2019 – December – Merry Christmas from a Public Piano
2019 – November – At a Public Piano in Moab
In the end, even the most introverted of us long for connection. True connection is rare. It is fleeting. You want it to go on forever. You may yearn for a lifetime commitment of feeling connected, but it is often only a glance – perhaps a moment – or three or four minutes – or a well turned phrase – a pun between strangers – a single dance in the ballroom of life – a bit of music and harmony.
I scheduled a stop in Moab – intentionally – to play the public piano my friend said was installed outside the MIC. Incredibly there was a vacant parking space not 30 feet from the piano. I shouldered by backpack purse, locked the car, proceeded to the bench, which was securely chained to the console, and took a practice run of the keys. The g” was totally stuck – not good for a piano girl who chronically plays in the key of “C”. A bit out of tune. Tinny. But public pianos are ideal for making lemonade out of lemons. I dropped into Mandolin Rain, taking full use of the multiple, unsynchronized strings to tremolo the octaves. On the berm directly in front of me, a mom and a few children in a playgroup looked up momentarily and then the kids returned immediately to rolling in the grass. 50 yards away a middle-aged man lounging on the lawn readjusted his position. Three coeds walking on the sidewalk started circus strutting and giggling to the music. I realized I must be giving it a bit too much swing, so I pulled it down to mellow for the next selection and went with Roger Whittaker’s Last Farewell, dwelling in the lower range. It was a rather lazy, sunny afternoon, about 3:00 pm on November 8th and time for me to be moving on down Highway 128 for Grand Junction so I launched Unchained Melody as a finale.
From my peripherals a tall blond woman about my age approached. She began dancing and vocalizing in the manner of Maria getting lost in the Sound of Music. For a moment I tried to follow her as she seemed to be channeling Whitney Houston and I Will Always Love You, but she was really extemporizing about her love of the canyons. “Just play whatever you want,” she said, “and I’ll sing.” For the next three minutes I improvised and she extemporized. We took a musical safari over red sandstone and rivers and mountains all buttressed and cross-bedded with I, and IV, and V and vi and runs and passing tones and flourishes. It was Moab and it was magical. She sustained a high note. I followed her up the scale and made a grand pause. Waiting, waiting, for the perfect moment of her breath. Glissando. Final chord. Cut-off. I popped off the piano bench and high-fived her. We introduced ourselves. She is Sharon. I am Cherry. Obviously same generation. Shared love of music and hiking in the great outdoors.
She mentioned a video contest was underway for this public piano and asked if I would film her. I took up her phone. She sat at the bench and vocalized once again, accompanying herself with a few basic chords. “That will be a winner,” she said. For her sake, I hope it is.
But I will always savor the memory of the video that got away – two strangers spontaneously improvising in perfect synchrony in their love of musical expression and Nature at a public piano in Moab.
2018
I have been long gone from the music house I grew up in – the house where my dad bought my mother musical instruments and paid for our weekly lessons – but when I visit, Dad will frequently ask for those old hymns. Time was, my mother and I would play duets. Duets happened less and less frequently this past decade as arthritis, knee surgery and the pain of old age exacted a toll on Mom. However, in July of 2018, when I paid a regular visit home and sat down at the well-used piano, Mom surprised us by maneuvering her walker to the vibraharp, picking up the mallets and joining in. Bent and gnarled, she was nearly leaning on the tone plates. After three tunes, she was fatigued – so she sat – on the organ bench – and played a medley. Thankfully, I had presence of mind to whip out my cellphone. Mom didn’t know she was being recorded. Please look past my shoulder and beyond my attempts to accompany by ear and enjoy an 85-year-old woman who didn’t quit on her music – or the old tunes.
Mansion Over the Hilltop
It Is No Secret
When We All Get to Heaven / At the Cross
2015
I got a bit historical at the piano the other night. My roommate, who was baking muffins in the open kitchen just above me, got a glimpse into my very heart, soul and spiritual journey at that moment – if she cared to analyze.
