ebony and i-vo-ry

My mom's house has a huge, black upright piano in what is now the dining room. She got it when she was young and funny in Petaluma, living with a bird dog next to a chicken farm. When I was a baby, my dad would play "Hit the Road, Jack" and I would stop crying and giggle. I remember learning to play with the pedals, and across the high F that didn't sound, and peeking under the music stand at the hammers and harp as I pressed random keys. I remember the night when I came home to a real piano bench - no more metal step-stool - and filling it with my Grandma's sheet music. I never took lessons, but taught myself to play, in spite of its tunelessness and dust.

Both of my grandmothers' houses had pianos - Grandma Florence's spotless grand and Grandma Hayes' crowded with baby pictures and Methodist hymnals - and somehow it's just what makes a home a home to me. So, for my 25th birthday, my mom gave me a piano. Nothing like my grandmothers', but just right for me.

Now, after countless choir rehearsals, sectionals, funk band practices, Sirens practices, crazy-electronic-music-lady sessions, I don't have a lot to show for my career as a musician. Dusty practice rooms and makeshift sound closets come right back when I sit down at my own little keyboard and plunk out old choir music or classics from my book of torch songs. And there isn't much more comforting than that.