(This italicized text is me talking!)
(This bold text is the piano talking!)
A black piano with wrinkles in its dark finish, was in the house
when I became conscious, able to have memories,
hold onto thoughts, sequence my world in my mind.
I loved this piano. Dad moved it to the back garage when I was small.
Me twinkling little songs on the piano irritated him immensely.
A little bit of happiness in the house. He moved it out, rejected it.
I am so sad to be exiled, it is lonely out here, with no one to twinkle my keys.
No one to send music out into the world. To play a part in the grand symphony.
It is what I was made for. What I was put here to do.
Dad tasked me with refinishing this beloved piano, early in junior high school.
Not allowed to use any paint stripper, I sanded the black finish off, all by hand.
I could not say “NO” to this task, for fear of physical harm.
It transformed over much time into an exquisitely beautiful woodgrain finish
that was hidden under the wrinkly black finish. I loved this piano.
And she finished me with high gloss.
I was stunning. I was gorgeous. I was beautiful.
Now I would be brought back in the house!
And she would learn to play me! Her “Heart-of-Heart’s” desire in life!
Now having earned the lessons by completely refinishing me.
In my exile, while she was transforming me.
The building fell into disrepair.
The people did not notice, or they did not care.
Mold began to grow. To grow on my hammers that struck the strings.
The strings that used to sing with beautiful music.
I was slowly rotting away. It was unseen, unnoticed.
The girl refinishing me did not know. She did not know about mold.
About chemical exposures, about breathing the dust from sanding.
That I was on a slow path of decline, deteriorating.
And in the midst of all this, so was she.
Her sinuses and body now colonized with the same mold.
In my senior year of high school, the piano was complete. It was gorgeous.
I got married at 19. I thought I was making a positive choice.
Left my beautiful piano behind. I needed to go. Had found a way out.
The slow cast off and discard of my piano, even in its new clothes, it continued.
Later, mom casually mentioned that the insides of the piano were rotten,
and dad had thrown it away. So sad.
So sad. To be put out to pasture, to be refinished so lovingly and exquisitely,
And then to be abandoned, discarded, and made alien. Permanently.
We were not to make music. It was not to be.
My friends out here… Where I am now. They can see. They shared with me.
She did buy herself a piano. It DID happen. And she learned to play.
Magnificently!
Lena L