May 27, 2002.
Piano Lessons

I still remember the moment, when I was about nine years old, when my father came downstairs to the basement where I was playing. He leaned over to me and he said, "Princess [my dad did and does still call me 'princess,' which I just love], Mom and I have been talking. Would you like to take piano lessons?"

I was riveted to the spot. My parents were offering to pay money they really didn't have to in order to give me piano lessons that in all honesty I really didn't need. I discerned that the moment was very fragile. I didn't want to damage it. I nodded my head very solemnly and said, "Yes. I would like that."

I am still so very grateful to my parents for that little gift they gave me that day. I ended up taking piano lessons for ten years. I was never a very natural or exceptional talent, but my appreciation for Chopin and Mozart and a few others is much more meaningful than it would have been otherwise.

(Lately I am of a mind to take my battered hymnal down the road to one of the many retirement homes in this area and play some old-fashioned hymns for the residents. I imagine the withered men and women gathered round me at the piano bench, the light from the music stand illuminating our faces as we charge through all five verses of "Shall We Gather At the River.")

Not long after I started my lessons, my father's birthday rolled around. My parents have never been wealthy people, but this must have been a particularly lean year for the family. We had no money at all to buy him a birthday present.

A few days advance of his birthday, my mother gathered me and my brothers around the piano and told us that we were all going to give Dad a very special birthday present that year. She handed us a piece of sheet music which she had glued to piece of red construction paper. A hymn was printed on the page: "It Is Well With My Soul." It was my father's favorite hymn. She said that for his birthday, we were going to sing this hymn together for him. We practiced together a few times around the old upright piano in the basement.

It would make sense that this was one of my father's favorite hymns. It is a song about contentment, about a kind of divine peace that isn't affected by the sorry state of your checking account.

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul.

A couple of days later my father came home from work on his birthday, and we were there, assembled around my mother, seated at the piano bench. We sang the best we could. We finished the song and then we shouted "Happy birthday!" and he came forward and embraced all of us in his deep arms.

That story kind of gets me choked up.


Good Things for May 27, 2002

• A fresh stack of intriguing books checked out from the local library.
• Libraries in general, really.
• Planting yet more flowers in the front yard with Mom.
• Wearing my bathrobe at 9:30 am on a Monday.
• The dog that got a haircut.
• Really cool old men who wear National Health glasses.
• Zero7's Simple Things CD. So fine.
• Working on my scrapbook.
• This sweet, fragrant breeze drifting in through this open window.