"I'd Like To Thank McDonald's" And Other Things I Never Thought I'd Say In 2020...aka: Ode To The Piano Forte

A new year is on the horizon.  Another journey around the sun, another year like any other...except HOLY CRAP NOPE.  THIS ONE WAS DIFFERENT!

2020 has brought a whole new level of trial by fire to my life, and obviously, I'm not alone there, It's just clearly worth noting. 

This time of pandemic isolation for me and my family has yielded some very needed deep introspection.  I started to really sort out what I wanted, who I want to be for this 4th decade of my life, and I decided to see my quarantine as "bonus time" in a sense.  Time for me to really dig deep into myself and clarify...tie up loose ends in there.  I had to quite my job, the first one I had since 2009, and I was back home, with three children, remote learning and doing all that full-time-SAHM stuff again after a short eight months of being in the out-of-home work force.  Everything stopped.  The chorus I had been singing with for four years had to cease gathering, and online coordination wasn't something we were equipped for, so my main creative outlet for the past few years was now, gone.  

Music is a huge part of who I am. 

 I have studied it for most of my life in some capacity.  From actually paying attention in elementary school music class with Ms. Hoskins, to joining the school chorus in third grade, to taking violin lessons in school, starting drama/musical theatre classes, and later piano and developing the typical mild obsession with Mozart that EVERY young person has at age 10 after watching Amadeus (what?) then studying voice professionally, studying Music Therapy for two years, culminating in a degree in Theatre Arts. 

All of those things are part of the story of who I am, but THIS story is about the piano. 

My first meeting with a piano was...I don't know because there was always one there.  The house I was born into came with one.  An old, broken, beautiful, never tuned, goth-looking, mess of a piano, in the basement.  

It didn't always look like that.  It had a black top and panel that covered the innards, but this was taken just before my mother sold the house and had to demo the old piano.  I now have an octave of the keys here with me for display.  

In our hay-day, I would go down there and bang and play and make up songs.  After seeing the movie BIG, I taught myself "Heart And Soul".  But even before that, there was an event that burned itself into my formative years' brain. In going back into myself, working out the shadows and whatnot, I found a little girl who sat face to face with envy for the first time.  

It was the 1980's. 

 I was watching TV...no memory of what I was watching, but there was a commercial.

THIS commercial.   

For McDonald's.  

I was SO mad at this little girl.  

There she was, in her frilly dress, having been given the luxury of piano lessons, something I suddenly NEEDED more than anything in the world but knew we couldn't afford at the time, and she got to have a RECITAL, and spent the whole time complaining and NOT enjoying the music???!!!  <scoff> 

I remember venting to my mother about this.  She tried to explain how stage fright was a thing, but I would have none of it.  I decided that I was going to learn that piece of music and ENJOY it, and never be an ungrateful brat about it.  EVER.  

Well, I did get to take piano lessons, with Mrs. Angie Cinelli, from 6th-8th grade.  I did learn Fur Elise, by Beethoven, and I even got to butcher it  perform it at my Uncle's wedding when I was 14 on my Aunt's request!  (I started in the wrong key, and had to attempt to transpose it on the spot because it didn't feel like an option at the time to restart as my lovely soon-to-be aunt was walking down the aisle to what turned out to sound more like the "Adam's family" version of the piece...but I digress...) 

I had a few more teachers and a lot more Beethoven and Mozart.  I would play on the piano in the high school auditorium when nobody was there.  I would play on the "do not touch" piano at the big mall my friends and I would frequent on weekends: a grunge looking me in a Tori Amos t-shirt over-layed with a  flannel and Converse sneakers would approach the giant baby grand in the East corridor of Roosevelt Field mall and bang out Rondo Alla Turk, then walk away. That was more or less the extent of my "risky" teenage behavior if you don't count singing show-tunes loudly with friends in playgrounds after dark.     

At some point when I graduated college and had moved in with my boyfriend...I no longer even had a piano to play.  After a few years of marriage and children, I found that I would sit down and play any time I was near a piano, but I couldn't practice or really play the way one should to hone a skill.  So a few years ago, I declared that all I wanted for Christmas was a piano.  I priced electric ones, and we made that a priority...because I realized that my children were growing up with less music, less opportunity for music than was acceptable in my opinion.  Having an old dilapidated piano in the basement growing up was how it really started for me, and they didn't even have that.  They didn't even know that mommy played the piano.  My in-laws didn't know that I played the piano.  But, to be fair, it has generally been a more solitary thing.  My, more private practice.  I sing with friends and whatever, whenever, I've performed in a chorus and in a few plays in the past few years...but I'm not skilled on the piano in the same, way.  I don't have quick sight reading skills.  I'm more like a very limited mediocre concert pianist who only knows a few pieces, but once I learn it, it's more or less "in there", so it's fun for me, and occasionally impresses my kids.  Mostly, it's just therapeutic.

