Dear Reese,
MorMor has an electric piano in the bunkroom. A nice one that looks and feels like a real piano. She used to play piano sometimes when I was little. I remember how “Canon in D” felt like the most beautiful song I ever heard when she played it. I believe I walked down the aisle to it at my wedding for that reason (though that is another story, darling).
I barely remember how to play any music. I never had the ear or the patience. But this weekend we spend a little time hanging out in the bunkroom, and I’m absurdly proud of teaching myself how to play “Can’t Help Falling In Love” from the simple songs book. Okay, it was just the right hand — the treble clef — but remembering the mnemonic device for both the lines and the spaces was a feat. Then I tried to plug into muscle memory that just isn’t there about which key is which. I know middle C and had to keep reciting the alphabet to get to the right note.
It’s wild you allow this. You play on the carpet beside me, behind me. I think you may go through the trash can in my distraction. Today, I turn around and you have your bottle, still half full, tipped upside down while you shake it, spraying formula all over the floor. You are not happy with me when I take it away.
(It is another little reminder that we are transitioning out of the “keep alive” phase to the “parenting” phase as we approach a year. I re-download Dr. Becky Kennedy’s Good Inside, and we start listening to it together in the car.)
I sit you on my lap to play the piano too, and you bang on the keys for a few seconds before growing bored. One of my favorite pictures of you, taken last December, is you playing with a toy piano at daycare. It’s been my phone background for months. You look so happy to be a little musician.
In the second photo, MorMor was impressed that you were holding your hands up in proper posture.
There is a world where you’ll learn and practice on that electric piano someday. Maybe you’ll take to it. Or maybe you’ll be more like me and not have much musical inclination. Maybe you’ll be like your Mama A and be artistic. Maybe you’ll be like me and love to tell stories.
“Maybe you’ll be an accountant like MorMor someday,” I say to Reese.
MorMor says, “No, you’ll do something more interesting.”
But MorMor sells herself short. Get good with numbers, Reese, and maybe you can invent lightspeed travel, and we can live out our Star Trek dreams in your lifetime.
Love,
Mama