Memories flood as musician conquers stage fright

I miss grandma.

I miss curling up in her lap and knowing everything would be okay.

I miss watching her pin her hair back away from her face.

I miss her wrinkled hands.

I miss her Muumuu dresses, shopping trips and our trips away for the summer months.

I miss trips to Luby’s every Sunday after church.

I miss how she’d let me drive her blue Cadillac on road trips at the age of 15. I was a nervous new driver, but she always believed in me.

I miss how we’d sing loudly together in the car on road trips. We didn't have to hit all of the right notes.  Our guards were down. 

I miss the way she’d sit on the edge of the church pew so she could rest her feet on the last piece of carpet. I miss how she’d sing beside me. Sometimes she’d just tap her legs with her hand on her knee.

This week,  she would have been 89 years young. And, I missed her while I played at my first piano recital.


She got me playing 25 years ago. And, life's challenges took over two years later and I stopped making music. When I went into college, the piano was sold, and I lost that connection with the keys.

Sitting near the piano at church one day, suddenly, 7 months ago, I felt the tug to play again. Well, it was more like a flaming cattle prod. 

I blame my grandmother. I blame her memory. You know how people you love still hang around even after they’ve left somehow? Well, 15 years later, she’s still here (I point to my heart).

So, literally a day later, I cleared out my tiny savings account to buy a used piano from the 80s. It’s a walnut colored Baldwin. It was delivered and kind-of tuned. $845.

I quickly discovered finding and buying the piano was the easy part.

I sat across the room and kept my distance. I was intimidated and, I wondered if this idea was just, well, stupid.

The piano was the elephant in the room. I wasn’t sure if I could still play or if I was worthy of this new friendship.

Approaching the Bench

I brought out the cartoon-character-tween beginner piano books. During every move from college years and in between, I’ve kept these books.

I dusted off the 1957 Baptist hymnal we used to sing from. It smelled stale. The pages were winter white.

Like dusty diaries, they were tiny sacred clips of my past - -little remnants of memory tokens hiding in my heart.

I grab hold of the bench, opened the books and begin to stumble through the motions.

Drippings of memories, lessons, slivers of the songs came back in waves, and others were strange reminders of sore muscles. I remembered just how hard it was to learn to play.

And, I could hear my grandmother humming in the room behind while she washed the dishes.

It’s a Tango dance with a lot of tripping

Playing again had moments of triumph and moments of falling face forward into the mud.

I set up lessons at the local trendy music place. I walked into my first lesson, and laying out my tween books said, “This is all I remember.” It was a vomit of memories and nerves twisted into feelings I can’t quite decipher. 

And, inside, there’s this war because playing for someone I don't know is actually terrifying. I hadn't yet built that bond of trust and yet, I was supposed to play.

I had only played for my grandmother, my piano teacher 25 years ago, and any of my grandmother’s maids that would wonder through the kitchen from time to time. I felt like I was in 7th grade all over again and playing the piano was like writing in my diary- -it was a very private adventure.

She let me drive.

The 33 year-old-teacher had just graduated from composition school. He was very talented. He was clearly an artist and annoyingly hot - -this didn't help me to focus.

He was the first to tell me the grave news:
1. I have a lot to learn (he said I didn't even hold my hands correctly) and 2. I have a lot to re-learn. He kind-of scratched his shoulder-length blonde hair and wondered what to do with my ambition.

While, he was stoked that I was practicing an hour a day, he didn't know which way to guide me. And, lessons gets snagged inside webs of egos and tender memories and never completely take flight.

The Blue Cadillac

And, I constantly reference my teacher from the 7^th grade, and I talk about my grandmother too- -well, in the two to three sentences we get in inside the 25 minute music session. I keep saying I am used to playing for old mean women teachers. He has no idea what to do with that information.

My head is flustered. My heart is on the piano and my spirit is lost in the world between the now and 25 years ago.

It takes a month, and I realize the the teacher-student relationship is a fragile one, and this one is just not working. And the piano teacher cancels practice once due to illness or a trip, he’s late to another and he often just doesn’t know what to do with me. He says he is used to beginners and I’m in the in-between.

He assigns me Bartok “vegetable” exercises and allows me to play my beloved Sting. I think I inspire him, but at the same time, he distracts me, and he is interrupting this very personal process for me.

