feeling at peace

For the first time in years, I remembered to bring some of my favorite piano (sheet) music home with me, and so when I’ve been able to (which has not been frequent) the last few days, I have been sitting down at the piano trying to play the songs I love without completely butchering them. The first day was horrific … it has been so long since I’ve tried to play these songs, and I was — if you can believe this (I cannot) — having trouble reading the music. Sheesh. I spent way too many years of my life reading music to have lost that skill. Oof!

Any any rate, this morning I actually pushed myself all the way through my absolutely favorite piece of piano music — Beethoven’s “Fur Elise.” Mind you, I don’t play it at the speed you typically hear pianists playing it, but I play it in a way that pleases my ear, and since mine are the only ears around, I figure that’s good enough. 🙂

When I got through the whole song and hit that last chord with a very satisfactory pound on the keys, I swear, I felt this amazing, palpable release. Although I never wanted to invest the time to practice sufficiently enough to become good at playing the piano, I have always enjoyed sitting down and pounding out a song — and by “pound” I mean “playing with gusto,” not literally *pounding*. It is such a great source of stress relief, and it’s one of the few moments when I can give my full attention to a single thing and let everything else slide away. I guess that’s really it … I love playing music because it consumes my every thought, every bit of concentration I can possibly muster, and the world around me fades out of sight. In addition to my extreme bashfulness vis-a-vis letting others hear me play, I suppose that’s one of the reasons I prefer to play in an empty house… because when others are around, I cannot help but pay attention to their movements, and this distracts me just enough to hear the quality of my playing suffer. No, I need utter solitude and total concentration, and I get caught up in the notes, and it is *wonderful*.

I asked Santa for a fully weighted 88-key keyboard this year for Christmas. It’s a lean year here Chez Norell with respect to Christmas (as I suspect it is for many people), but I am still keeping my fingers crossed that Santa comes through. The spring semester promises to be a difficult one, and it would be a real blessing to have a keyboard (that’s as close to a piano as can be found) where I could let myself get swept up in music from time to time. I also asked for the sheet music for this song, which you can listen to over clips from one of my favorite movies, “Amelie” — and which, if my instincts are correct, may well be a victim in the untimely ending to Liz’s Fairy Tale Adventures, Part I. Be that as it may, here’s the clip. It’s just *gorgeous* and if Santa comes through, someday (although maybe not soon) I will be playing these notes. Mmmmmmmm. I like that thought.