It had been ages before my fingers tickled the keys, worn like yellow bones. But it was all still there. All the years of Liszt, Rachmoninov, Bach, Beethoven. It’s all beginning again.
What a treat to resurrect inventions.
My wrists dance, and I sway as a sudden wind, flowing through the score, measure by measure, over and over, remembering fingerings, dynamics, and modes.
I confirm for my mother that it is still in tune, except for the 3rd B flat, which buzzes in that old piano way. “Such a shame to keep tuning a piano that noone plays…” she says, as I breathe life into the wooden goddess. My fingers have grown over her teeth, in time, through hours of agony and bliss.
One day it will be mine, but not now. I silently transform my meager 76 plastics into those ivory souls, moving, shaking, creating. When I play I can never grow old. Within me, it’s my piano, growing old with me.
Each tone is new every time. I stroke true love, unbroken, though dormant for so long.
Some love never dies, but hides away, waiting to be embraced again. And the feel of it will forever remain the same. Each day apart will be noticed, and the reunion - no matter how long passes in between, will be like old friends sharing secrets the other one already knows. Nothing lost in the cold stretch of time kept warm by the mind, hearth of the heart.
The joy of playing after so many years only made possible by the strange track of life.