Who's playing the piano?

Whenever you hear a piano playing in real life, do you just have to see who's playing it? Do you just have to know who's making either that sublime melody or that dratted racket?

As a youth in the Midwest, it was very common for there to be several young piano players of varying levels of proficiency and interest at church. Male and female, child or adolescent, and without fail there would be one or two who would sneak off at a church dance to be alone with a piano for a while. I've done it myself. Whenever I played, little heads would sneak a peek into the room with the music. Some would stay and listen. Others would dash off if they saw me noticing them. It was a way to make friends, shed some of the anxiety of the teenage social scene, get some practice in on a good piano (my piano at home was free), and be alone in a half-lit room with dots on a page and the ol' ivories.

Unfortunately, I was somewhat middling on whether my piano playing was going to be melodious or malodorous. I remember specifically struggling with one particular hymn ("If You Could Hie to Kolob"), leaving the piano in disgust, only to hear someone bang it out with gusto and efficiency mere seconds later. Yes, you sure showed me.

I would play for Young Women's but often had to stop in the middle of a song after nervousness made me lose my place, and I would flee to the bathroom in shame. I would play for Mutual when the better piano players were unavailable or unwilling. The same flight would occur there.

At home, my piano (which I called the white elephant, given that it was an enormous upright that had been painted white) was very loud, didn't keep its tuning very well, and some of the keys would hit more than one string at the same time. It was a pain to dust, an eyesore, and someone once lifted the lid and put a cat in there just to see what would happen. Fur is what happened, folks, which piano strings don't like so well. My family didn't much like hearing me practice. And I don't blame them. It would have been better to have a keyboard and earphones but hey, the White Elephant was free.

I've played once or twice over the years when the Relief Society pianist was gone. Mostly I fly under the "does anyone here play the piano?" question with a grunt and averted eyes. I know just enough to say "yes, but not well. just barely. sure, if you want to sing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star as the opening hymn." Haha. You go, Annie. Make those jokes-under-pressure that you're famous for. I've found that miso salad dressing tastes better with feet than ketchup. Less salt.

Nowadays, I play piano for the kids at church. This means that I have to practice. I told Man last night that I'm a phenomenon -- I get worse as I practice. And it's true. I can sit down and play fairly well for about five minutes and then totally butcher songs that I thought I was finally getting good at. He says that it "must be the way you're practicing." Uh-huh. He's probably right. But here's the deal: I don't WANT to be a really good piano player. I don't want to take time out of my day and practice. Here are some reasons:

1) It hurts my back. I have about 15 minutes before I hunch over with spasmed muscles and I have to stop.

2) I'm not committed enough to the piano to break all my old habits and build up newer, better ones. I play well enough for Family Home Evening and am therefore satisfied.

3) Going through my sheet music to find something to practice besides the same 8 songs needed for the Primary presentation in two weeks, I've come across songs from those teenage days in Young Women's that I ran from the room in tears over. That doesn't make me feel good. Those songs make me ill, playing them makes me want to cry, and I remember those horrible years in a startling clarity that makes me want to quit the calling immediately.

I'm not going to quit the calling. I'm an adult now. I don't run from the room. I merely continue to torture all present with my ineptitude as I try, try, and try again to pick up the song where my shaking hands lost it. Just as I didn't give up The Spaghetti Factory because that's where I had a horrible date. Just as I'm willing to live in CO again some day despite spending some of the darkest, most depression-rent years of my life there. I face things now, address them, work through them, and then move on.

I'm hoping that this is a phase of my life where I'm being given the opportunity to face my spotty history with the piano and move on. Man plays the piano as well but does so by ear. Some of the songs he plays also bring up deeply moving memories: he played this one after we fought, he played that one after I came back from leaving him, he played this one right before he left for basic training, he composed this one and dedicated it to our oldest daughter, this is the one he most closely associates with his deceased father. Music is so meaningful to both of us that we can barely play some songs for each other or anyone else. Love Is Spoken Here is one that we will forever associate with a friend's son who was killed as a very young child who looked achingly like our little blond boy, with glasses and a love of yellow trucks. Man and I sang it at his funeral. Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing is a personal favorite of Man's grandfather and thus one that we keep special.

Isn't it silly how one small calling at church can bring up so many things that need to be worked through, categorized, and either discarded or put away to be kept sacred. Emotional spring cleaning.

I think I'm going to go do some cleaning I can understand a bit better and really clean my van this time. It's starting to look like someone lives in it.