Here's to You, Mrs. Robertson

The music still bears pencil marks Mrs. Robertson made 25 years ago. The old woman, long dead now, is fixed forever in her dark Bethesda living room. She stands leaning her bent frame over the piano, telling me again, “Take a deep breath and let it out. Feel how everything drops into place?”

Like magic, my shoulders, wrists and fingers fall into their proper positions. Even with this release, I stomp through the notes as if on a treadmill. How she withstands the butchery of her beloved Schumann is beyond me.

“Like this,” she says, scooting me off the bench. She curls her gnarled fingers over the keys. Wrists hovering just beyond the reach of the ivory, she begins. Somehow, those stiff twigs call forth cool, creamed ribbons of sound. Eyes closed, her ancient body sways ever so slightly. The black dots on the page take wing.

Then, just as quickly as she is down, she is up. Even a crone can hop under the right spell. She gestures me back to the seat. “Lift!” she cries. “Lift your hand UP!” Geppetto she becomes, casting her arms through the air to pull mine skyward at the end of the phrase. Her body echoes the rise. The old bones shatter. A girl comprised of air and joy unfurls from the husk, bobbing and dancing on the threadbare Persian rug. “Yes!” She sings. “And. . . Lift!”

I am a gangly child. Grace is not yet in my vocabulary. Piano practice is homework, and my job is to get the notes right. When, finally, I do, I look anywhere, everywhere, for praise. My own parents are pleased enough with my 30 minutes per night. They nod their approval of the rote repetition until my fingers march in lockstep with the marks on the staff.

Mrs. Robertson requires far more of my adolescent hands. Being correct is only a fraction of the game. The rest is mystery. I try and try to translate my teacher’s strange language. The dim light from faux Tiffany lamps gleams against the Steinway’s deep polish. I command my wrists loose. I ease through the bars. Approaching the end, I will my fingers to rise from their safe, ivory purchase.

What a wonder! The sound becomes music. That simple motion closes the phrase and frees it to drift into the curtains and beams. The string has its moment to quiet. It makes way for the next chord to enter, bursting with its own full flavor.

Two years of Mrs. Robertson are all I can manage. Whatever whims and boys capture my fancy have no room for piano lessons. Somehow, those worn folders of Haydn, Bach, and Telemann with their graphite smudges make their through all the moves. They live now in the piano bench in my parents’ sitting room.

When the panicked chatter grows to a din, sometimes the only thing to do is deafen it with song.

I take my bench and draw breath. Mrs. Robertson was right. As the air leaves, all of me falls into perfect posture. In that one simple act, Grace. Right behind the surrender, Music.