Illustration by Mary Kirkpatrick
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Somewhere around age 9, I learned to love the piano. The one that stood in our living room was big and dark, and I was paid 25-cents a week to dust it. I enjoyed wiping a clean cloth over its surface that was nearly so shiny I could see my face. And the hinged wood piece that covered the keys when no one was playing, was so intriguing. Open, close, open, close. Even the bench that opened to sheaves of paper, which I learned later was music, was a delight to discover.
My older sister achieved acclaim as the pianist in our family, at the time when I was only beginning to dust, and I wanted to play like her. Beethoven’s famous Fur Elise!
Soon I was sent to piano lessons, too, but I began to wish for dusting because I hated the piano. It seems you had to practise and I wasn’t built for that kind of discipline. I wanted to play what I heard, not practice notes on a page over and over, with coaching and a Metronome. For years Sister Marie Delores, the instructor at my school, made me practise. Finally, she announced I was ready and so she scheduled me to play at an outdoor recital.
My Mother made a special dress for me to wear, it was pink with a pleated skirt and a bolero jacket. I detested that outfit. I was to play Four Leaf Clover, a simple tune, which I knew well and could play perfectly. But I took no pride in this accomplishment. It was too easy.
At this outdoor festivity, and just before my calling to play the Clover tune, someone spilled iced tea on my dress. This didn’t really bother me … but perhaps it changed things.
When my name was called to perform on the stage, I happily approached the monster piano and took my seat. My back faced the anxious crowd of teachers, parents, students and fellow pianists, and at that moment I decided to cast Four Leaf Clover aside and began to play my version of Beethoven’s Fur Elise. After all, I had been playing it for myself for months, never practising, but just playing, and certainly not with any instruction from Sister Marie Delores who had high hopes of me winning the recital competition with her well-thought-out simple ditty. How unlucky for her that day.
I butchered Beethoven to everyone else’s ears but mine. I slammed the keys this way and that and my emotions felt great. I spotted the tea stain as I played and somehow liked that it was there. I went on and on … finishing with a flourish, or so I thought. I smiled, but only for an instant. I never heard the silence of no applause, nor did I hear the gasps of my mother, or Sister Marie Delores who was now speaking to my mother in a somewhat loud voice, as if it had anything to do with either of them.
I stepped down from the piano bench, awarding myself the acclaim that I felt I deserved. I gracefully left the stage not like a prima donna, but with my head held in a way that only I could know what a fabulous job I had done.
And I kept walking, away from the others, to enjoy the solace of my own company, knowing that I had done something significant, extravagant and while I did not know the word courageous, certainly the word “rebellious” never occurred to me.
Needless to say, all of the awards went to others, but I was immune to their glory. Of course, I could have had one for that silly Four Leaf Clover thing. But who would want it?
On the drive home, I was barraged with questions. “What were you thinking?” “Why did you spill tea on your dress?” “That must have been it.”
I was silent, still playing Fur Elise in my head.
What a spirit I have lost since then as, over the years, I’ve compromised with a Clover-like performance to fit in.
Sometimes, however, I spill the occasional tea on my dress. Just to recall the spirit I once had, and hope that it hasn’t totally gone away.
Deborah Moore lives in Halfmoon Bay, B.C.