It’s been a weird couple of weeks.  Months really.  When I returned from fall travels I sat down with my piano – just my piano and me – my childhood Chickering spinet upright – and started at the beginning.  I took 8 years of piano as a child and am not too shabby at tickling the ivories and go through spurts where I play a lot and then don’t again for a long time.

I always say my wonderful teacher, Mrs. Maclean, spared me the torture and math of theory.  At least that’s what I thought until I sat down and started at the beginning, just practicing my scales every day.  Playing with the chords in each scale, teaching myself the theory, suddenly tonight I found myself composing sweet little tunes in different keys.  The more I “scribble” the more I find that she did teach it to me in the only way my little insecure girl self could learn it – by playing songs, lots and lots of songs.  And of course the scales.  It’s all in there’s waiting for me to find it.  It’s coming along much more easily than I thought it would.

Mrs, Maclean lived in a big old Victorian farmhouse in  Mundelein, Illinois.  I would walk to her house after school when the weather allowed.  I was very shy and hardly said ‘peep’ when I was there.  When I would walk there after school she would have a cookies and milk snack for me.  I’d sit in that old farmhouse kitchen and not say a word.  I can still see her smiling at me, understanding that I wasn’t being rude.  I was just that shy. (Recitals were agony for me).  The house was always messy, so different from my house where everything was in its place.  I remember when she needed a pencil she could always find one somewhere in her baby grand, which was piled high with music.

I loved it there.  I loved her.  Lest you think this small town teacher was not accomplished – the whole family was comprised of musicians, she and her daughter and  (to me) ancient mother and father would give the parents a reward at the recitals by playing a recital of their own when we were done plunking our way through Baby Elephant Walk and Fur Elise. I can still see their hands, I can see them playing the duets, I can remember wanting to play like that. They were extraordinary.

On my piano sits a “head shot” of my godfather, Howie, my mother’s favorite cousin.  He was a professional musician, played piano all over Chicago, but to me he was the dear man who, after the dishes were cleared from Thanksgiving, would sit down at the aforementioned Chickering and play jazz standards for the extended family.  Off the top of his head! I never tired of listening to him.  He came to our home in California years ago and although his hands were old he still “had it.”  I not only have a video of him playing, but of my children sitting on the couch mesmerized, just as I had been at their ages. I can remember wanting to play like that.

At the same time I got down and dirty with piano again, I was making the decision that if I was going to sing by myself  for others enjoyment it would only be when I can accompany myself.  I was also making the decision to stop choral singing so that traveling with Al would be unencumbered by schedules and the pull of singing.  It was difficult, I like choral singing, but deep in my heart I knew that I would someday regret not following my personal travel agent wherever he wants to go, and following him happily.  The minute I made that conscious decision, I felt so much stress leave me.  I can’t wait to see where Al takes me. I also can’t wait to follow Ashley, my scuba instructor, to faraway places.  And I am thoroughly immersed in my piano again, on my own time and schedule which is every day.

Tonight after piano scribbling for a long time, during which I caught myself glancing at Howie’s photo and smiling at him, I pulled out an old piece of sheet music.  It belonged to my Dad.  Dad played piano by ear, but only in the Key of C and only a few songs: Stardust, Moonglow, maybe a few others.  He was always frustrated by his inability to read music.  In his retirement, he went to the same Mrs, Maclean to learn to read music.  The song was one of his favorites: The Rainbow Connection.”

I opened it and started to play and then started to stumble over the music because I found my eyes drawn to familiar writing: Mrs. MacLean’s pedal markings, “tied” reminders,   “play to here.” There was more, lots of writing about chords and noting key changes and pointing out interesting chords,  She was teaching my Dad theory.  There was more: my Dad’s writing, jotting down things she must have told him that he didn’t want to forget.  (The only thing missing was the stickers of flowers and birds that I got to pick out and put on the song I had mastered. Wish I still had those books.)

I could see them both, along with Howie, and I felt all of them come through my fingers.  “You can play like that, Mary.”  Well, they were my biggest fans and I’m not so sure I’ll have enough time, but I am sure that this time I will not stop.  I will no longer short change my piano. It truly was and is my first passion, from the day I woke up from my 5 year old nap to hear my mother playing the only song she knew: “The Isle of Capri.” The sounds of that piano captured my heart and soul and like everything else from those years was thwarted by my shyness and lack of self confidence.

Now it doesn’t matter anymore.  There are no music schools to dream of applying to.  There are no concert halls awaiting my arrival.  There is just me.  And my piano.  And that’s enough.

The Rainbow Connection