  Then, this PANDEMIC hits the world, and suddenly, I'm home.  A lot.  BUT, I have a piano.  So, I started practicing.  I practiced multiple days a week.  I practiced for an hour at a time. I WILLINGLY PRACTICED SCALES!  I mused that my old teachers would finally have the answer to what was undoubtedly a question that ran through their heads at some point: "What's it going to take for this girl to practice every day???"...apparently, a season-long global pandemic quarantine!  

The reason I'm logging all this now is that I challenged myself to start SHARING my music again.  I love being on stage, but I never really liked performing piano in front of people...but I also hate being on video...so, I realized that I've become kind of a shitty "performing artist" if I can't bring myself to freeking PERFORM. 

 SO, my challenge is to start here, with the performing art I like to do LEAST in front of people, because I'm not even really "IN FRONT" of anyone.  I'm recording and posting.  Slightly less scary.  This is part of my homework to myself, really.  Breaking another barrier to my "best life" yadda yadda...but I DO hope whoever has read this far isn't horribly disappointed by this next part, now that I've built it up with all this backstory.  I'm also dedicating this to my mother, who found a way for us to pay that $10 a lesson,  and eventually convinced my Nonna to gift me a rented piano that actually worked so I could really play, because those broken keys on the old basement piano would leave me sore. You've been asking for a recording of this for about 27 years mom!  Sorry I'm late, but technology finally left me with no more excuses.  Oh...and special thanks to McDonalds.  If you hadn't made that infuriating commercial all those years ago, I may not have known what I wanted to conquer at such a young age.  I learned the piece when I was about 14, but it is still teaching me things at age 41.  

Presenting: my amateur performance of one of the most famous piano solos ever written...               <no pressure> 

Bagatelle No. 25 in A minor, commonly known as "Fur Elise", by Ludwig van Beethoven 

PJG

 Sometimes I stop, and just appreciate the moment ...the wind blowing, the sun shining, the children laughing...unknowingly at first, creating a bookmark in my life...

And I wonder if when years later, I remember those warm moments, those fuzzy feelings travel through time and are the reason I stopped to appreciate the moment in the first place.  

And the more bookmarks I leave, the more I find later...and I get to revisit those moments.  

It may be the opposite of post traumatic stress, which is a sort of time-travel of it's own. 

It's post-joyful gratitude.  

An Ironic Apothe-Precarious Incident

 A thing happened today, and I felt moved to share it because I'm afraid if I don't write it down, I'll recall it one day and think I made the whole thing up as part of some ironic nightmare musing, but alas, it did indeed happen.  

Prompted by the class I've been taking, I had a burst of nesting energy and motivation to reorganize and finally make a home for some things which have been collecting around my home.  I began a search on the internet marketplace for a glass cabinet hutch that I could use for my much needed store of herbs, oils, and otherly healing and witchy supplies. An apothecary cabinet, if you will.  I figured out exactly where I would put it, and searched locally with confidence that something would turn up within my price range.  

True to form, the innerwebs did not disappoint!  Within a day of searching, I found a piece about an hour away that fit my needs to a tee.  I messaged the seller, set up the appointment..."It's a white house and has some corn stalks on the porch!" she says. Okay.  Let's do this!  

I made my appointment for Tuesday, not remembering that it was election day...a BIG election day...the 2020 election day that I would otherwise be spending avoiding the television and the internet to try to NOT obsess and be anxiety ridden, so I was glad for a proactive distraction.  

I enlisted my eldest son for assistance and youngest child (who would otherwise be watching TV all day while her father works from home) into the car and we set off on our quest.  

I had taken measurements of the minivan to make sure the furniture described would fit, and I have a good reputation for judging spatial dynamics (ask anyone) so I felt pretty sure it would work out.  I even brought a measuring tape along too, just in case.  

After an hour drive, my GPS informs me that we have indeed arrived at the house where my new furniture is waiting.  "No.  No please, no." I say outloud.

"What?" says the 12 year old. 

"Oh my gods, please let it not be THAT house." I say.

Because there, where I had just arrived, and the nice lady voice in my car had assured me was my "destination", was a white house, COVERED, and I do mean COVERED, head to toe in TRUMP flags.  

I am not exaggerating. 

