Out of Tune

There it sits in my half-wall-paper stripped dining room collecting dust and clutter, unused, out of tune, and now out of style--a roadblock between moving forward and being stuck in the limbo of the past. My grandmother's piano represents more to me than it should, I know, and for the first time in my life I want to destroy her.

Most of us I imagine know what it feels like to be out of place, out of the ordinary, uncomfortable in your surroundings,  lonely in a crowded room.  Some of us have been neglected and overlooked.  Lack of maintenance hurts the animate and inanimate alike. The wounds leave scars, deep, and coarse that can stifle our voice, weakening our ability to sing the music of our souls.

At the age of five, I fell in love with my grandmother's piano.  Waiting three years to take lessons, I studied my mother's hands moving on the keys, learned to memorize the simple tune of "Mary Had a Little Lamb," and studied "Heart and Soul" from my grandmother.  I had just recently given up the dream of being a famous singer and began to sink my hopes into her beautiful keys.  Three years later, a harsh piano teacher couldn't even corrupt my affection.  Although I again dreamed of becoming a famous pianist, the fame was only secondary to the playing, for the playing soothed my solitude.

Sadly, circumstances took her from me a few years later, leaving a hole my clarinet nor any other instrument could not fill.  To play the clarinet was an uphill struggle full of demerits and disappointments--band instructors glaring down with disapproving eyes, peers giggling at failures while competitors vied for higher seats.

So I gave up music altogether.  It was too painful. Silently crying for her, I imagined her sitting abandoned at my grandmother's house.  Years later we were reunited, but lack of use and care had broken down her keys, and those remaining sang woefully out of tune.  I wanted to play her again, but her damaged voice broke my heart.  I was just a teenager, faced with the cost of repairing the relationship, so I walked away.

Adulthood and parenting turned my heart to her again.  Living in a small apartment with no room for her, I vowed to get her back and make her new again.

Four years ago, we moved into this house. I brought her here, but I have failed her again.  I stare at her sitting neglected in my dining room taking up precious space that I need to put a buffet table, faced with the sad reality that she will never fit in here.  Letting her go is almost unbearable, and yet keeping her here is suffocating.

Bread

I hate to cook, but I love making bread.

I rarely have time or patience, but on special occasions, I'll do it.  At first I resist it: the mess, the kneading, the waiting, but once I start the process, it centers me, connects me to something sacred.

The worst part is the measuring.  I all too often resist the measuring in my life because all I want to do is skip this step and jump into the beauty that comes after.  And now I wonder how much I miss this way, but today, my family has insisted, so I stand at my kitchen covered in flour and salt, listening to the yeast bubble as it comes alive and devours the sugar.

Kneading the bread in my hands, I imagine myself a sculpture or a potter, and in someway I invoke the spirit of their craft, molding my bread into loaves.  This mundane job every holiday is also mystical. It is the ancient tradition of making something grow out of the coarse and colorless and in doing so I feel the power of creation and sense a deep connection to the Earth, to humanity, and to God.

The aroma of baking bread is like no other scent.  It fills my house, and my family sighs in anticipation of the first warm slice smothered in melted butter.  But for me, my joy is already complete, and this Thanksgiving, I'm thankful for the time to make bread.

Growing Up

When I was a child, I thought I was something special, not in the way most children think they're special because their parents dote over them.  Instead, my "specialness" was more alienating than self-esteem building.  I felt like a foreigner, an alien in my own hometown, growing up for the most part in Appalachia, surrounded by a close-knit family and the rolling hills of a small southern Ohio valley town.

Like many kids, I wanted to be famous.  At first it was a famous singer, then a famous actress, which was followed by a series of disappointments as I discovered many ordinary, non-famous people around me that could sing much better than I and were much more beautiful than me.

I remember the crushing disappointment in fourth grade when I tried out for the part of Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz.  It was undoubtedly a turning point in my life.  The fact that I didn't get the part was one thing.  Surely I would have gotten the part if I had been in the fifth grade because everyone knows that fifth graders by nature get priority over fourth graders, but the crushing blow came when I overheard my dad tell someone that she (not me of course) could really sing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," which of course implied in my mind that she could  sing better than I.

So I turned to other means of fame and "specialness."  For the rest of my fourth grade year, I was to be an astronaut after watching the movie Space Camp.  This troubled my mother, I remember, not to mention the fact that I was terrible in some key things like math, science, and especially anything athletic( I could barely jump rope successfully).

I was inspired then horrified later that year as I watched Christa McAuliffe board the Challenger space shuttle live from my classroom, never to return home.  And I remember Joey, the boy sitting next to me on the floor of my classroom wailing in tears as we watched her funeral (also live).   Joey, who was normally obnoxiously insensitive, was unconsolable and had to be carried out of the room to keep the rest of us from hysterics.