Treasured Past

In my attempt to regain some perspective, I ended up in the music store in my Hometown.

I wasn't expecting to buy any music, but of course, I ended up with three classical pieces (Beethoven, Chopin, and Liszt). I rushed over to my grandparents's house for Family Dinner, anxiously awaiting a chance to try the pieces on the piano.

Sadly, excitement gave way to frustration. My fingers don't move in the same way. I repeatedly ran over the difficult passages through Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, only to end up with my fingers aching due to lack of use.

My cousin JJ was also at dinner, and catching my nostalgic mood, he and I went on a search for a time gone by. It started out as a search of our Nintendo NES (JJ only found the game cartridges) and I came across, of course, my old books. We also found some videotapes of movies my uncle Ned had recorded when the family used to have HBO. I also uncovered my grandfather's Olivetti typewriter. (Yes, typing on that beautiful machine is art. And as JJ can attest to, it uses finger muscles he didn't know he had!)

But the real treasure was a box of piano music that JJ found. I poured over the music, my excitement returning. I returned to the piano and tried out the pieces I used to play with perfection.

And yet, I came to find that my fingers still don't move in the same way.

I'm not sure why it upsets me so much.

Toward the end of Family Dinner, I started to enjoy playing those familiar piano pieces, mistakes included. It was a treasured time in my past; when music filled a large portion of my life. And those precious pieces that sum up my childhood now again reside in the piano bench at my grandparents's house, right where they belong; ready to be found the next time I'm up for a nostalgic visit.