Mrs. Mathieson, a large figure in an older woman’s dress of slippery fabric, overflowed a chair to the right of the piano bench at my weekly lesson. She was a second grade teacher—but I don’t remember how many years beyond that one were required before I played Saber Dance, pounding the right-hand keys—driving my parents crazy at the kitchen table, I later learned. After that recital, I stopped piano studies.
Now, by phone videos, I watch my grandchildren perform their recital pieces with aplomb and authority. The piano theory they’re learning, I’m only now attending to at seventy.
My bedroom is an odd shape. It’s a big room with a sloped, twenty-foot-high ceiling where I have my desk and bookcase, as well. My new Yamaha keyboard is next to the east window where the room's width goes from fifteen feet to eight. Random-gray, kota floor stones in a vertical pattern are calming.
It’s eleven some nights, or five-thirty some mornings when I practice—pushing into my memory that the key of A major has three sharps, and a tetra chord has two whole steps, then a half-step and a whole step. Currently, The Fairies' Harp is my favorite piece, because ripple chords—simple to play—sound elegant for a beginner’s journey.
My realization is, "Having young children teach us is to subtly remember that we are One soul of equality—and that our worldly appearances are … just appearances."