piano

One cold Connecticut winter, my parents rented a house for us while our new house was being built. Mom was amazed that the retired couple, heading to Florida for the winter, would entrust their beautiful home to a family of six.

We all thought we'd landed in heaven. After a flat Detroit suburb, our temporary digs in the Connecticut countryside was a fairyland. The house sat on a private road halfway up a mountain. We never saw the grass that winter: mounds of snow surrounded us. My three siblings and I spent hours sledding the hills and building snowforts. A neighbor even brought over his massive dog who pulled a sled and hauled us around.

Inside the house, I found a new friend: a piano. When I wasn't out sledding, I sat at the piano, picking out tunes and pretending I could really play. Mom and I played "Heart and Soul" over and over. It would be more than thirty years before my first piano lesson. But that's another story.

The piano is, hands-down, my favorite instrument. Two of my children took piano for many years and I never tired of hearing them practice. Canon in D. The Entertainer. David Lanz's compositions. Hymns. It's all good and soul-soothing on the piano.

Which explains one thing I've missed while Katie was at college the past year. She's become proficient at the piano, and more, her playing comes from somewhere deep inside her. I can hear it as she plays. It's not about practicing for a recital: it's about music as a sort of food for the soul.

So, it's summer and I have college kids to feed. But I get a little food, too, when my daughter sits down to play.