Telling notes

Laughing a little, we rolled over. I settled back against his side and nestled my head into his shoulder. Light breathing filled the room and he stroked over my shoulder. Small comments drifted between us and I could feel a laziness settle it. Grinning, I propped my head up on his chest and looked at him.

“Why don't you play the piano for me,” I coaxed him out of our bed and shooed him towards the living room. My piano lay ahead – I remembered him commenting on it a few nights ago. I was eager to hear someone else play. The piano always seemed to speak to my secret place.

“Just so you know, I'm not playing for you in return.” I joked, popping his bottom, warning him not to expect me to perform for him in return. I never played for anyone – playing the piano created a path to a secret place of mine – not many were invited down that path.

“That's fine.” Confidently he sat on my piano bench. I stood slightly awkwardly by the piano. It is an upright and I didn't want to curl up next to him on the bench but I did want to be where I could see him as he played.I was eager to hear him play, watching someone play pieces that they love is a treat.

His fingers pressed the keys and I was startled. They weren't soft. They weren't slow. They weren't light. They didn't ease over the white keys and tease the black keys forward. Instead he ran over them, mashed them, forced them. I shrank into my seat I beside the piano.

A mass of sound waves pounded over me. It could be described as nothing more refined than that. From the waves hitting my ear I did not need a visual to know his foot sat heavy, foreboding on the pedal – forcing it down ruthlessly - trying to draw out more sound but not realizing he was choking the very sound he was creating.

I couldn't bring myself to look at his fingers which carelessly pounded each note from the keyboard. They were quick and uncaring. They didn't bother to draw out each note or caress it to fullness, leaving some heavy and some light. There was no acknowledgment of difference between soft and hard, quick or long. They ran over each sound as if each note was no different from the one before or the one following. I sat, shocked, as note after note rushed towards me, calling out for help as he ruthlessly ran each one down without notice.

I barely managed to glance up at him, feeling horror course through me. He looked over and smiled, confident and happy - slaughtering note after simple careful soft note as if they were no more than an incidental happenstance in his life. My horror must have not made it to my eyes.

“Do you recognize this? Beach Boys” he said, continuing to ram notes through the air between us. There was no distinction in his fingers, no thought or coaxing in his hands. My body wanted to withdraw, rushed and undignified, into a ball – retreating from such lack of awareness. It couldn't imagine itself next to someone that could not imagine slowness. It couldn't understand someone that didn't dwell in the quietness between notes...someone that didn't understand the beauty of the rest, the value of the silent breath, the quietness of the slow coaxing of a simply melody, the importance of drawing out a soul not crowded by a sustaining pedal.

He ran over it all, covering individual voices with a heavy foot that refused to let up enough for a single thought to catch a breath. Oblivious, he choked the life out of each line of melody.

The war on sound halted and silence filled the air. I heard the heat in my apartment cut on – loud and hissing – insistent that we pay attention. Realizing I was frozen in place, I jerked my eyes towards his face and form. For the first time, he seemed only like a mound sitting on my piano bench, a hideous formless mound, not defined by anything – not even his own skin. He appeared a mindless lump that trumped through wild life and failed to notice delicate Violets he probably trod upon without notice or care.

“I'm sure you play much better than me,” he said, leafing through my sheet music that I stored on the piano.

To him I'm sure I muttered something quiet like “Definitely not – how long have you been playing?”

To myself I whispered, “I may not play as quickly or as many notes – but at least I don't commit murder.” I knew later I would need to caress my keyboard back to life.

Seat of the Soul

My experience of my world starts with the skin – is absorbed physically into my body and spread out to the rest of my consciousness. I gather bits of information seep into my skin and read vibrations that pound my body; then, when it is all collected, my brain begins the translation of what is happening. The translation is needed for the future, for the time I will be required to speak about my experience and my life. The time between the first sensations and the beginning of the translation is pure – a time when I am able to communicate with myself with intense intimacy.

My soul resides just beneath the skin, instantly translating myself outward and interpreting messages coming inward. The soul is caressed by both my skin and my muscles, massaged between them with growing strength and smoothness as I evolve. I’m wrapped in a give and take of soul and body – each one feeding off of the other in a symbiotic relationship that moves in perfect harmony. Within this exchange, no words exist; not once will my soul misunderstand me; I trust it implicitly to understand without the need of language. I am greedy for that silence in which everything is wholly understood; where nothing is fragmented into understandable pieces. I wallow in that space that is swollen with no need to speak.