When I was four,
I started playing the piano.
My mother recalls
That when I was a toddler,
She would sit me on the shiny, black bench,
(My head barely reached the keys,
My chubby little hands could only press a key at a time)
And I would impede upon my sister’s practice time.
Eventually, my sister quit the keys,
But I played on,
For I loved the light, liberating feeling.
My hands sailed across the keys;
My fingers were a crew of sailors
Working as one
To navigate the swelling sea of notes.
When I was seven,
I wanted to learn to play the Erhu.
My grand-uncle,
The self-proclaimed connoisseur,
Was thrilled.
He opened the dust-smothered case with pride,
Took out his beloved, dilapidated instrument,
Set the bow on the string-
Discord.
To this day,
My mother shudders when I bring up
My old dream:
“I can’t even imagine having to listen to that every day.”
(I feel bad for my self-taught grand-uncle.)
I still admire the instrument.
An Erhu sounds like pride,
Very rich,
But also smooth with sorrow,
As if the strings are grieving.
When I was eight,
I began playing the violin.
An instrument I was so terrible at,
My mother rarely listened to my practice sessions,
(But she was so enthralled
Whenever I played the piano,
Devotedly watching me play
Every session without fail.)
As the years went on,
Less frequently played was the piano
I loved so much
When I was younger.
I began to run out of time,
And had to pick and choose
Which activities would walk the plank.
Violin was for orchestra,
And I was not nearly good enough at piano
To play for accompaniment.
Playing in an orchestra would offer me the
“Long term musical commitment everyone needs for a future résumé.”
Playing piano, generally considered to be a solo instrument,
I was never going to stand out.
Maybe it was time for me
To stay in a group.
Still, should I have carried on with the instrument
I dedicated nine years of my life to playing?
My parents never answer.
When I was eleven,
I received a guitar
From an uncle
Giving away his belongings
That he hadn’t touched in years.
I took it due to his unyielding encouragement,
But I didn’t even bother to learn it.
It would become just another activity
I would have to quit
Once I ran out of time.
Now I realize
While I may have been
A jack of all trades
And yet a master of none,
Learning music led me to the most
complex, stressful, frustrating,
enjoyable, inspiring, exhilarating
events of my life.
If I conjured all these experiences,
(All the pieces, well-played passages, many, many wrong notes)
Mixed them into one,
(The strange, eclectic, heterogeneous mix of memories held in those instruments)
What a symphony that would be.
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