National Media & The One Show
We didn’t have a piano.
There was nothing noisy like that allowed in our house.
But, bored at some large adult gathering my parents had dragged me to, I wandered off to explore the strange house.
And found their piano.
Struggling my five or six year old body up onto the player bench, I nudged a key. And waited for someone, somewhere in the house, to tell me to stop. I was always being told to stop.
The call didn’t come. Only hearing the far away din of chatter, I pressed another.
And soon, I was plunking away. On every key.
Paying specific attention to the low keys, I liked the way they boomed. Deep soulful howls.
An old man whom I didn’t know wandered into the room. He scuffled over and sat next to me on the bench, facing the other way. And I stopped.
“Yah, man” he said, looking at me and smiling. “Beautiful music. Play it.”
And so, I kept booming away. Him next to me, nodding his head and smiling, with his eyes closed.
July 15, 2020