When he was twelve, nearly thirteen, on the cusp of bar mitzvah, Nate would play piano while I cleaned or started dinner. The steady rhythm of pressure on keys nearly brought me to tears. He was playing Nocturne in E Minor, the best of Chopin's nocturnes. Today he is twenty-three, a man in his own right, and I wonder: Does he ever return to the quiet house beneath the trees to let Chopin resonate throughout the kitchen, the bedrooms, the halls?
I think I knew before then, but only vaguely, that there were some things that were beyond words. I was a college student and still trying to explain everything with letters arranged just so. Everything in my life required explanation, and much of the explanation was graded, for thoroughness more often than not. This song, though, this song, always defied any explanation. If I'd had to write a paper on it, I think I would have failed. To read what I thought of it, what I felt of it, one would have to look at my face, to hold my hand, to see the kind of smile that song brought on. To glimpse me alone, when no one was watching, dancing to the gentle strength of that song.
2005-12-26 - 12:30 p.m.
