Dear Mr. GJL,

As a letter of introduction, I think that I will start with a story from my past to explain the aspects of myself that I can’t easily discuss. I am very sorry that I can’t be straightforward with my letter but I was afraid if I just listed things about myself it would turn into a short list and nothing all that interesting. With that, I am also not a directly open person, I tend to hide my thoughts and feelings and the only times I really open up is in poetry, and this is an essay. So, I decided to recount you a time that was albeit embarrassing, revealed to me a lot about my personality that I didn’t realize. I’m sorry that you’ll have to look for the meaning but I hope it makes for an interesting story.

I walked up onto the stage. Sat on the bench. I wiped my sweaty hands on my dress and gently placed them onto the black and white keys. I was scared of those keys. They were skinny and slimy and weren’t like my beautiful baby grand piano in the living room of my house. I pressed a key to the board, the sound came out in creaky old waves, and startlingly different from the smooth strong lit of my own baby grand. I was scared of this different, unusual piano. The doubts started plaguing my thoughts, ramping up the anxiety that already pressed in my chest and my arms. When I forced my hands to start the first chord, they mutinied against my mind and refused to obey my brain’s commands, and simply skittered and slipped along the keys in an embarrassing clash of chords. My face flushed with a rosy hue and sweat started beading on my hairline, as my hands clumsily played through only three chords of the song, and then…they stopped. Not even a finger twitched. I sat there staring at the back of my hands wondering how could a song be so ingrained in my heart and memory be completely destroyed from the muscles on my hands. I shifted through all of the files in my inner eye trying to find the correct music sheet, but my mind turned up blank. I sat there until I finally couldn’t take it long silence and shot straight up out of the bench, bowed, and walked across the stage on the brink of tears, my brain racing with thoughts, trying to comprehend my complete this flop of a recital. But just as I made my way to the stairs my little piano teacher snatched my arm and pulled me back along the stage.
She whispered in my ear, “You will finish this song once and for all,” and plopped me back down onto the bench. She slapped my music onto the piano, but my mind didn’t seem to be working still. I stared at the music.
She whispered in my ear again, “E, G, and B,” the first notes to the first chord. After that my hands took over and I played fluently and efficiently, my fingers only slipping from the tiny keys once. I played methodically and without emotion, with my only goal to just finish the piece and get away from this embarrassment. The music finished. I stood up. Bowed. I heard the clapping as my head was parallel to the floor. When I looked up I was met with a standing ovation from the entire crowd of the recital. All of the parents, friends, and family were standing up in honor of me, congratulating me for not giving up.
But as I took up my book with sweaty hands and removed myself from the stage my thoughts couldn’t help but drift back to seventh grade when I had played one of my first recital pieces. It was Fur Elise, a piece that sang in my ears and had fueled me with a desire so strong to play the beautiful artwork. It was out of my league, my teacher had told me, but I had taught myself anyway, despite her wishes. When she realized that I had learned it so well, she made it her mission to help fix my little errors, and teach me to play with emotion, and feeling.
“It is a love song,” she lectured me one day, “and you need to play as if you are in love.”
I really didn’t know what she meant by love because, I was in seventh grade, and seventh graders don’t fall in love.
But really, I had fallen in love with the chords, and the way that my fingers would fly across the keyboard in a miraculous combination of notes and chords to form something as beautiful as an entire song. I loved the rise and fall of the melody and how it alternated from sweet and loving to eerily sad. I pictured a young couple meeting in a secret garden and then running away together. I imagined them on a gallant adventure as star-crossed lovers, traveling the world together.
On the day of the recital, I knew that this song was embedded into my heart. My confidence was high, and I was desperately excited to show the art that I had worked so hard to perfect. As I sat down on the bench before a different baby grand piano, in a different church, my fingers immediately flew across the keys and I transported myself into a world where it was just me, the piano, and the young lovers. That day, was the most perfect piece I had ever played. I bowed and received a standing ovation, something that was rarely received. I jumped across the stage to meet my friends and my family members only to witness that my aunt was crying. She came up to me and gave me gentle hug, then lowered her face to mine. I could still see the tears dried on her face.
She said to me, “that was the most beautiful performance I have ever seen.”
I almost cried right there.
Yet, years after my legendary performance, I was never able to play to that ability. I know that one day I will again, but until then I will keep practicing, and listening, and searching until the day comes.

Your student,

Natalie