Memory Monday: The piano and me: Part 4--Soul Full

After a three-year sojourn in the Eastern Time Zone (How do they do it? No wonder the Coasts have issues: they don't get enough sleep because of their TV schedule.), it was time to move back to the sanity of the Central. What had been a one-bedroom move three years before had morphed into two babies, three bedrooms, a washer and dryer, and a piano.

We were, the moving company estimator told me, a big truck move. Besides that, he was eyeing the piano now, moving that would be an extra $175.

So my piano and I had a conference and decided what was another $175? Well, thirty years ago, that's not really what happened. I simply knew that if we didn't bring it with us, it might be years before we found the extra money to buy another one. Besides, the piano was of the same vintage as the house. They were made for each other. If it didn't come, I'd be without and the boys, toddler and infant though they were at the time, would not have access to piano lessons. (Another blog and not a happy one.)

The piano came. It has occupied the same piece of real estate in our house ever since, one of the few pieces of furniture which can claim that. But an upright piano is like an 800-pound gorilla. It does sit where it wants to.

I kept it tuned, endured the boys' piano lessons, played for myself, practiced for choir, listened as my neighbor made it sing one night, and then let it go into disfavor. I stopped getting it tuned; I stopped playing.

Then granddaughter Emily arrived on the scene. Her house has my mother's spinet. Emily likes to sit on the bench and act like she's playing. One day she will, and I'll sit her on my lap and we'll play together. So I had the piano tuned.

Not wishing to waste all that, I've started playing again. Not well, I might add. My fingers are arthritic and my hand span is no longer 10 keys.

But it's working its way back into my soul.