I’m built by music, I grew up with it, this DNA with piano keys represents that it will always be part of who I am. 

Reflection: I hope to do better with parallelism as well as cutting out some deadwood for my following essays. Although, I do believe I did well with use of figurative language and punctuation but I’m sure I could improve in those areas too.

Discordant and Harmonic

A Narrative Essay

I gently tapped my small chubby fingers against an oak table. I wanted to hear music riddled with mistakes so I could correct myself but, we didn’t have a piano or enough money back then. Mommy always said, “When you buy something, always make sure you want it and that it’s the best of the best.” An expensive yet fulfilling way to live. I continued tapping on and on hearing alluring illusions of high trills and low bulky tones playing within the dark swirly patterns on the table.

I swung my way to class that afternoon, hanging on to my Mommy’s familiar arms, running to keep up with her long lively legs. Just down a block of houses was my piano teacher, looking out the window as her student played the songs I imagined I could. I kissed my Mommy goodbye and went inside, leaving my comfort to explore in the warmth compared to the cold cloudy day outside.

Piano lessons were exhausting. Tight muscles were exercised to have good posture since I never had a backrest. Her piano was black, shiny and had an intriguing key etched into the burdensome fallboard. The bench matched her piano but it was always lowered for my toes, for the capability to reach the pedals that elongated the reverberation of sounds or rather my common mistakes. My muscles ached, tied in knots, lacking oxygen. Of course it was a lot for my thin small fragile hands to remain stretched out for every half an hour lesson I had. My arms grew a little longer for that.

Frustrated, I grew. It was forced practice by third grade. A keyboard was lent to us; it left little marks, where its legs were, on the worn table I used to practice on. However, the keys were not the things I pressed the most, it was a button that recorded what you played and repeated it back to you. I would play the song once in dread, and looped it out loud, pretending I was an angelic child that would listen when my parents told me to practice. Days where I had nothing else to do, I would play. Until I made a mistake. Hearing clashed notes, I would go back to looping the sound. My fingers grew a little stronger for that.

My body grew, my legs could reach the pedals and I even took lessons in the extra time under the summer sun. I learned, taught and shared music with my parents because I, for once, was better at something than they were.

Winter came and I broke my collar bone, so no longer was I able to keep my arms up and stretched for hour-long lessons. Taking a break was much appreciated at the time. I almost didn’t come back.  Piano was my parent’s decision, I thought. It was.

During the cold months of my bones freezing brittle, my skin pasty and my frizzy hair, my old daycare closed down and donated their piano, wooden, like the table I used to play on. Finally, I could hear music coming out because of strings delicately woven in the back of its bones instead of imagination or electrical wiring. They hoped I would use the piano to make someone happy, because even one moment was worth the art the dark brown piano portrayed in a dimly lit room. My perseverance grew stronger for that.

Busy, busy times took over every season. Piano was the least of my priorities.  I was being great in what I could. My teacher had moved up a tall hill, which was more effort to exert, yet we grew close. She warmed my hands when they were frozen and brought me tea when I was sick and food when she tried a new recipe. This was when her daughter moved out. My teacher was my friend, I knew when I opened the door without having to knock, when we could talk about anything as the sun entered through the blinds and she demonstrated how to play a piece, how to colour with music’s wonderful tones. She made me great in something I wasn’t good at but I felt at home and everyday I played something new. My mind grew bigger for that.

The time came to say goodbye after 10 years of walking along the black and white keys with a on and off, love and hate relationship. I needed to focus on school and keep piano to a hobby, as I knew well enough how to teach myself and practice. I said goodbye to my developed arm muscles, my good posture and the warmth in that house. Gratefulness never left because I had 10 years with someone who knew how to build a story with the little sticks on music notes. I stubbornly refused to play as a child, yet now I go home, walking through the piles of leaves, observing the hummingbird’s posture at the tip of a tree while it creates wind with its wings, black shiny smooth things looked like legato on sheet music, I heard and saw music. Those things reminded me of hate turned to love. Love is a process, it needs to grow, mature and understand. Goodbye, I thought, as I closed the fallboard with the keys that mystified all thought and imagination to combine them into a colour that would never be created again. My love grew older for that.