I started taking piano lessons when I was four. I wrote my first piece of music with the help of my gentle teacher, Mrs. Slabey at age thirteen. I won first prize for my piece in the state of Michigan and placed eighth nationally. I remember ripping open the letter and reading that I had won the competition. I had to read it several times because I thought it was a mistake. Sometimes, when I tell that story, I still feel like I am making it up.
My piano saved me. As a child, my sadness came through my fingertips onto the keys. My joy soared as I played. I remember playing at all of the holidays for my family, as they sat, a patient audience. Jingle bells, Skip to my Lou, the simple things. And I remember sitting in my red and white dress with lace and ribbons when I was five, next to my great uncle Tom, who left the piano to me after he died. I felt like me when I played. And as I grew up, ME was harder and harder to find. I quit playing the piano when I was fifteen. I quit dancing too. My parents divorced and I quit. I quit a lot of life and turned to my boyfriend, to sex, to alcohol to fill me up. And I was empty for a while. Until I started turning towards something else.
This afternoon, I turned back to my piano. I felt like a thirsty wanderer in the desert who found an oasis. I drank and drank as I played. My piano has been through several hands. After my parent's divorce and the separation of things, the piano went away from me for a while, almost twenty years. It came home to me last year. And I came home to it today. I pulled out some staff paper I didn't know that I had, I sat down with a pen first and then remembered I needed pencil. Notes just spilled out of the pencil onto paper. It felt like a cozy blanket wrapped around me...that old feeling. Then, I started singing, straight from my heart, where music comes from after all. Andrew, my son, came over to me and said, "Mom, I didn't know you could play the piano AND sing at the same time!" "I didn't either," I said. I sang, over and over, the verse "You saved me." My mind said, "You are
going to have to come up with more than that, honey." My heart said,
"You go girl, sing on." And sing on, I did; singing thank you for not
leaving me, thank you for coming home to me, thank you for being there. Was I singing to God? Or was I singing to my 100 year old
friend of wood and ivory? As a child and even now, it is hard to tell
the difference.
I know why I have been away from my old friend for so long. I didn't trust that this song was inside of me anymore. I thought I lost it when I picked up my first drink. But it has been in me all along. Trust is the key that unlocks creativity. I am afraid of the mess that might come out of me. I am afraid it won't be perfect, or just not quite qood enough. I am afraid no one will like it. Or, it just won't sound like Patty Griffin. But those are not the reasons that creativity longs to be free. Creativity longs to Be because it is who we are. It longs for us to open the door of our cage and let it fly like a bright red bird. Anyone who has birthed anything knows, that birthing ANYTHING is messy work. But if we can trust the mess, we sing a song, put together a great outfit, respond to our partner in a new way, breathe our last breath. In the mess, comes the gift. Rumi says, Kiss the snake that guards the treasure. When I sat on my piano bench and picked that pencil up, I kissed the snake. And the treasure is my song. I invite you to go ahead, kiss the snake. You never know what might find you.
