THE PIANO

I remember watching my mother play the piano in the drawing room on late afternoons when it rained. For some reason, she hardly ever went near the instrument when it was sunny or dry. There was just something about the rain that inspired her to brighten up the gloom of the house and I can attest that our young spirits were immediately lifted as she played beautifully rapturous melodies to counter the horrid, wet weather outside.

Watching her hands move with such effortless dexterity up and down the keyboard was like watching a form of magic as the music that she conjured melted our hearts and eased the oppressive heaviness of the winter weather that would so often bring our days of playing outside to an abrupt end and remind us that spring was still so very far away.

The elusive way she played the instrument transported my brothers and I far away to the distant lands of our dreams as much as I imagine Aladdin's flying carpet did in The Arabian Nights. Never before had I been so inspired as when my mother played the piano at those times, whether it be a piece by Chopin, Schubert or Schumann. Often I would drift into a deep trance listening to her music making as if under hypnosis and dream of my future adventures beyond the little town in Norfolk where we all lived. I would imagine climbing steep, winding hills, sometimes even mountains as well as exploring vast pine forests where trickling streams would lead me to mysterious lakes. Fantasies of fairytale princes also crossed my mind on occasion and that is when I began to realise even back then that good music was directly connected to the heart. Watching the metronome pendulum beat time on top of the piano confirmed this idea firmly in my mind.

My mother has sadly departed now but I still make a point of playing the piano on rainy days to my children the way she once did for my brothers and I. Their quiet intrigue as they listen intently to the pieces I play is almost like a supernatural form of recall, as if she is playing through me for them. Watching my own fingers play the same notes she did I sometimes think of her like a puppet master guiding my hands with invisible strings so that I can continue our family tradition of dreaming to music.

Long may our little ones dream.