i sat down to play the piano with everyone home for the first time since she died
two at the kitchen table working out fractions, one disappearing to his bedroom, one in the back studio teaching someone, trumpet i think, and me, back at the keys
but not playing two of the regulars, my hands kept reaching for everything
but those particular two. i opened the red hymnal to my trusty paper-clipped spot
faltered on the first chord change, unusual, moved slower, took a deep breath, let the sound seep
into each finger tip as one brushed by, "Oh, that's my favorite" he declared, and began describing the harmonic shifts to the two doing fractions, who then shushed him to help me keep focusing on those harmonic shifts, which i was in fact, at that very moment, fucking up.

it was a birthday dinner day and three of us were in the kitchen with green olives, and one
was at the piano, improvising on this tune which afterward i couldn't chase out of my morning teacup until one day weeks later i opened the book and found the paperclip and let myself stammer through it each morning, remembering the afternoon of his re-harmonization, when something was happening between human and piano, and two of us softly hummed along, and waited, all in its own time, over the chicken and spice, while the third ran off again somewhere to do something of his own design

we listened to the first birthday song written many years ago, and i sat quietly,
wondering about the birthday song i had written, and wondering, about the music
that was so quietly and firmly taking over so much of me, that all i could be filled
with in the meantime in my dining room chair was awe and caramel and hope and tears

a morning

"my lord, what a morning"


Scrolling through facebook this morning, this was the phrase repeated by parishioners and visitors in response to the service yesterday at St. James for the visit of Bishop Michael Curry, the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of all of the United States. You might know him as that dude who talked forever at the most recent Royal Wedding. The one with the great cellist at the beginning. Turns out, Bishop Curry is truly one of the sweetest preachers out there. It was the hugest honor to be with him in our church, and to receive communion from him. And to hear him preach about something I've been thinking about a lot this year: love.

I had a big job to do as a singer for the service yesterday. Not only was it a massive sing, with several descants and quartet bits, but it was an additionally emotion-filled and sensitive time being together with the musicians. It was going to be the first time we would all be together at church after my friends returned from the burial of their beloved, sweet mother.

I say friends, but I actually mean my family here in Austin. These people have become the people I cancel Friday night dates for to just go be at their house and bake brownies and watch movies. They've become my hiking buddies, my favorite lunch partners, and people who I spend holidays with when I'm too broke to fly to Boston or too tired to drive to the beach to see my mom. I've dropped by the house having spilled coffee down my front and borrowed t-shirts fresh out of the laundry, and I don't even know how many cups of tea and card games we shared in just the past school year alone.

So many times, I popped over to their house, with chickens in the backyard and the piano in the front living room, a mountain of laundry folded on the dining room table, and I found a place where I could be exactly what I was at that moment, and be loved. I learned to sit down at the piano and practice, first the two pieces that I knew and only when just grandma was home, but then I started bringing more books and rifling through the stash of sheet music in the piano bench, and finally, began writing my own music on the piano, so much was it that I needed to play that instrument, no matter what it was or who was in the house or how sheepish I felt about my abilities.

Like anything given a little love, attention, and consistency, my piano skills grew. And its place in my life grew too, and a new part of myself starting speaking, a part of me that has always loved the piano so dearly. Eight or nine years ago, when I was a student in Vienna I took a class on piano pedagogy in the 19th century with all pianists. When asked to tell them why I, as a flutist and soprano, was in this class, I said something I wish I had paid more attention to at the time, simply "well, I love this music".

At the same time, my heart grew too, and healed. When I think back on the last year, I'm realizing how lonesome I was. How little I trusted people in my world, and how little I was willing to receive love from anyone, wanting only to give and then to be self-sufficient on my own. Teaching doesn't really work like that, I've learned. Especially with pre-K. When a 3 year-old comes barreling into your arms to hug you, you simply have to accept it. There's no other choice.

It's been a time of letting myself be loved by people like me-- artists and wanderers and cooks, and believers. Questioners, doubters, imperfect people too, but still believers in that hope, in that truth, in the silver linings in life. I'm who I am today, on the other end of this first teaching year and five years into living life in Austin, with three as a confirmed Episcopalian, because of that love.

It was a shared love of music and of food, and of God that made me grow to love the dear and late Betty Pulkingham so much. Every moment with her was a gift.

The many inspirations she gave me I will not forget to practice. I will open my mouth in praise of God, and lay fingers on the piano keys. I will pray and listen to people, and spend time with those I love. And then if I'm really feeling bad sometime, which always comes around now and then, I will eat key lime pie and close my eyes and remember sitting at the table with her one quiet Friday night, after meatloaf and wine, when she couldn't wait for the pie to be quite finished and we cut her a pre-preemptive slice. Later, when we were having ours, she got quiet a moment watching us eating. We asked if she wanted another sliver, and she smiled.

Her smile was in so many faces yesterday singing her music in one of my dearest homes away from home. Her joy was so present, I couldn't do anything but sneak away and cry off all my eyeliner before, during, and after the service. I'm grateful for the words of a nun I met teaching at my school who told me: "Tears are a gift from God. Let them fall, and rejoice."

My Lord, what a morning. And what a mourning. I'm grateful for the space yesterday and today, and tomorrow, and always, to hold it all and to be held too, and to sing all about love in the goodness of God.