Flashback

Last night I needed a flashdrive. I dug around in our media cabinet downstairs, and finally found one. I plugged it in and realized it was one of two I had used for most of my college writing classes. Amused, I clicked on the folder Old Classes and began perusing the documents. 

Most were not highly edited portfolio pieces; instead, they were just homework assignments—journal work for Christianity and Writing, Autobiographical Writing, and Writing Theory and Ethics. Most of these classes required us to write some sort of reflection on our reading assignment and then a short mini essay. 

The mini essays amused me. Since I had a crazy course load, I rarely spent more than half an hour drafting both my reading response and my mini essay. I spent so little time on these, I didn't even remember writing most of them. 

I remember nothing about this piece, but it was apparently Journal 7 for Autobiographical Writing. 

Mini Essay

The piano studio had a wall of windows directly across from the main door, which was paned in six windows itself. French doors elegantly framed the back of the room and repeated the glass pattern. Natural light was good for learning, my teacher told me, and the studio was flooded with it. Bookcases stuffed with crinkle-cornered sheets, Suzuki series books, and wedding collections lined the wall opposite the windows. I spent half an hour a week in that piano studio, starting in second grade nearly until I graduated high school.

An old upright—ancient even—sat next to the Baby Grand used for lessons. Compared to the Grand, it looked scuffed, worn, beat-up. Years of frustration built up the keys. Sweaty palms had worn a white rim on the wood just below the Middle C position from students lazily relaxing their curvature while taking instruction after beating out several wrong notes. The Baby Grand looked like a marble statue in the corner. It shined like an onyx gem and I could see my sullen reflection next to my worn music books. The white keys were pearly, not yellow like the keys I practiced on at home. So white in fact, I worried I would dirty them with my grubby hands which had been who-knows-where by my 4:30 lesson. The notes rang perfectly pure, smooth—a pitch so clear it belonged in a concert hall. It was the most beautiful piano I would ever play.

For several months during my junior year of high school I dreaded going to lessons. At that point, I understood I was an adequate pianist; I would probably be able to play hymns in church, but I certainly didn’t have a music career ahead of me. In January, Mrs. Winston assigned me Canon in D. She told me someday I would be asked to play for weddings, and this would be a staple in my portfolio.

Because of the difficulty, Mrs. Winston decreased my weekly practice load. I only had three songs a week, and the only one I would play for her at lessons was Canon in D. The first time I pulled out the hand-me-down music at home, my mom clucked how much she would enjoy hearing me learn to play it, how it was beautiful, an absolute classic. I curled my lip and banged out the opening chord progressions of Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog by ear. My mom rolled her eyes and began making dinner.

I sight-read the first page of Canon in D, hating the rhythm, hating the progression. It became increasingly harder, and I made more mistakes. My mom had the annoying habit of yelling, “Sharp!” from the kitchen whenever I missed a note by half a step. Yes, Mom. I realize I hammered the wrong note. The exaggerated sigh and pounding all the notes I can reach that followed was also on purpose. Just in case you couldn’t tell.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to learn the song, although that may have been part of it. Since I was one of the few of Mrs. Winston’s students who kept up lessons through high school, she spoiled me by letting me choose most of my own music. She didn’t force me to learn Chariots of Fire or Mozart, instead I was polishing Don’t Stop Believin’ for my next recital. However, Canon in D was necessary. She wasn’t going to budge. Something about the fingering, or the time signature, or key, I don’t know what it was, but something wasn’t working for me. I never spent more than a month on a song—especially one I didn’t like—before Mrs. Winston initialed the top left corner of the first page, and I shoved the music in my bookcase at home and forgot about it. In April, I was still torturing Pachelbel for fifteen minutes every night as I butchered his Canon.

At my next lesson, I mindlessly sighed heavily as I put the sheet music on the ledge and prepared to play. Mrs. Winston grabbed the music roughly, much the same way I had the night before, crumbled it in a fist and threw it at the French doors. It landed with a quiet crinkle on the plush blue carpet. With wide eyes, I turned to my always patient, level-headed piano teacher.  

“I got you some new music,” she said. She flipped open the lid of the ancient piano bench and pulled out a stack of eight pages. She placed four in front of me, took the other four, and set herself to play at the old piano.

“Play,” she said with a wink. “You should know it.”

For the half hour lesson, the theme from Friends bounced off the soundproof walls of the studio. I’ll be there for you cause you're there for me too...

Last summer, my sister jokingly asked if I would play Canon in D for her wedding. My mom broke up the wrestling match that followed. In fact, I can’t help cringing at weddings whenever I hear that chord progression. I think of the hours I spent hunched over the keys, circling notes dramatically in thick pencil, reminding myself not to miss the accidental the next time around. I even found that music when I was digging through my old piano music before I left for college. It was still crumbled in the ball Mrs. Winston made before throwing it across her studio. I think she knew I would be quitting my lessons not long after and didn’t want to push me over the edge because of a single song. Of course, Canon in D did sound much more appropriate on the beautiful Baby Grand, but the memory of rocking the Friends theme is more beautiful.