bring a tune that was penned by someone who passed on ages ago to life yet again, it connects me to the past, and brings the history to life filling me with inspiration. When I play my antique old upright piano that is nearly as tall as I am, it has yet another chance to make a joyful noise.
My piano is nearly 100 years old, beat up, and worn from a hard life. It has lived in many different places. When we met, it was living in the church of my childhood and when they upgraded, the piano came to live at my parents house. Years later when I bought a house of my own, it came to live with me. It doesn’t hold its tune for very long, and consequently needs tuning frequently. The ivories are missing on several keys and a piece of the decorative wood scroll work has chipped. It is far from perfect, but it’s the imperfections that make me love it all the more! I love the depth and richness of the music that reverberates from within it. I love the heritage, the age, and the past it carries with it. There it is again- that connection to the past.
It was funny, I missed playing when I was first married and had no piano to sit down and play. But I was happy and busy and didn’t think of it much. When we moved into our very first house, I began to feather our new nest. We painted, put up pictures and curtains and started to make it our own. It helped. But. When we moved the heavy mammoth of a piano from my parents house into our own house, and I sat down to play for the first time, my house became a home.
What is the thing that you forgot about? The little grace note in your day that you pause to be refreshed by before the wave of craziness hits? What is the thing that connects you to parts of yourself that you put away, locked up, and walked away from years ago? What’s the thing that you know you’ll never pursue past anything but pure pleasure that you know inspires you, makes you come alive, and connects you to the things you hold most dear? Find that thing; dust it off, polish it up, tune it, and make it sing again.
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