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An almost silent city. Still dark. Numb early morning. My breath becomes visible. The humming sound of a motor. A grand piano hanging in the air.
I have dreamed of playing the piano for a long time. And fallen in love with an old Bechstein that a crane is now lifting into my house. I’ve spent the last few minutes watching the piano being readied, the hook attached, and now I see it ascending into the air. Some excitement. A few neighbours join me to watch, still sleepy.
Suddenly my eyes see a different picture: no longer the piano hanging in the air, but me. I see my feet dangling in the air, trying to find solid ground; I see my arms tied up so that nothing can escape from my hands; and I see how my voice tries to make words, unintelligible.
Am I half sleeping, or was I?
Soon, I will own a great instrument. But instead of happiness, fear invades me. I feel panic. Am I afraid of owning something that big? Am I afraid of all the learning that needs to happen before I can actually play? But why this sadness? And why does this heaviness feel so big? All the feelings that don’t fit this moment burst open. The ground is disappearing. I have no clue what is going on. My skin feels like paper. I watch myself becoming more and more distant. My world seems to collapse. It is slipping through my fingers, like silence.
A few days go by. I’ve touched the piano for only a few minutes. The bass is intense. The higher tones too shrill. The sounds resonate with something I fear. I know it is not just a tune. Whatever it is that is being touched, it is strong enough to destroy me. If I hold my breath, I can hear it inside me. It has all the time in the world, been there for such a long time. The roaring. It just waits, like a sniper picking his moment.
I try to shape what happens to me when I am not asleep; the nights are needed too. The light that separates night and day has been broken. There seems only to be darkness. I am sucked into a black hole made of different fragments of darkness. Who pushed the ‘on’ button of this crazy particle machine inside me?
After a few days I feel desperate: What the hell is going on with me? My strength is ebbing. My heart tries to douse the fire. Without success. My skin bursts. No blood, but water. Unstoppable. Like a weak little boy. I feel spoilt: I, who has everything, what gives me the right to feel this way? Wake up! Be strong! Enjoy! But I can’t.
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 Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen
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The window needed shutting: the rain was getting in. Autumn wetness drumming on the windows, drowning out the sound of Keith Jarrett breathing loudly as he played his black, polished Bechstein. The speakers whispered: “The rain, the rain, we will defeat it.”
But they couldn’t.
You were lying on the velvet green couch, meeting it with your simple silk ochre dress. More albums on the ground. Van Morrison, Bartok, Sigur Ros and some that were unfamiliar to me. You were ignoring them, just like you were ignoring the music and the rain; your eyes were on me. An unknown scent of aliveness came at me from all sides; from the books, from the glass chandelier, from the flowers on the table and from the windows the rain was trickling through.
Your legs were at an angle, trying but failing to reach the wooden floor. An inch separating your right foot and the ground. Your left further away. Your left hand on your belly, your right hand next to your body. Lean hands; small wrists; long fingers. Your shoulders rested against a cushion, your head was tilted back. Your golden hair was like a monotone rainbow.
The whole of you seemed to melt into the air around us.
It felt to me like perfect balance: the rattling rain, Jarrett’s playing, the shape of your body on the couch, the colours of your dress, the faded green velvet, the scent of aliveness.
The velvety structure of your eyes made me go deeper inside myself. There was no way I could reach out to that look. I had to meet it somewhere deeper. What does something that is being reborn every moment feel like?
I felt how everything that seems to be unique is connected to all other things as well. A code? It was more than a mathematical formula in which different letters suddenly form logic; there were holes in the formula, opening up to as yet unborn worlds about to unfold. Never-ending spring. Blossoming. I felt dazzled: too many shadows became forms, too many forms disappeared into the holes. I felt happy. I could have laughed hysterically. My soul appeared to have holes too: every single sound, every single colour, every single touch and every single taste was absorbed. I lived in everything, and everything lived in me.
tagged: consciousness God understanding love connectedness flower silk Jarrett Bechstein
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 Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen
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