Mahogany notes

I remember walking past feral vegetable gardens to get to piano class. Large pumpkin leaves matted the earth and clawed my feet while monarch butterflies flitted over winking forget-me-nots. Mrs. Darcy would always stand watch, leaning over the balcony with a cup of tea in one hand, a sheaf of music in the other and "come along then." I'd nod miserably, come along and plunk myself on a piano that I didn't want to play. An hour later, after a severe scolding for not practicing (for I never practiced enough), I'd walk home past scraggly bougainvillea and anemic tomatoes to plunk myself on another piano and scowl at the keys.

Ten years have since passed and the Yamaha piano still sits in our living room. It's been tugged across countries, from Papua New Guinea to Sri Lanka to Canada and the mahogany frame still gleams when it catches the light. It still gets polished whenever we remember (from once a week to once every 6 months) and it sits there like a relic that everyone forgets except when they need an extra chair in the living room.

I opened the stool today and was shocked to see music scores tinged yellow. The notes seared my hands and seemed to dance to forgotten music and memory. Picking up the easiest score I could find, I gingerly sat on the piano and opened the lid to look. The gold trim was faded, the red cloth was chewed and the keys shone as though each had been polished, eagerly awaiting rediscovery. A few minutes later, the keys depress and the noise blasts my ears and throbs inside me, painfully out of key. The memories flood back, my incompetence hurts, the lid slams shut and the piano is back to being a stool.