I Want to Wear a Boat in My Hair.: April 2010

It meant that the silently waged conflict between himself and his cleaning lady had escalated to a new and more frightening level. It was now, Dirk reckoned, fully three months since this fridge door had been opened, and each of them was grimly determined not to be the one to open it first. The fridge no longer merely stood there in the corner of the kitchen, it actually lurked. Dirk could quite clearly remember the day on which the thing had started lurking. It was about a week ago, when Dirk had tried a simply subterfuge to trick Elena - the old bat's name was Elena, pronounced to rhyme with "cleaner," which was an irony that Dirk now no longer relished - into opening the fridge door. The subterfuge had been deftly deflected and had nearly rebounded horribly on Dirk.

I puffy <3 this book. It is ridiculous nonsense in the Douglas Adams fashion. And I wrote a(n admittedly not good) paper using it for a Myths & Legends class I took. Now, one year later, I find myself re-reading it. And I love that lurking passage. Because, you see, my piano lurked once upon a time. I was working at Kent House full-time and working on all my pieces for my recital. Yes, I gave a piano recital. And it was pretty kicking (except for skipping over half of the sonata... but it was ok because I was still fully in control of the piece). But yeah, I practiced so much I had callouses on my fingertips. Such a fabulous experience!

But not to long after that it kinda crashed for me... I had gone so far with it, the only other place to go was to such an intense level that I just didn't have the time or the will-power to accomplish. And so with many tears I gave up my amazing (often 2-3 hour) lessons with Mrs. Crump.

And then. It lurked. Just like Dirk's fridge. And it took me a long time to be ok with it again. It just... sat there. Used for teaching piano lessons to my darling students, but still not loved by me.

And then, we became ok, and I would fiddle on it some, but not just a whole lot.

That's when construction entered into my life. And trust me, that's a novel that you don't want to read. But my piano was moved to the garage to wait it out. Short term, you understand.

Two years ago.

And I miss it. So much. I want to be playing it tonight.

But I'm not sure it will ever speak to me again. My poor piano. Sure, it's not in great tune on the best of days, I'm sure, and yes, one of the legs is actually duct taped together after it was rolled over brick at Kent House (for a tea party. It was a good idea at the time - honest! Don't regret it one bit!), but it is my beautiful piano. We've been a lot of places together.

I hope it will still speak to me. For I long to speak to it.

(and I wholeheartedly recommend the book.)