Piano Lessons
- priscillawrites
- Mar 12, 2014
- 1 min read
“What is it about a piano that intimidates you so much?”
I look back at the giant oak instrument in front of me, its bright white keys and smoothly chiseled corners somehow taunting me. “Probably the way it looks at me.”
“The way it looks at you?”
“Yeah. Like it’s waiting for me to do something extraordinary with it.”
He laughs, running his fingers slowly over the keys without hitting a single note. “Every great piano has been played by amateurs, including this one. I don’t think it will be offended by your trying.”
“Easy for you to say, mister child prodigy.”
“I didn’t come out of the womb knowing how to play, you know.”
“Right. It took you, what, a week?”
“Adeline.” He moves in closer on the bench beside me, until his arm is touching mine. “Learning is rarely beautiful. It’s full of a thousand failures and imperfections along the way. But if you keep going and keep trying, the result will be beautiful. I can promise you that.”
I don’t say anything for a moment, studying his lips and his lashes and his eyes. How did I go so long without realizing how captivating he was back in high school, when we were only strangers that passed each other on the hallway? How did I not notice the way almost everything he says sounds both poetic and honest? How was he not more to me than that kid who everyone knew spent full days in the music room?
“You underestimate my lack of musical abilities,” I finally say.
He smiles. “And you underestimate my ability to teach.”