tickling the ivories
One of the rooms in my house that I spend the least time in is the Blue! Room. Aptly named, because it is painted the most BLUE! color you’ve ever seen. Not, Congratulations-it’s-a-boy! Powder Blue. Not, Drinking-pina-coladas-with-little-umbrellas-looking-out-at-the-Carribean Blue. Instead, think: Spiderman Blue. On four walls. Pow.
The other day, I slipped into the Blue! Room with a cup of tea and my favorite book to enjoy some quiet time in my Great-Gramma D’s chair. It was a rare moment of hush – no television, no people, no email – and I delighted in the faint dinging of my wind chimes on the porch out front. I didn’t even seem to mind the loud-mouthed pooches next door.
I was absorbed in the quiet noise of the world around me for quite some time – everything continuing on its way as I sat in rare stillness.
…until Heart & Soul began tinkering on the piano just on the other side of the most solidly Blue! wall in the Blue! Room. I live in a duplex, built circa 1902 – so the Blue! walls aren’t so much “walls” as they are “cheesecloth.” The little girl who lives next door had begun her daily after-school concert, and I was officially distracted.
The problem is not that she’s playing piano. The problem’s not that some of her songs aren’t exactly… songs. The problem is that I just so happen to still speak Eight-year-old-pianist fluently, so every song she is playing is translated as an entire one-sided conversation inside my head.
She sits down and immediately delves into Heart & Soul. This is her way of getting acclimated to the piano after a long day of whatever it is you do in 3rd grade these days. It’s her go-to song. And anyone who has ever learned Heart & Soul probably learned it in a way similar to how I learned it – buddied up with someone who lovingly, PATIENTLY, played the bass part while you tinker away with the keys far on the right. Oh, and the day – the DAY! – the day you learn how to play the back-up is the day you officially become a pianist. It makes me wonder who it is she’s thinking of as she’s playing.
Next on the playbill is a song that she knows oh-so-well. Oh-so-well enough and oh-so-FAST enough that she doesn’t even bother playing it in tempo. Check out her mad skills! She’s flying through the parts – the melody moving so quickly that it’s more of a 1-2-3-4-5-4-3-4-5-4-3-2-1 movement that she’s memorized than an actual melody, and the bass rhythm is a hasty and almost over-looked B-B-B-Bam. But check out how fast she’s playing it! Pssh. Anyone would be impressed.
She begins playing a newer song. I can hear her thinking it through and know she’s hearing exactly how it’s supposed to sound; even though to anyone else’s ears it would sound like painful noise. The piano abruptly stops and she begins singing the part she’s been working so hard on. She sings it once, plays it back. Sings it again, plays it again. Back and forth over the same four bars, and at this point I’ve set down my book and in my mind, I’m playing the part with her. You got this, girl! You got it! Don’t forget the F#! Don’t forget the…. Okay, that’s alright. Try again, sweets. Bum, bum, 1 e & a, ba-duh, duh, BUM! YEAH!!!! One more time!!!
And every song turns into a bridge which leads to an endless encore of Heart & Soul.
Suddenly, the music changes. It doesn’t seem like a song learned in a Little Fingers Beginner’s Piano book. It’s in a deep, minor key. It’s sullen and slow, and it’s hard to believe those same little fingers are playing something so profound.
Last Christmas, my friend called me on speakerphone from his sister’s house and placed the phone on top of the piano to play a song for me he’d been making up. It was in a slow, heavy minor key and I was surprised because I didn’t even know he played the piano. In the moment my junior pianist began playing her song, I could almost see an image of my friend, sitting at the piano. I could imagine the look on his face that would appear blank to most anyone – but I know the intricate thoughts that would be spinning in his head. I could imagine his fingers playing so delicately across the keys, looking almost ludicrously light for their size.
I was so overwhelmed with such simple love and adoration of him that it brought tears to my eyes.
The music next door shifted seamlessly back to Heart & Soul.
When we love someone, we experience many songs. Sometimes we get into relationships where we’re so confident that we rush through the easy parts, showing off with how quickly we can move, without taking time to savor our favorite parts. Other times, we find ourselves in relationships that are difficult and almost impossible to read – but we keep trying, time and time again, because we’re convinced we know what it could be like.Then, there are the relationships that we always come back to, because they move from and are so very near and dear to our very Heart & Soul.
The most pure of our love comes from our Heart and our Soul. Therein lies no judgment, no expectations, no fear, no obstacles. And it’s that love that we inherently learn from everyone who has ever shown any method of love to us – your best friend who listens to your five-minute long voicemails, because they know you just needed someone to listen; the cousin who mails you random homemade I Love You! cards for no reason at all; your mom, who holds you while you cuss and cry when you’re upset; the barista that remembers your early morning drink; the friend who calls just as you were thinking about them; the driver in traffic ahead of you who gave you the “thanks-for-letting-me-merge” wave. It’s these painfully simple acts of love that give us a wave of remembrance – the remembrance that love is LOVE is love is LOVE.
Take away all the fights, all the jealousy, all the distrust, even all the inside jokes and all the good times. Set aside all the angry words, the hurt feelings, the disappointment, and especially the giggly romantic butterflies.Imagine never feeling obligated, rejected, accepted, free, or reluctant.Forget all the adjectives – both the positive AS WELL AS the negative.There are no words to describe Love. The emotions we experience are merely OUR embodiment of Love – not Love itself. It’s all the way Love moves. But Love – as LOVE itself – is that moment where there is NOTHING but Love.
Chew on that.
For that flicker of an almost half-moment that I imagined my friend at the piano –
Before I thought, “Oh, this is sweet…”
Or, “Oh, I haven’t heard from him in forever – when’s he going to call me back?!” …
Or before I even thought, “Oh, how I love him…”
…that was Love.
It always comes back to Heart & Soul.