by Trisky
I don't remember when my mother converted, it must have been when I was fairly young, but I do remember her insisting on secular music around the holidays. I think she converted mostly to please my father, and couldn't escape the Catholic guilt, no matter how many menorahs she lit. She had lots of albums, I got the gift of playing violin from my grandfather, but the gift of loving music from my mother. I remember that day, it was so hot it seemed like every inch of my skin was sweating, I was 4, maybe 5 at most and she put the record on, and I just knew the notes. My fingers just swept across the piano keys and Silver Bells floated throughout the house. Until that point, I don't think I'd shown any interest in music, but the sounds captivated me, I'd made them, and without any help from anyone else. My mother was amazed, but when she tried to teach me Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, I failed miserably. I just couldn't seem to connect with the piano, fingers sliding all around, wet from the humidity and out of control. It frustrated me, and I threw a tantrum and vowed to never look at the piano again. But I heard Silver Bells in my head every night for weeks after that, and I pounded on that piano day after day, trying to recapture what I had done so easily and without thought, the first time.
My father was the one who finally got the idea to put the violin in my hand, and as soon as I held the bow, the same notes that floated out of me so easily that hot muggy day, floated out of me again, and my mind was finally at ease. I played back every song they turned on, not as well as I can now, but I could hear the notes, without even knowing what they were and my arm and fingers worked in conjunction to release them from me. My mother said I'd just started off with the wrong instrument, that the music was always there, it just needed the right outlet. Truthfully, Silver Bells on a violin sounds a little strange, but I can make it beautiful, I can make any song beautiful, and it's still one of my favorite pieces to play.
She was right, she's always right.
She says I give my heart away too freely, that love is like music to me, it just fills me up and I'm so desperate for a way to release it, that I'll give it to anyone, even when I know they're not right for me. But how would I have ever known that the violin was what I was meant to play, if I hadn't tried and nearly killed the art of piano playing to start? She says I'm too stubborn to see her point.
Only tonight, I do, and I feel like I've been punched in the gut. I don't even want to pick my violin up, I meant it when I said he was what inspired me to play, and tonight all he's inspiring in me is a total lack of interest in anything I enjoy. When I play, I escape into some world where notes just sift through the air, come through me, I'm just the vessel that carries them out of my head. No one else can hear inside there, and the only way to make them hear me is to play. And that's what I feel when I look at him, he can't feel what's bursting in me, and I can't contain it anymore, I just have to show him, I have no control over what I'm feeling.
I thought I was doing the right thing tonight, how could I have been so wrong without even trying? He got a new place, a small place near campus, but not too far from where he works and I thought it would be nice to surprise him, give him a housewarming visit. I waited for his shift to be over, to walk him home. I should have known from the look on his face when I showed up at the diner that, at the very least, he wasn't expecting me, at the very worst, it was an unpleasant surprise, but we hadn't had time for each other all week, with my practicing for the Heifitz competition and him trying to settle into his new apartment, and the last time we made plans he flaked at the last minute, said there was something he had to take care of, and I didn't hear from him again until I caught up with him at school.
I don't think I'll soon forget the look on his face when he saw me, embarrassment.
Once we were out of there though, he seemed okay, like his normal self. He even let me make a fool of myself, walking backwards and almost breaking my neck several times playing him a sonata. There was moonlight, there was music, and the two of us. It was perfection. If there had been snow, I would have played him Silver Bells, but the weather has finally started to break and behave like it's supposed to, spring just a step away.
His apartment is still pretty bare, he had to borrow plates, towels and sheets from his mother, he says he'll get some one of these days. I think it's a pretty cool place, more than I can afford that's for sure. I'm a little surprised he's taking money from his father, I don't know much about him, he doesn't say much one way or the other, but it doesn't seem like a good situation, but he says a man knows when to ask for help, and I guess that makes some sense. Why put pride in the way of survival?
My mother would knock me on the ass with her wooden spoon if she heard me say that. Pride is important to her, she taught me to be proud of myself, and my gift. I think that's why I disappoint her all the time, when I come crying about my heart getting broken, she wants me to have just as much pride in that arena, as I do in the rest of my life. "Be more discerning", that's what she always says. But I don't think she understands that love is as much an instrument to me as my violin. I can't really give my time, or my energy, or even my heart to a relationship, but I can give my love, my heart is my violin and that takes up all my time and energy. I just need another outlet and for me that's love. Some would say it's my ego, I suppose, that I need to have someone around to feed off of, to be inspired by, but I don't really know any other way. So when they disappoint me, as they usually do and I can't be inspired by them anymore, I need to find someone else to love, and I hope every single time that this will be the one that will stay and return that feeling to me, instead of just taking it.
I guess I thought maybe that was him. He did leave that beautiful portrait of a man for me. I didn't imagine that did I? It would have been so easy for him to stay, but he took the hard route, and I respect that, only sometimes it doesn't come out that way I suppose. I don't even know how we started arguing, one minute we were talking about the shitty contents of his refrigerator and joking about both of us starving, and I guess I must have said something about leaving the lap of luxury to live with the rest of us paupers. Okay I don't guess, I did say that and he took such offense, but then he did something strange, he stopped being Justin, he just apologized mutely and I called him on it. I'm not Brian don't fucking hide from me, every vein in my body was screaming I AM NOT BRIAN, and all I could think was that I wish someone had written a song that I could play him, to make him hear me, but there isn't and all I really had was my voice and sometimes that gets a little carried away, because I'm not half as articulate when I speak, as I am when I'm playing.
I should have probably walked away, the minute he jumped to his defense, but I'm not easily dissuaded. I don't care what things he's done for him that I don't know about or ways that he is, that only Justin has seen, isn't that what he said? None of that matters to me. If he was such a prize then nothing I could have said or done would have made Justin leave, he left because he wanted to, not because of me. I said as much to him and I may as well have punched him right between the eyes from the look he gave me, like it was the first time he'd realized it since the night of the party.
I didn't want to stay and he didn't want me to stay, I think we were both just a little worn out and unsure how to proceed, we'll figure it out. "It was for the best." I can hear my mother's voice already.
Because she's right, she's always right.
It never really occurred to me what I saying to him, I'm just so frustrated with the whole thing, it's too distracting and I don't need this kind of distraction right now, not when I'm on the brink of achieving everything I've worked for since the minute my father put a violin in my hand. But I can no more shutup the love in me, than I can the music. Now I'm left wondering yet again, why I always have to pick the one instrument that will never come naturally to me.
That's the whole problem isn't it? He didn't leave because of me, now he knows it, and I know it and now when he looks at me, he doesn't hear Silver Bells, he hears my fat, sweaty 4 year old fingers, knocking against piano keys and mutilating the simplistic beauty of those notes. I'm just more clatter in his busy little brain.
I just confuse the situation more, I don't help it, I didn't cause it, and I can't fix it.
What did my mother used to say, from that movie? Every time a bell rings an angel gets its wings.
I can hear Perry singing, somewhere in the back of my head "and above all this bustle, you'll hear, silver bells, silver bells". I feel my fingers sweeping the air, the notes drifting in peace, out of my mind.
And all I hear are silver bells.