Rather than rehearsing through my usual repertoire of folk and pop, performed predominately at nursing homes, I let memory and experiment have free expression. Using all 88 keys and liberal glissandos, I took my childhood musical memories on a tour into adulthood. I played Sunday school songs, folk songs and a smattering of top 40 – mostly things I had never tried to improvise before. What came out? Dormant feelings. Repressed pain and joy. Snippets and pieces, long forgotten and now ruminated on. Thankfully, my roommate loves piano and overlooks the imperfections – especially when we are both doing common ordinary utilitarian things like baking and practicing. She hummed along and danced about her work. We share the same birth year and a similar religious upbringing so most of the melodies were familiar to her. She did, however, pause for a chuckle when I came flourishing down from a rollicking “Do Lord” to a sultry “Imagine.”
No one. No one knows me so well as my piano. Every now and then my soul is laid bare and then healed – comforted. 30 minutes spent on a wooden bench addressing 88 keys yields more self-awareness than an hour with a therapist who knows me not except by the information on my intake sheet.
Oldies for Golden Oldies
It was perhaps the best I have ever played, though it would still take two hands to count the mistakes I know I made. I laid down a nice rhythmic groove and kept with it, letting the melody and dynamics breathe the words of well-known and well-worn standards for a solid hour.
I could not have asked for a more responsive audience. Some hummed. Some sang. Some merely mouthed the words. Many brightened perceptibly at up-tempo tunes, a boogie woogie accompaniment, or old hymns. At one point, a hall wanderer drifted by and commented with delight, “Look, you are putting them to sleep.” Sleep too, is responsive. It is my intention to play music that soothes and calms–to awaken sweet memories of long ago.
Yet it was bitter with the sweet; a very melancholy loving of the ivories. I sense it is the last time I will play for this audience. I grow older and so do they. In an ever changing group of approximately 50 appreciative listeners gathered there, only four were male. The reality is, women will travel more years single and alone than as partners, couples, or families. Performing music is a vulnerability that bares the soul in so many ways.
Flashback from 2016 and beyond. What just happened?
In To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus is handed a shotgun and calmly drops a mad dog. And daughter Scout thinks, “Whoa, what just happened?” She had never seen a gun in the house, much let alone in her dad’s hands. She did not know her father had been a dead shot from his youth.
I lived for a time in Edmonds Washington – in the bowl. Weekdays, I worked with extracted body parts in a medical facility. There was no refreshment I loved better on a weekend than to walk the half mile to the beach-the edge of the sound-the freedom of a ferry port that could take you away on a moment’s notice.
On the beach was a small quirky thrift store that supported the attached senior citizen center. I was 55, so in a way I qualified for all the benefits. The center boasted a vintage linoleum tiled dance floor / concert hall and a cafeteria that hosted Grey Gourmet a few days each week. But it was the thrift store that could distract me – at first.
One Saturday as I browsed the blouses, books and unique kitchen gadgets assembled, I heard live music – a guitar, a mandolin – coming from the regions beyond retail. I picked my way to the hall that accessed the curtained restroom stalls and passed beyond to the next available room. I poked my head in the door to listen. “Hi!” called the guitar player and evident leader. “I heard the music,” I stated.
“We’re a seniors oldies band. We practice every Saturday morning.” I smiled.
“Are you a musician?” For the next 90 minutes, Chris called chords and I played along to some Elvis songs and other oldies I had never heard before. Hits caught in the gap between my mother’s generation and mine. On my way back home, I mused, “Whoa, what just happened?”
I practiced with the band for a couple months before my departure for Colorado. We played a Sunday dance or two in the ballroom – fish bowl conspicuous. My portion of the take was $3.00.
On an odd mid-week day off I strolled Olympic beach unshowered and barefoot with my corduroy pants rolled up a la Tom Sawyer. Suddenly, a voice hailed from the observation deck of the senior center. It was Phil, the 91-year-old ladies man from the Sunday dances.
“Cherry! Cherry!” He called, “am I glad to see you! Come in, come in quickly.” I obeyed. “Come. See the piano. We always have sing-along before our meal on Tuesday. Our pianist did not show today.”
