look down, look up, look back & look ahead

LOOK DOWN

I was walking on 2nd St SW the other morning facing east. It was a beautiful morning with the sun shining gently and with a light breeze. I don’t usually walk with my head down, but I couldn’t help but do so that morning.

Because the pedestrian sidewalk was beautiful.

Huh? You asked.

It was silver and glittery.

I don’t know what they put in the cement but when the lighting is just right, the sidewalk just glittered. Like stars in a clear night sky. Like the reflections on the ocean water surface during sunset.

So try walking with your head down next time, and you may find something you would otherwise miss.

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LOOK UP

Do look up sometimes though. And you may find something else you would otherwise miss.

We went to visit Justin’s parents who live in the country (or “woop woop” in Aussie slang) and left late. Justin said, “one thing I miss living in the country is seeing the stars at night”. I looked up, and sure enough, there were plenty, plenty of stars. Very romantic.

What did I do? I kept walking to the car, because I was sleepy.

“You just missed seeing a shooting star!” Justin said.

Because I was too busy walking and tired to look up.

I fell asleep in the car. When we got back home, Justin told me I missed yet another shoot star while he was driving.

A green shooting star.

Haven’t seen a green one before (I’d only seen shooting stars once in Canada, in 1999). And I miss it.

So, do look down, and look up.

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LOOK BACK & LOOK AHEAD

You don’t know what you have until you don’t have it anymore. So true.

I started having piano lessons when I was 5 or 6. My parents bought us a piano not long after that. To this date, I still wondered how the piano movers moved it up 3 floors in a narrow staircase to our apartment in Hong Kong. I had lessons until I was 14 and stopped because we left for Australia.

In Australia, I just practiced on my own. I was in the school band and sometimes I would performed during school concerts. Once I went to college/uni, I played a lot less. I would sit down and play a few songs when I felt like it. It was a good way to relieve stress – especially when you banged out “Phantom of the Opera”.

I haven’t played for more than 4 years, since I left Australia to Rochester MN. Lately, I’d been really missing playing the piano for whatever reasons. I began looking for one… I had no idea how much pianos are since I had no reason to look before. I quickly realized that I can only afford a used one, from private sellers like the classified or craigslist. When I talked to my mum about the piano we have, I asked her how much she and my dad paid for it. I was astonished. The amount was high even in today’s standard (well to my budget anyway, since it is all relative), let alone 20+ years ago.

I remember I didn’t like practicing much. I remember sometimes mum or dad would sit down and listen to us play (even though they don’t know how to play). I remember my mum talking me to lessons – we had to take the bus, along with my 2 little sisters. My youngest sister was still an infant, and she puked onto my mum during the bus ride numerous times as the road was windy. I remember the song the teacher used to play to gather the students around her (it was group lessons first). I remember later having private lessons with her, and then having lessons with another teacher. I remember catching the bus by myself to go to group sessions when I was older, feeling all grown up because my parents trusted me to go by myself (a 30min or so bus ride, and I was probably 12-14). I remember not wanting to perform for guests when my parents asked, but would do so unwillingly. I remember going to competitions and exams, and how much I disliked playing scales because I was slow and how much I sucked at oral exams because I can’t sing.

And today, I have my 2nd piano.

I finally found one on craigslist, and had a piano technician looked at it to make sure it is still in good condition. I don’t expect it to be perfect, but don’t want to get something that’d require $$$ to fix. This piano is a lot older than the one I had at my parent’s (probably by 70 years). It was made in 1913, a Hobart M Cable that was a 16th birthday gift to the seller’s great aunt. It was later given to the seller. So it had been in the same family for 95 years. And now it is mine.

I played. Or I should say, attempted to play. I was definitely very rusty. I can’t even play Fur Elise without stopping many times due to mistakes. I was once able to play it flawlessly. A few days ago I went to the library to borrow a few music books. There was a song I loved to play before – but I don’t remember its name, nor who wrote it, nor what the melody was. But I knew when I see it, I’d remember. So I started flipping through the books they had, looking at the first few bars of each song, singing the tune silently in my head. I looked through probably 10 books before I found it – Nocturne in E flat Major by Chopin.

It was frustrating, disappointing and almost scary when I couldn’t make it through the first page on my first try. Scary because this is a song I used to know so well, and how I could just lose it all in 4 years time. It is almost like when you wake up one day, you found out you don’t remember the 26 alphabets in sequence.

I know it’d take time and practice to get back to where I once was. And I probably need to start with something a bit easier to get my “hand memory” back. I chose Sonatina in C major by Clementi. I don’t know how loud the piano is outside of the house, I hope my neighbours won’t complain as they probably are sick of hearing it. I lost count of how many times I played just the first movement to see if I could play without any mistakes. I am hoping this winter I will have more time to practice, since I’d be less busy with photography.

Perhaps next time when I see my parents (we haven’t seen each other for 4 years) I’ll be able to play them a song, as they have said they enjoying listening to us play. I want them to know that I appreciate them buying us a piano when we hardly had room in our small apartment in Hong Kong (my parents ended up sleeping in a sofa bed for 8 years in the living room just so the piano can stay in the only bedroom where our bunk bed was); that I appreciate the time they spent taking us to lessons and all; that they gave us an opportunity to learn music and encouraged us to enjoy music, and hoped that one day we’ll understand why they wanted us to have lessons even when we didn’t really want to.

Today I understood.

~ christa