The day after my Father’s death, a long standing appointment resolved. The artisan hired to refurbish the piano, their beloved Steinway…arrived at the house and carried it away.
Lacking and off-kilter; that is how the entire thing felt…as if the air around us kept jumping…electric and unsettled.
January folded into the rest of the winter and we reached a kind of holding space. We waited and phone calls were made. Spring threatened and then the rains came with humidity and the new sounding board fought the damp and the heavy glue and we waited.
Summer languished just a touch and suddenly there was August heat and the first signs of harvest and in the end, for eleven long months we watched the empty space in the music room. A space that rich cannot remain void and it slowly filled up with grandchildren toys and a chair or two…and of course, stacks of music.
The furnace eventually started blowing hot air again and the annual turkey was slain and then…eleven tiresome months to the very day, the piano made the long journey home and settled back into that space.
Everyone breathes a sigh of gratitude. They say that old sins have long shadows and I believe it. But rivers of good joy run deeply so we light candles instead of cursing those shadows…and we surge ahead…
690 Saint Paul 