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.
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.
I am flooded with memories, memories that have stayed with me for centuries. I knew of their existence, and I knew of my escape strategies to avoid encountering them. It’s as if the postman has delivered letters from the past that have never been properly read. Now I get them all at once: quite a stack. Read them. Feel them. Be them. The postman watches me doing so, carefully, with complete awareness. Tarnished memories enter the present. Hidden scars start bleeding. Sounds, smells, a touch: I notice them for the first time, now part of ‘then’. Once I am really at one with the memories, they die. And those that died in the memory long ago are finally dying too. More panic. How to let go of something you love so much?
I call my father. For the first time in my life, I call my father in a state of sadness. I don’t answer the familiar ‘how are you’ with the usual reassuring words, but with something that has wanted to be heard for such a long time; a strange sound that seems to ask: ‘be my father’. And although that sound can’t be found in a dictionary, he understands what I am asking for, and answers in a way that’s of no real use to me. But I hear something of value in it all the same. For he answers like a father. And for the first time in my adult life, I feel how it is to be his son. A first, fresh chalk line on a blackboard. White. Clear.
A few hours later a friend calls, a friend that always calls at the right moment. This ‘dying’, he says, must be goodness, since there is only goodness. What is dying was illusion. What is being born must be goodness. His words make me remember that a black hole is actually not dark inside. A black hole doesn’t release light, and so seems to be dark. But inside, it is full of light. A black hole is actually made of light.
What a great instrument, this old grand piano.
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