THERE you are, Peter!

Lately I feel like I've been living that scene from Hook, when the small child uses the palms of his hands to stretch Robin Williams' face like a bad facelift - and catches a glimpse of the boy Peter Pan underneath all the wrinkled grownup exterior, at which point he exclaims, "THERE you are, Peter!"

As you know, if you have read my last post, I have been thinking alot about identity. In fact, such thoughts sneak up on me even when I'm not purposefully considering the topic. Yesterday, I sat down to practice the piano for choir practice, and I also went through the stacks of music I used to be able to play to choose a few pieces I would commit to practicing and reviving to their former glory. Choosing my favorite, I began trying to retrieve it from the dark corners of my memory...ignoring the rather unsteady rhythym and the odd loud notes that sprung from fingers out of practice, I just tried to reach for the notes. After an hour or so of peeking at the music each time I got stuck, I was able to hammer out a roughshod version of this lovely impressionistic piece. I am on my way!

For years, "musician" was a significant part of who I perceived myself to be. At age six, I used to play with a neighborhood girl whose mother was blind. Sometimes when I would go over to the house, I would find her mother sitting in the dark at an old upright piano, no music in sight. Occasionally she would stop and play back a section from a tape recorder, on which someone had recorded the song and verbalized the names of the chords or the order of the notes in a particularly sticky passage. And then she would resume playing. She could have been playing Old MacDonald for all I remember, but at the time, it made music seem like a mysterious and beautiful effort to see her playing unseen notes. As a result of those visits, I began a relentless campaign to beg my parents for lessons, in which they graciously accomodated me. 20 years later, I felt that same childish delight in music returning as I plunked out a hackneyed version of my favorites songs. It was its own Peter Pan moment, I suppose.