Gloria

I learned to read music the same year I learned to write my name.

I recently found one of my first piano books. On the front page, the book asks that the player trace their hands, so to learn how the fingers are numbered. Tiny hands.

The first text I read in a piano book told the story of young Bach, and how if he made one mistake, his instructor would make him play the song until he could play the piece ten times consecutively without error.

Players are given many practice instructions. Practice at least 3 hours a day. Play the song backwards. Play the song at each beat of the metronome 5 times, and then move up one increment, and so on, and so on. Play the song staccato. Play the song in 2/4. In 3/4. Stop whatever you are doing, run upstairs, run to the nearest piano, play once. A player must be able to play perfectly on the first try.

I auditioned for Gloria after playing for 10 years, and she accepted me as one of her students.

On cold days, Gloria would send me to her bathroom to run my hands under warm water and allow me time alone to play, warming up my hands.

Parents sat behind the glass French doors in an antique chair, with her two german shepherds. Two cats lingered in the sitting room where she conducted lessons, and one would often perch upon the Steinway. Her bay windows looked out over the hill to the grey water of the sound.

Once a year she brought down an antique harpsichord from the attic so we could play Bach as Bach was meant to be played.

She lived with a man who died suddenly, they were not married. I remember her hands. She had wonderful hands. She had a ring with three stones. The service took place at my families’ funeral home.

The audition marks the coming out of the young pianist. You practice one piece for months and perform before a panel of judges who critique you. Around the time of my first audition, I lost my desire to practice.

She allowed me to come so long as I would simply play there, even if I only played there. And, when I wouldn’t, we spent the time talking about her art. She had a giant wooden sheep which sat before the window. She and the man had brought it back from Scotland where it once sat above a tavern.

The last composer I played was Rachmaninoff. Have you seen Shine?

Right before I left she brought down a white painting. “Do you see it?” she asked me. Every week: “Now do you see it?” Little girls saw it. Everyone saw it. I could not see it. Finally she told me. There was an image, a slight off white pony.

I think of Gloria when I play Schumann and Rachmaninoff. She knew then what I would understand now. She is a piece of the woman I’d someday like to be.