Posts tagged ‘life’
I’m a Clunker!
I’ve been to a broad range of concerts in my six decades, including Bette Midler, Bruce Springsteen, The Chieftains, and Pavarotti. But the absolute best live musical performance I have ever witnessed was my mother and her father, my Grampap Doc, playing a rowdy Chopsticks duet.
Most everyone knows the Chopsticks tune, but I promise you have never heard it played like they did—with wild flourishes, endless improvisation, fingers flying, joy soaring. When the two of them sat side-by-side at the piano, the ivories were tickled.
Oh what I would give to hear them play again. And how I’ve wished that I could play like that. Unfortunately, I only inherited my mother’s piano, not her talent.
We don’t gather around the piano as often as we used to. If we do, the piano bench is my seat by default. But I cannot play like those who sat there before me. I don’t improvise. I don’t know how to change the key to make it easier to sing. I can’t even chord! (I have always wanted to know how to chord, to be that person who could just sit down and play along without sheet music.) But, alas, I am a clunker. I can read sheet music and play slowly. And, with a great deal of practice, I can read sheet music and play slowly.
I have been playing the piano—poorly—since I was a small child.
Truth be told, I didn’t like to practice and I hated going to lessons. My mother expected me to be excited and appreciate the opportunity, but I behaved like a brat, and I was miserable. (Sorry Mom.) Even now, my shoulders tense at the thought of the piano teacher sitting beside me, emitting little grunts of dissatisfaction, her pencil poised to mark my mistakes.
When I was a kid, I’d be asked to play when we had company. In later years, adult friends, seeing a piano in my house, would ask me to please, please play until I relented and played something. I tell you true, responses to my performances in each and every case were unambiguously subdued.
(I should note that my dear father always claims to enjoy it when I play. But he is very kind. And pretty deaf.)
The most I ever played on a regular basis would be the years 2018 to 2023. I played every day for Mom when she got ill. Dementia took away her ability to play the piano but listening to songs she knew made her happy. Then, I played for a bit for my Aunt to give us something to do during visits at the assisted living facility. (And god bless the other residents who wandered in expecting professional entertainment.) Then, I played for my Uncle who loved to sing and, even in his early 90s, knew all the words.
I’m sure the music is better where they are now. I haven’t played much since.
Earlier this year, Dad and I realized Mom’s piano had not been tuned for at least ten years, maybe more, and so we got it done. Afterwards, the tuner recommended that the instrument be played more. So—out of a sense of duty to my Mom’s prized possession and with the extra free time of retirement and with enough distance from the losses in our merry band—I started playing again.
Yesterday. I had what I can only call a breakthrough. This was not a skills achievement. It was not the unlocking of some latent talent. But it was noteworthy.
I hit a section I know well in a favorite piece of music and, as I played the familiar notes, something shifted. In that moment, I realized for the first time: My piano playing has always been accompanied by an ancient build-up of guilt, disappointment, failure, and little-kid anger. Residual gunk. Irrelevant to me now. And poof! It was like fog dispersing. Or a spell being lifted. Like suddenly and unexpectedly crossing into a zone of lessened gravity. I finished the piece—with some jazzy shoulder work and a flourish.
It was fun.
It was fun like before I started taking lessons, when my siblings and I used to play silly duets and make it up as we went along. It was fun like when we all crowded around my Great Aunt Mae’s piano to sing Christmas carols. It was fun like when Mom let me sit on the piano seat beside her, my little legs dangling to the beat of 60s pop and the great standards.
Music is a life preserver. And I hereby vow to clunk with joy.
PS Today I found a friendly YouTube instructor. I’m going to try to learn how to chord.
Dearest Diary
In 1991, my Mom, Dad, Aunt Mitzie, and Uncle Bill retired, and they decided to celebrate with a road trip across the country. They left Pennsylvania in a van, headed West. For 40 days, they drove across the United States and back again, seeing sights, visiting old friends, and proving that life after retirement is still an adventure. From August 1 to September 9, my Mom and my Aunt took turns writing in a blank book, keeping a daily diary of their trip.
I recently came across that book. (Wow.) And noted that it was written 29 years ago. (Whoa.) I am now one year younger than my Aunt and one year older than my Mom while they were on that trip.
{Please type your own cliché about how time flies because I need both hands to stop my head from spinning.}
It’s 2020. Just a little over a year since we lost Mom to dementia. Just a little over a year since my Aunt moved into a care facility for the same heinous disease. To open a book and hear their voices again, clear and strong, sweet and smart, cracking jokes and spying rainbows. Well. It’s wonderful. Or, it’s what wonderful would be if you could drink a glass of it and feel it tingle your belly, lift the hair on your arms, and blur your vision a bit.
This massive dose of joy impels me to suggest, to nudge, to encourage, to shout from a rooftop to anyone who might listen: You should keep a diary. And perhaps this year of odd lulls and extra space is the perfect time to start.
Buy a fancy journal or get a notebook from the dollar store. Make your own rules, but give it a try. Create a paper time capsule in which to stash silly, boring, beautiful moments. The moments that don’t make it into frame or album. The moments that go by in a blink. The bazillion little bits of life that make up the everyday: What you had for breakfast, an inside joke, the price of gas, your favorite snacks, songs to sing, places you’ve been, the way a day can go from rain to sun.
Whether you decide to write a diary or not, take a moment today to notice that life is extraordinary. And so are you. Cheers.
Work. Not Work.
Spring was late this year; the garden’s not going to have time to fill in properly, I told myself. The instructions to plant things 10 inches apart can’t possibly take into consideration this heavy, clay soil, I told myself.
She really just wanted to play in the dirt, you’re saying to yourself.
Yep.
Last Sunday, I decided my place needed a few more flowers. And so, like an indulgent granny, I slipped myself a 20 and drove back to the local nursery for the third (maybe fourth?) time this year. Returned home and spent the entire day outside. Planting, weeding, fertilizing, moving this plant here and that plant there, wheeling around the wheel barrow, and generally just futzing around in a state of dippy bliss.
Smiles relax every worry line. I hum involuntarily. I stop and smell roses, literally. When I’m out there in the garden, it’s like someone turns on the auto focus. Or turns down the gravity. Or gives me a peek behind stage. And in that little glimpse of Real, I am as certain as Mary Poppins, as graceful as Ginger Rogers, as wise as Obi-Wan, as content as Baloo.
All is well.
I was finishing up with the watering as one of my neighbors was bringing his garbage to the opposite curb. “You’re working too hard,” he called out.
What went through my mind was, Work?! This isn’t work! Sitting at a desk is work. Editing a novel is work. An old dog learning the tricks of publishing is work. Drying dishes is work. Folding laundry is work. Raising cage-free dust bunnies is work. Grocery shopping is work. Driving in the South Hills of Pittsburgh is work. Scooping the litter box is work. But this? This is lovely. This is playtime.
This is filthy, sweaty, smelly, sunburnt, life-preserving awesome!
Ginger Rogers wanted to do a rousing number with lots of brass and some Busby Berkeley chorus girl flower arrangements. But I just smile-chuckle-nod-waved because that’s how you communicate in a brief, holler-across-the-street sort of way. And he was already heading back inside anyway.
And now, I’m back in the midst of the work week. As I look over my to-do list here at my desk, which faces the window, which overlooks the front garden, I . . . uh . . . you know? I think I see some weeds. Maybe I should get out there and check on that.
Life Preservers 