A taste of (the) Essentials ....

Essentials - giving birth to words, rhymes and a short story or two.

Good morning to you and good afternoon for others.  Here is my daily blog for Thursday, January 9th, 2014.... Already diving into the new year and writing up a storm.  I'm giving you all a little treat so you may get an idea what's inside this little book. Lots of poetry but a couple of inspired short stories. Please pass this on to your friends who enjoy reading personal, loving memories. I never thought this would be something I find great joy in doing.  But if the spirit moves me to do something, who am I to stand in the way with preconceived notions of what I'm really supposed to be doing.  Here is one of the two very short stories I wrote and want to share.  I hope you enjoy reading it.

Under the Piano 

I remember so clearly, the times I spent hiding under my mother’s baby grand piano.  I must have been not more than 3 or 4 years old when I found that I was protected from the world under that oddly shaped piece of furniture.  Sitting under this very large source of noise, becoming swallowed up by vibrations was a daily game for me as a child.   My mother had been trained as a concert pianist in Rio de Janiero, Brazil and spent hours playing some of the most beautiful music ever written.  She tried to teach me but I had no patience and it is one of the biggest regrets of my life.

I am getting older now and it is hard to remember my early years, when I first discovered the world but I know those times I spent under the piano shaped me.  The ever present sublimity of this grand music.  I remember….Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Liszt, Schuman. Sometimes my mother would let me put a sheet over the piano and I had my special fort.  I brought my toys and stuffed animals with me under this wooden and copper network of strings and chords and live in my own world.  Mother would play her music and I’d watch the padded keys, all across from one side to another.  The underbelly of this dark-brown, shiny musical instrument held such fascination.  I could only see her feet, legs, as she pressed down on the pedals.  Making the sound go quiet or louder was the function but I only saw shoes and pants do a stationary dance.  Up and down, up and down.

I used to wonder how the sound could be made with those funny felt-padded, wooden mallets.  But the treasured masterpieces that she played, more importantly, took me away to strange and new places.  Even the clacking of her fingernails on the white and black keys warmed me with familiarity.  I had discovered a different time and space I could go to, even when my mother and father would fight.  I could hide from all the scary goblins, become invisible to them where they could not find me.  It was my safe, holy, vibrating, cavernous, sanctuary which held so much comfort for me.  Even to this day, maybe not under the piano, but in an audience, or in the car, on the radio or with my earphones, I still listen to the music I soaked up, as if I were a little human sponge.  It is no wonder, listening to piano  being played is sheer joy.  It is God come near to hold me close and say I love you.