Do You Play?

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     A wee Aspirer, clearing the door handle by mere centimeters, marches into my music room with an Alexander-the-Great measure of self-confidence and pride. Whipping her violin from its case, she announces that she has "already learned" an entire list of songs. Which, she graciously desires to know, would I have the pleasure of hearing first? As I frantically snatch the poor instrument away from imminent destruction in her whirling hands, laughter chokes me, and I am required to inform the maestro that, having never before taken a single music lesson, she does not, in fact, know how to play the violin.

     "Let's start at the beginning, ok? First you have to be introduced! Do you know what this part of your violin is called?" Thus begins the first of many lessons - sometimes months of lessons - before Aspirer will scratch out even her beginning tunes. Yet, for all there is to learn, for all the lack of music her practice holds in these opening weeks, you could bet your bottom dollar that she announces, with child-like importance, that she "plays the violin!"

You have begun, my dear, but let us work hard in the months to come. Only then will you truly play.

     As Aspirer twirls out to the car, Intermediate strolls into the room. Standing an inch or two above me - he has suddenly sprouted in these last months - he arranges his books upon the piano stand and maneuvers the bench to a precise distance from the instrument with a nonchalance that bespeaks several years' habit. Settled before the piano, he plays his assignments with a familiarity that often tempts him into carelessness, resulting in the occasional discordant fumble. Half his life he's played. He knows the instrument, the notes, the techniques, the challenges - in fact, he knows pretty much all there is to know about his instrument. He's here for accountability in applying his knowledge, but mistakes are insignificant when you know how to fix them, right? "Yeah, I play the piano," he will agree when asked, with a blasé shrug of the shoulders.

Oh Intermediate, you have learned so much. Can you not decide to diligently apply all you know to your music? Then you would really know what it means to play.

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     Finally, Advanced enters the room. With a cheerful smile and few words of greeting, she lovingly lifts her violin from its case. As she turns to face me, she looks carefully about to be sure no quick movement will knock her strings out of tune or scratch her tenderly-polished wood. Yes, she is careful now, when her instrument is as familiar to her as the back of her own well-practiced hands. Before we've even begun, she has several questions from her week of study: "What should this tempo be?" "Do I use such-and-such technique for this passage?" "Have you heard Joshua Bell's performance of this piece?"

     When she plays, her music dances like sunlight through the room. Her performance is as perfect as she knows how to make it, and my role has diminished to that of merely pointing out new ideas or interpretations of the music. "Do you play?" "Well, not very well - but I do take lessons," is her reply.

And yet, my dear Advanced, you are the one who knows - 
You know what it is to make music. 

When you play, it is not with the optimistic songs of Aspirer; she does not realize all she has to learn, and her music is unrecognizable to any who hear her. When you play, it is not with the confidence of knowledge held by Intermediate; to know is his intention, and to do is inconvenient. When you play, dear Advanced, your music touches others - because you sing to your fullest capacity, always striving for excellence, always mindful of all you have yet to learn. And that is how music is made.

Do you play?

A Tale of Windows - Part II

(for Part I, click here)


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...If you leave the smudges, you will soon loose everything else. You already avoid the light. You already see nothing beyond your own pane.

"But..." my voice faded to a whisper as the realization dawned upon me:

They were my smudges.

 

My house. My windows. My smudges.

 

Wordlessly, I filled a bucket and picked up a sponge. Painfully, I dipped into the warm, soapy water and began to scrub. May no one ever know what it cost me to clean that first window! I felt the dirt, the grease, and the mold scrub off as though the filth was torn fom my very soul. I cried unrestrainedly, finding it necessary to stop my work every few minutes to exchange foul-smelling black water for fresh, clear water from the tap.

 

But as I finished that first window, as the light came pouring in with greater beauty than I could ever remember, I caught my first glimpse of life beyond the pane. Beautiful world! The second window was cleaned so quickly, I didn't even have time to remember how each smudge it held had come into existence. I wanted to see again! I wanted the dirt gone! I wanted others to come and marvel at the view with me! The smudges were nothing, compared to the glorious light and immaculate sight that clean windows offered!

...I was there, I must confess, for hours. Never before, and never since, have my windows seen such thickly-laid smudges. A few times, I came upon a smear so big, so hard to eradicate, so vivid in the memory of how it came to be, that I almost gave up. But then I would hear the musical "Keep going! You are only just beginning to really see!" from the pure, untainted light shining beside me, and I knew I couldn't stop.

Now, when the sun rises each morning, it finds me sitting before my windows, waiting. As it pierces through the crystal-clear panes, my joy knows no bounds. Yes, smudges still come, often daily, but now I know the truth. The effort to clean my windows is nothing compared to the glorious light I see through spotless panes. If I scrub them faithfully, immediately, never leaving a single smudge through the night, I receive the greatest of rewards:

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Pure.

Undefiled.

LIGHT.
 

A Tale of Windows - Part I

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The sunlight came suddenly and brilliantly. Streaming and sparkling its way through the panes, it bestowed one beautiful, golden-morning kiss on the welcoming sun room.

In my dreams.

Clenching my fists and gritting my teeth as the warmth hit my back, I turned angrily to survey the brazen light's handiwork. Prickles of irritation raced up my spine at the sight.

Smudges.

Big and little, high and low, from one side to the other - my windows were covered in greasy, grimy smears. There were smudges from drooling babies and sticky-mouthed toddlers. Smudges from careless young people and oblivious old ones. Smudges from dearest friends and hated enemies. Never had I met a soul - be he kind or cruel - who had left my windows free of his grime. Some few had realized their mistakes, had tried to right the wrong, but I could see their dirty fingerprints still.



After a while, the panes had grown so blurry - more like fogged glass than smeared windows - and I so used to the dirt, that I could see only smudges. As far as I was concerned, no landscape existed beyond the glass. How I despised those two things which brought the smears before my eyes and memory: friends (who continued to leave fingerprints - I had remedied that by shutting my doors to them) and sunlight. Unstoppable sunlight.

Of course, I could - by closing blinds, wearing dark glasses, or shutting myself in a closet - avoid seeing the light. Yet the very knowledge that, heedless of my effors, it would shine upon those dirty panes, day after day, was pure torture. And for some reason, somehow, I felt a sickening pull to watch the light mock me each morning. I couldn't help looking, and I hated to see.

You could clean them, you know.

I shook my head vehemently, slamming my still-clenched fists to my ears. This was worst part of my morning vigil. Every time the light glowed through my fogged windows, the persistent gleam suggested this thought. Daily, I repulsed it.

"No! It's not for me to do! Did I put the smudges there? Was I so careless? No! They made the smudges!" - oh, the inexhaustible list of "theys" in my mind! - "They did! They ought to clean them! Common decency demands it! Friendship - if they still call themselves friends - demands it! It is theirs to do!"

I spun around, eyes snapped shut, trying to black out the light, the windows, and everything else. Trying to hold the tears inside.


To be continued...