I was consequently thrilled to find the music hall empty one balmy September night. Everyone else on campus was at the monthly swingfest and I could have the grand piano all to myself in carefree solitude.
I hauled a hefty stack of sheet music into the hall and planted myself for the night. I played through book after book - Janis Joplin, Simon & Garfunkel, Mozart, the Phantom of the Opera, heck, even the Little Mermaid!
The door to the quad was open, and I could hear people out there, but I couldn't see them and they couldn't see me. All was well with the world!
Then it happened. Somewhere round about Miss Saigon 'He' came in. I was pretty sure he just wanted to use the piano but was a little too drunk and surprised to find a lowly freshman in his way. There were six other pianos on campus, why couldn't he go use one of them? Maybe he thought he was somebody. Or wanted me to think so.
He shuffled around near the stage for a few minutes sipping and sloshing a plastic cup of wine while I pretended I was too absorbed in my music to realize he was there.
"You almost done?"
I pretended to jump, surprised to find someone there, then pretended I didn't care that he was. "O, probably not. Why don't you use the piano in Mellon?" I was here first! Go away! I yelled in my head.
"Eh, it's a long walk and I wanted to use this one. What are you playing anyway?"
"It's Miss Saigon. Have you heard of it?"
"Yeah. Why are you playing that?"
"Well, because I like it." When will he leave?
"Do you ever play anything original?"
"Not since I was 8, I just don't have it in me." I laughed to brush off my bitterness.
"What's the point then? Do you really only play other people's music?!"
Is what I'm doing pointless?
O God, he's right. I'm no musician. I'm just a hack. A pretender leading others to believe I'm something I know I'll never be. I'll never play with an orchestra. At least not one anyone's ever heard of. And I'm hopelessly unoriginal. I have no music of my own, just what I've taken from others and pasted onto myself to hide my nakedness. What is the point?
"Here, can't you play a blues progression?"
I don't know how he did it, but the intruder had taken over half the bench and I was relegated to the lower registers, playing a basic chord progression while he fiddled out a melody over top.
I faked a yawn, thanked him for the lesson, dragged myself and my trove of other people's talent back to my room where I heaved them in a corner and barely touched a piano for ten years after.
I hate that moment. Hate that I was that fragile. Hate that one careless selfish utterance falling from the lips of a stranger could rob me of something that had brought me joy (albeit not
unmixed) for my entire life prior. Hate that beauty can disappear like dandelion seeds in the slightest adverse breeze, leaving behind a dead and colorless stalk.I hate that I may do the same thing to others and never even know it.
I can only hope that those seeds find soil and bloom again.
