Advice from a small town girl

There’s a hole in my living room today.

Not an actual hole, mind you.

It’s just the space where my piano once sat.

You see, I gave my piano away this weekend.

My piano was just about the first major purchase I ever made. It cost $750 back in the late 1970’s, when I was a single working woman living in Yakima. It wasn’t a fancy name brand. But it was pretty. For the first few years, anyway.

It was moved twice in Yakima, and then from Yakima to Portland. In Portland, it was moved several times, often including long flights of stairs. After it was dropped by two well-intentioned friends who were helping me move, I began hiring a moving company to assist, even though I could barely afford it.

I loved my piano.

Once in a while, I even played it.

Not very often. Not nearly often enough to make up for dragging it hither and yon for thirty or so years.

Of course, it came with me to Irby, where it mostly gathered houseplants and dust. There always seemed to be more important things to do than play the piano.

After the last time I moved, I hired a piano tuner to come to Irby. Even I could tell it was badly out of tune. I was pretty embarrassed when he turned to me and asked how long I’d had the piano. His look of disbelief was comical when I told him, and then he said that the interior of the piano looked nearly brand new.

The piano has probably been moved more than it’s been played.

So why was I hanging on to it?

I’m sure it was some weird way of hanging on to childhood chances and failures. My mother was intent that all her children learn to play the piano.

Because she couldn’t.

She also made sure all of her children learned to swim.

Because she couldn’t.

I’ve never really understood why she didn’t take piano lessons herself.

I hated them. I wanted to learn to dance (you can stop laughing any time now.)

I hated to practice.

I hated to fail.

I hated to look bad in front of my piano teacher.

But not enough to practice.

My sister was a natural. She took to the piano like she took to education - there was no looking back, no resistance. She plays beautifully, and she enjoys it.

But I’m not my sister.

So, when I learned a week or so ago that there was a 10-year-old taking piano lessons at the Harrington Opera House art room, and that he needed a piano, I volunteered. They came and took it away Saturday morning.

I thought it would make me sad.

But it didn’t.

My little piano is going on to a new life, and I hope it gets the heck played out of it.

Because, in my heart, I know the world needs piano players.

Just not this one.