Winter Song for Spring

There has been a slowly growing ache in my chest. It's an ache that creeps up and recedes like the tide. Sometimes my toes get wet and I shiver; sometimes I don't notice until I'm knee deep.

I need an outlet.

I've been playing the piano since I was very young. I used to take my music home from choir, even though we weren't supposed to, and teach myself the songs. I tried taking actual lessons for the first time in college, but I couldn't stick with it. After just a couple of days I realized that in order to play technically correct I'd have to break the fifteen years of heart I'd developed. It's never been a technical skill for me...just a way for me to close my eyes and pour my heart out onto the keys through my fingers. Because it's forever been a deeply emotional, vulnerable activity for me, more akin to prayer than practice, I've never been really into sharing. I don't play for people...ever...with a few notable exceptions. My immediate family has, of course, heard me play, as has my husband. There are probably a handful of people at my old college that snuck a peak as I took over Needham Chapel and the Forest Room. And David. David, a grandfather- like figure to me while I grew up. David and his wife, Ruth, were family friends. After Ruth passed away we used to go to David's house occasionally to visit, and he pulled out Ruth's old piano music for me to play for him. He loved listening to me play, and I loved playing for him. When he passed away I stopped playing for a while. Until my mom came home with a box filled with Ruth's old music, a check, and a note from David saying those things were for me. Through choked sobs, I poured over the old, yellowed sheet music. That day I started playing again. I also, in the best way my high school self could do, wrote a poem about it.

When I went to college, I obviously couldn't take my piano with me. I got a keyboard for Christmas, but it is absolutly not the same. I stole a few nights at the Needham grand piano, but my fear of anyone hearing was usually more potent than my need for a creative outlet. After college I moved from one apartment to the next. I've been without a piano in my life for eleven years now. And every now and then, I can feel that tide slowly coming in...the ache in my heart that yearns to play.

I also love to sing and dance, although, if I'm honest, I'm not very good at either. I mean, I'm not terrible. But I was always in the ensemble of the musicals. Good enough to get in, occasionally got a short solo, but never the lead. Same with dance.

I recently succumbed to peer pressure and started watching So You Think You Can Dance.

(I promise all of these things are related.)

So I want, need, to do. I need to play, to sing, or to dance. I'm in a little play right now, so that's satiating my creative hunger a bit. But it's technical...I have to memorize lines and perform and be good. I'm comfortable acting...particularly in a comedy. I know I'm funny. I get nervous, but not scared. I played the piano in front of my church once. I was shaking from head to foot, and I don't think I took one breath the entire time. And I was just accompanying the kids who were singing...probably no one was even paying attention to me and my panic attack. And no one knew that that moment was one of the biggest and most important moments of my life...ever.

So last night on SYTYCD two different people did dances to a beautiful song by Ingrid Michaelson and Sara Bareilles that I'd forgotten about. I looked it up, found it, and downloaded it. I listened to it all the way to work and all the way home, continuously thinking and aching and wanting so badly to sing, to dance, to play...and perchance to let others in. But desire once more gave way to fear. And then I thought of this blog. I never would have anticipated it, but it has turned into my new piano of sorts. It's my outlet. I've always enjoyed writing...I've even won a few contests (when I've been brave enough to secretly enter). I thought of the hearty chunk of people who have been telling me that they love reading this blog and think I should be a writer (a secret dream of mine since first grade).

So maybe it's time for my Winter Song. Maybe this summer I try it. Maybe I'll let the creative need triumph over the paralyzing fear. Maybe.