Somehow, I still need my grandmother’s memory to be a part of this journey. And, I notice he’s adding clouds to the portrait I’m trying to paint.

I dump the hot teacher

Choosing music over ego, I cancel instruction, and fish for a new teacher. Within a week, I find one in my neighborhood. 

She’s everything I needed and so much more. Mary's sweet, funny, mean enough to push me when I whine, and she inspires me.

And, I can be completely vulnerable around her.  She’s 76 and a retired Elementary teacher. She knows how to block lessons into segments. She knows how to tell me when I stink and when she does, my ego can handle it.

If I could, I’d spend hours with her after our practice time together. I find her warmly engaging and very kind. Just her spirit speaks to my weary mom-of-three soul.

Her house is so quiet too. Just visiting the calming place to practice resets my spirit. And, she also does this thing where she doesn’t push me or overwhelm me. Even if she slowly talked me into the piano recital for weeks, she let it be my idea to be a part of it. 

The recital

After weeks of practice, Mary's students lined up to play: six children and two adults: one 37 and one 80.

I watched as the first seventh grade student performer played with quiet reserve. He, the great grandchild of a musical genius, made it look easy. In confidence and stature, he was the tallest person in the room.

Normally, as a full-time 7^th grade English teacher, I’d be leading these students, but this time, they were teaching me.

One student performed dressed in Harry Potter character confidence.  Cape in tow, she blasted through her performance with a maroon and yellow swagger. She wasn't perfect, but, like a super hero, she just kept going.   

When the time came, my knees went to water like when I covered that Texas City bar shooting and the bullets were flying (In case you didn’t know, when bullets fly, your knees buckle. You get instantly weak). Playing the piano live for the first time in front of a room full of strangers, felt like that moment.

And, when I did the PBS membership drive on live TV, my knees felt like that too. I was looking right into the camera thinking thousands are watching me. I can't mess up. I can't stop. I've got to just keep going. But, that's hard to do when your head suddenly turns numb.

Midway through my first song, I stopped breathing and then laughed and kept going.  I didn't look around to see all of the eyes on me, though I could feel them pounding on me like a winter jacket in an Austin July.

Find your focal point

And, where I sat at the piano, I could see the other adult pianist. His eyes reassured me I'd survive this. In my head, I reached for my lately-favorite Bob Schneider lyrics "I wish your mom was ugly...” And, I smiled and found my focal point. 

In the middle of my two performance songs, a baby cried cracking the silence. I broke stage recital character and I looked directly at the anxious mom and said, “It's okay. Let him cry. I am used to more noise and it helps.”

I took a breath and then went right back into the second song.

The second song just came together. Everything just clicked.  And, it was over.  I heard the clapping, forgot about my appointed time to bow and leaped into the arms of the comfy couch cushion seat and sighed loudly.

I could inspire people

After the performance, a woman in her 50s came up to me and said she'd wanted to learn how to play for a long time. She asked me for my story. The parents of the 7th grade students listened insisting to hear the story too.

And another parent almost my age commented kindly as he was leaving. I didn’t show it, but it meant the world to me to hear positive comments.

On Being Brave

It was brave to buy the piano. It was brave to pick up the phone for lessons. It was brave to practice. It was brave to agree to let Mary put my name on the program. It was brave to just show up.

Every student, at every age, had that challenge. And, in the end, the challenge united us as we took pictures like a graduating class following our performances. 

As my piano teacher says to be ‘patient with yourself,’ and ‘don’t look back at the recital video and pick your performance apart. Let the moment be.’

I chose to say yes to the recital because, well, it was time to face those fears- -even if 25 years later.

Though, it wasn't easy. Moments before that recital, I still wanted to hide in my grandmother’s lap again. I didn't think I could face the stage. But, I knew it was my turn to drive.

I felt like she was somehow there in my first recital moment too. And, she was there in all of the times in between.

She prodded me to play again, pushed me to find the best teacher and mandated that I take lessons seriously.

And, when my Gumby legs let me down, I saw friendly eyes in front of me and felt the laughter of a song. 

And then, of course, after the recital, I suddenly wanted to go to Luby’s to celebrate.