Turns out Phil was the leader of sing-along. The usual pianist was retired after years of pleasing crowds in Branson. The darkness of dementia had overtaken her. Some days she forgot which song she was playing and launched into a medley. Sometimes she simply forgot to show-up. The seniors gathered around the piano and commenced the enjoyment of oldies I didn’t know and harmonies with which I was intimate. 20 minutes later, the Branson pianist arrived taxied by a daughter my age. I graciously took my leave. On the walk home I murmured, “What just happened here?”
I never quit on my music. Invited, I will play any piano, anywhere, any style. Whatever style I am playing at the moment is my favorite style of music. There have been nursing home gigs, years of folk music with elementary kids, decades of private students and plenty of church praise and worship. There are intervening years of enjoyable jobs that seem to have nothing to do with music on the surface, but are inextricably woven to music via location – the beauty and inspiration of a dock on the bay or a Rocky Mountain high.
So recently (2016), I have found myself moonlighting with a John Denver tribute band. Evenings, I keep my habit of enjoying an hour of piano before bed. On my days off, I practice feverishly. The John Denver originals are familiar friends. The current pieces, written in a style and spirit honoring John Denver, can be quite intricate and challenging. Just this week, I had a break-through with a lead-in reminiscent of the Eagles and Desperado.
Quiet joy, like happiness, over takes you when you least expect it. Rising from the piano bench I muttered, “Whoa, what just happened?”
This Magic Moment
She was back in town for wilderness first responder recertification and I was playing host – sort of recertifying my position as her mom and mentor. A road trip to get her here. Three days of intense training for her whilst I puttered about the apartment. The first evening I hiked to the top of the Sky Steps to meet her and we took a nature trail home together. The second night I ran up the Sky Steps and texted, “I’m at the chimes. Where are you?” A few minutes later she responded, “Bringing a couple classmates home for dinner. We are shuttling cars.”
Oh my goodness, I would have to hurry. The only key was in my pocket. I met the three of them walking up the middle of the road, two blocks from the house.
Two beefy outdoorsmen of her generation; one in hiking pants, the other in shorts and man-Uggs, looking pure Australian, but speaking Californian. Both had hair as long as my daughter’s. In fact, one had the exact same braid and hair color as my daughter. These were not the college sophomores of ten years ago, no, these were mature and rugged young men. Used to the out-of-doors, used to putting entire physical prowess and brain into every challenge, used to working with the public, guiding, being responsible.
My daughter served us popcorn as an hors d’oeuvres and then the young people headed out to grocery shop and see the town. The meal boded well to be fresh, cast-iron cooked, healthful – – and late.
I stole those solitary minutes as appropriate to play through a piano set and then moved on to guitar. Halfway through The Gambler the shoppers returned. Calistralia’s eyes lit as he entered and he gave an enthusiastic thumbs-up. I proceeded to Killing Me Softly With His Song. Wonder of wonders, he began to sing words – and harmony. In the kitchen, Andrea had scrubbed the sweet potatoes and started them to bake. Concluding my practice time, I turned to the young man and asked, “Do you play guitar?” “I have,” was his succinct reply. That reply told me volumes. Some reshuffling of dinner preparations occurred. We all pitched in. After that interruption, I stepped into the living room and handed him the guitar. Oh my heart, what beauty now emanated from those six strings. Rather than weep, I turned to the other ranger, “Do you play any instruments?” “I am a fire-dancer,” he said.
I tossed him the Remo Fruit Shakes from our china closet. Andrea picked up her mandolin. I moved to the keyboard. Dinner was almost ready. But first: music. This magic moment, so different and so new, was like any other…And then it happened, it took me by surprise, I knew that you felt it too, by
the look in your eyes…
I love the idea of magic moments. May they increase. May you have many magic moments in time. Go ahead, seek them. Chase the magic. Some are lucky enough to experience a magic moment that does, indeed, spark a lifetime relationship. But in my experience, magic moments are not “forever to the end of time.” They are moments. They burst on you unexpectedly. They sparkle. They blaze. They are gone. You return to your day job. Magic, intrinsically, is temporary.
More often than not, my magic moments are associated with the making of music.