There was a red one.

A blue one.

A  PINK one that read "women for Trump".

"VETERANS FOR TRUMP"

"TRUMPETERS FOR TRUMP" (okay, I made that one up)

Lawn signs. 

House signs. 

A TRUMP bumper sticker, ON the front door window. 

There was even an "LGBTQ+ FOR TRUMP" rainbow sign that I have never seen before.  

THIS was the Disneyland of Trump signs, folks.  

I have NEVER seen a house with this many signs and flags.  

I was sitting in the driveway of the TRUMPIEST TRUMPERS THAT EVER TRUMPED...and I froze.  

I had a conflict here.  

Under most circumstances, I seriously would have just driven away and messaged them that I pass on the sale.  

No thanks. 

But, THIS was something I will be using for higher purposes.  If I buy this thing from these people, I will be paying it forward with the healing work that I do.  Right?  Yes.  Ugh.  

So...I decided that if this thing doesn't fit in my van, I'll pass and take it as a sign.  I won't make any further efforts here but if it fits, we're good.  And who knows, the person I was actually buying it from wasn't there, she said her "mother was home" so I figured, just breathe and go to step 2.  

I start to set up the Paypal on my phone while re-measuring the situation for how it will fit.  I was ready.  I've done this many times, actually.  

A woman and a man come out of the house.  

She is sporting a white TRUMP sweatshirt, featuring the image of an assault weapon.  

Awesome.  

He has a bandage on his hand, but has passive energy.  

I was not expecting anyone to come out, because this was the second purchase I've made during the Covid-19 pandemic, and it's not expected to interact when unnecessary.  I figure they've come out to make sure payment is made.  I assure them I'm trying to make that happen and I've got it figured out. 

"oh...I don't think it's gonna fit" the woman says.   

Nobody offered their help verbally, they didn't ASK if I needed or wanted help.  

They jumped in. 

No masks on.

She then approaches my minivan, and proceeds to CLIMB INTO THE SIDE DOOR to look in my van, where my 5 year old is sitting quietly, playing a game on the tablet.  I quickly approach her with an inquisitive look on my face saying something like "what are we doing...?" in a quiet voice...not threatening but clearly concerned and puzzled by her behavior.  

This woman backs up and looks at me saying "woah, I'm not trying to hurt your kid or something..." and walks off mumbling.  She then proceeds to huff off into the house saying "Well, I'm not helping THAT". 

<blink blink.> 

Wow.  It must be hard to be so easily offended.  

Okay then!  

My son and I begin to get down to work while the quiet and unimposing man continues to help, unasked, but respectfully.  I knew it would fit, these things just take finesse and patience, and measuring tape.  

"Do be careful with that hand" I said, as this man had a fresh and large bandage on one hand.  

"I cut off two fingers with a table saw" he said. 

"Doctors were able to save one and sew it back on". 

<blink blink> "Woah.  Well, speedy recovery!" 

After a few adjustments and seat squishes, we got it all in and even got the back hatch to close without issue.  

We thanked the man, and got into the car.  

I was kinda shaking.  

My son didn't understand.  

We drove off, and had a lengthy discussion about why I was struggling with that whole situation.  

It's not something easy to explain.  

"I'll be saging the crap out of this thing" I said to myself as we drove off.  

So yeah.  I managed to avoid the internet and the news ALL DAY on  THE MOST stressful election day of my lifetime...knowing there would be no clear and accurate president elect in one day, given the mail-ins and the record turn outs.  BUT...please don't think that I avoided reality for a second, because while it was STRONG affirmation of my need to pursue the healing work I am learning, it was also an epic dose of the humor of the universe in Seinfeldian proportions.  

The rest of the day was spent shaking my head and muttering to myself, "so, so many flags..." . 

Was this a day filled with great judgement calls on my account?  

I don't know...BUT, I promise, that remembering where this beautiful hutch came from will forever remind me of how important this work really is.  

I wish that family nothing but healing and love.  I don't know them, but I know a few of their choices.  Some were kind and helpful.  Others were invasive, defensive, and hostile...and they all were drowning in what are certified symbols of hate and disconnect.  

"I understand why you'd hate Trump" my son said,  "But why do you hate his supporters?"

"I don't hate anyone.  I pray for them, because they have forgotten that we are all connected.  That man was very helpful, but those flags aren't just political anymore.  It's so much more than that.  I know it's hard to understand". 

And it is.  This is hard.  And strange, and scary, and weird, but things will change, one way or another.  

All things do...and I hope to continue to learn how to be a part of that change.