Nervous. Really, really nervous! In around another 3 1/2 hours I'll have my English prelim results back...December, you really scared me when u told me about ur classmate who got a C6 though she'd been getting straight A1s all along...
For the first time in nearly 2 years yesterday, I liften up my piano cover and started to play again. Surprisingly, my fingers still remembered that melody, and I let them lead...It's amazing isn't it? Of all the songs I've learnt, it has to be that song--"Melodies Of Life". It really brought back lots of memories, because I remember that it was at around this time, 4 years ago, that I learnt it...4 years ago, when graduation threatened to tear friendships apart.
I learnt it for him, but i never did get to play it for him. Even as time passed and I no longer had any feelings for him, I'd grown to love that song, and the feel of my fingers pressing down on the keys in that familiar fingering. It was the very first song I'd learned completely on my own...and I was more than willing--even eager--to play it for an audience, anyone who would listen. Not just this song, but any other song. Loved to hear their applause, shouts of encouragement, awed looks...appreciation. And that was part of what kept me playing, too, other than the love of music.
I remember playing it for my MEP class in Sec 1...I still played in in Sec 2. Then, disaster struck and I thought I'd never play again...not in school, not in front of classmates, who would laugh at every single mistake I made in playing, even out of nervousness. It may seem too much, to stop playing because of something like that. But their laughter was a blow to me, discouraging me...when i got home that day, I sadly closed the lid of my piano, and never opened it again, except once in a while when my cousin came. My parents and other relatives asked me why I hardly played any more; I couldn't tell them the real reason, knowing they'd say, "You shouldn't let that keep you back." They wouldn't understand what a blow the laughter was...to my classmates then, laughing at every wrong note I played was a way to show me, I wasn't so good after all...a way to show their disdain. To me, it was a horrible blow of discouragement...would they ever understand that?
It was a year later that I tried to play the song again--helping Wenhan during the Head prefect/Head Monitor campaign, I was over at renhui's house with the rest of the team. There was a piano in the room.
Taking a break, I slipped over to the piano, wondring if it was okay...if anyone would mind...uncertain about what their reaction would be, uncertain if I'd be able to play the song again.
I played. Nobody commented, or seemed to pay attention. But I didn't care...this was much better than laughter at every wrong note. Still, my fingers couldn't remember every exact chord...maybe it was nervousness. Even after that, though, I still didn't lift the lid of the piano at home.
Until yesterday...clearing my room, putting the books that were resting on the lid of the piano back to their original places, I looked at my rosewood piano and suddenly felt the urge to play again. And play I did...my fingers somehow recalled the familiar melody again...every chord, every appregio, every crescendo and decrescendo. Was it my fingers that remembered, or this piano which had been my constant companion and confidante for more than 10 years? When I was much younger, I'd play when I was sad or angry, banging away at the keys in a stormy melody; playing gaily when I was happy or when there was cause for celebration. I'd play on National day, Christmas, new Year, my parents' birthdays, or to entertain guests when they were here. All those memories, too, came flooding back when I played again yesterday, and I wondered, "How could I have let that little incident in Sec 2 devalidate my love for playing the piano?" I guess i was oversensitive then?
And before i realised it, I was crying...crying while i played that familiar melody, over and over again as to make up for the times lost. Played the songs I used to know again as well...but I needed to refer to my scores again this time, having forgotten most of the left hand accompaniments. The memories still came flooding back...how could I have forgotten?
From now on, no heavy textbooks will rest on my piano lid ever again...nothing to impede me when I feel that urge to lift up the lid and play. I don't think I'll ever neglect my piano again...I'll keep playing.