Claude Debussy - Suite Bergamasque, m.III, Clair de Lune

I have mentioned before in this blog that I was not a very active kid. While my brother spent the majority of his free time chasing his friends around playing “war” and climbing trees, I was hiding out in a corner with a book. I do remember playing outside and learning to ride a bike and all that typical stuff. What I think of most when I think of the old house and the life I lived there until the age of 7 is reading, the turntable, being scared of the dark and my piano.

I don’t remember asking or being asked if I wanted to take lessons, I just remember one day that my mom said I was going to start taking lessons. I’m sure I replied with the 5 year old equivalent of “oh. ok, cool,” which probably involved me flipping off couches and asking a million questions. I don’t clearly remember my first lesson, just bits of it. My first teacher was the wife of our preacher at the time, my lessons for the first few months were held at the parsonage. I didn’t stay with her long until my mom met the woman who would become the person I came to admire the most and despise the most for the next 11 years. Her name was Mrs. Hamme (pronounced hammy) and she and her husband lived off western blvd in a 60s ranch house with a car port that had a long sloping driveway, surrounded by trees. The driveway was at a sharp incline and had a bridge over a creek in the front yard. This was my favorite thing about her house. My second favorite thing was the pink and black tiled deco bathroom.

Playing the piano over the years, became the thing that defined me. It was the thing I was most proud of myself for being able to do but it became an obligation for me. My parents would request certain songs and I would pull my hair and overreact. I grew to resent it. I quit as soon as I could, it only took oh… 13 years? I was never one of those Ben Folds type people who could sit down and just make something up. I was trained so strictly by Mrs. Hamme in the classical style. I can remember maybe… 3 songs total that I ever practiced that weren’t some sort of etude, sonata, or fugue. I never chose my own pieces. In the last few years of study my parents would literally sit an egg timer on top of the piano and I wasn’t allowed to move for an hour, minimum. I never wrote my own songs, I never improvised. I never learned how. I met a man at the Landmark once who told me that since I couldn’t improvise that I only had ‘ability’ and since he could, he had talent. I laughed it off, but it crushed me. Because it was true.

Because of all this training and practicing and effort put into this thing, this instrument throughout my life, I was on a much more musically mature level than most of my peers. I had a deep and abiding love for classical music. Amadeus was and still is one of my most favorite and cherished movies. At any time I can be found listening to a mix of crappy eurohouse and opera. When my friends were raving about cockrock and hairmetal, and I was trying to branch out into some deeper roots, there was always Beethoven, Bach and Brahms on my playlist. It’s just been a part of who I am for so long. I am deeply attracted to classical music. That is the point of this.

One of the things I regret most in my life is not taking my piano playing to a further level. It became such a just… pain in my ass, towards the end that I closed the lid on the piano and didn’t open it again for years. However when I hear any song, pop or not, that features a piano, I imagine myself learning to play this song. I have lots of fantasies of performing like this. There are mix cds that I have made for myself in the past that were full of songs I wished I had learned when I had the chance. You would imagine that playing the piano is something akin to riding a bike, you don’t forget. I took a music theory class 2 semesters ago and I panicked the first few days of class because I was so mad at myself for forgetting as much as I did. By the end of the class, I was probably about halfway where I was when I left. It solidified in me the fact that I really, really need to get my own house so I can move my piano over and practice. Not because I have to, but because I want to.

This song; Debussy’s Suite Bergamesque, specifically the 3rd movement, the Clair De Lune, is a very well known piece, and is one of my absolute favorite pieces of piano music. I look at the sheet music and I know I can learn it, but I haven’t. (D-flat major! Christ!) I try to explain to people… my favorite thing in the world is “Bittersweet”… the feeling, the memory, the taste, the definition. My favorite feelings and memories are bittersweet. This little 5 minute piano tune is the truest and closest piece of music that I have ever heard that resonates who I feel that I truly am - the things that I really love in this life. When I die, it is the piece of music I know for sure I want played at my funeral. It is hopeful, it is sad. It has the smallest hint of drama and a deeper sense of peace than any song I have ever heard. And I've heard a lot of songs. It is everything beautiful in my heart that I can’t and won't ever let go of. It is the sound of every memory I thought would kill me but won’t allow myself to regret because these things made me who I am, and who I am has to be a beautiful person, right? This song is me saying "Life will not bring me down. No matter how much shit gets thrown at me, I will never stop believing in beauty, truth and love."

.... I may have tricked you a little with this post. You may have thought I was done there. This song makes me think about playing the piano, right? Makes me think about "life" ...Yes. But something else happened recently that has made my connection infinitely stronger to it, for the time being.

A few months ago, without forethought or hesitation I let myself fall madly in love with a beautiful boy. I was feeling pretty good about myself, the timing seemed right and he seemed to be crazy about me, so i didn't hold back. I rarely do. Things went really well for a while; we took a trip to the beach. Saturday morning, I woke up early, around 7:30am and couldn’t sleep anymore, so I rolled up my jeans, stuck on my headphones and took a walk on the sand, down to the pier. I sat on the pier and I stared out at the water and I let my iPod shuffle itself silly, and then suddenly this song came up.

I asked my best friend earlier today if she had any suggestions for what I should write my next post about, because I wasn’t really inspired. I was sitting at my desk earlier and this song came back up again and I knew this was it. This was something beyond inspirational and bittersweet and raw, how could I not do it?

Listening to this song today, after the boy and I are no longer together, has been an altogether different experience. After a messy end, including a lot of tears and denial from me, today it takes on a different level of bittersweetness, but that morning on the pier I was in another place. I remember sitting there and praying, thanking God that I found him. That when I went back into that room, that amazing person would be there waiting for me and he would be happy to see me. And he was. The bittersweetness on that pier was all the trials and pain it took for me to get there. The reward I received in the form of him. The justification and happiness and acceptance of my journey.

That morning, I very specifically remember praying: “Even if it only lasts a minute and there’s hell to pay, I am happy right now. Thank you.” The bittersweetness I feel when I hear it today is the acceptance of that prayer. It was only a minute. There was hell to pay, but god damn it was worth it. The pain subsides, the memories that remain are gorgeous.