Quick sensitiveness is inseparable from a ready understanding.
— Joseph Addison
Long after my grandmother lost the label for and concept of piano, my mother could lead her over to the baby grand and place her hands on the keys, an encouragement that would jump-start memories living in solitude somewhere deep in her brain. The connections that joined the act with the memory, linguistics and semantics of it had withered, but when Nanny's hands graced the ivory keys, they were able to range over them and make music; "Amazing Grace," "Autumn Leaves," "Moonlight Sonata."
My own mother's journey into dementia looked different; she began to falter in her music quite early, long before we even knew there was something terribly wrong. It didn't seem so strange in the living room, but her failure to pull off playing for a school or church function was, in retrospect, a harbinger.
That piano, a 1949 mahogany Knabe, has a matrilineal history; it went from my grandmother to my mother to me. It moves again this month, into a new home at the Portsmouth Music and Arts Center. I want to tell you its story.
It came into the family in 1949, as a gift from my grandfather to my grandmother. My first memory of it was in the double living room of my grandmother's North Hampton home, next to her organ, and within reach of the built in bookshelves that housed music, so much music.
I remember plucking out tunes and learning chords, but mostly gathering around and singing as a family group. My mother would play the piano, my grandmother the organ.
After Nanny died, the piano was moved to my mother's house. Shortly after, she and her own piano man, Tommy Gallant, took up together, and the gatherings around the piano became decidedly more professional. Happy Birthday was an occasion to improvise; holidays gave way to harmonies from Tommy's pitch-perfect family, and merely listening to him warm up for a gig was like attending a concert.
When my mother was moved to a nursing facility, despite the fact that my primary instrument is not piano, I took custody of it. It was housed for a time in my small crooked living room in Portsmouth. You didn't quite have to crawl under it to get to the front door, but almost. The playing to room-taking-up ratio became too great, and I lent it to a local family.
They had a perfect room for it, children to learn to play it and cared enough to move and house it.
After my mom's passing, I began to wonder what to do with it. My sister still owns my mother's other piano, a blonde upright that fits neatly into middle class homes.
What to do with this gorgeous behemoth? Should it go to the University of New Hampshire? Tommy would like that. To the Portsmouth School Department? A wonderful thought, but who would be its caretaker over the years? A private sale? No, doesn't feel right.
I remembered, finally, the wonderful blues classes I took a few years ago at PMAC, the professionalism of the faculty, the folks I know on the board, the commitment of local musician Russ Grazier to passing on the love of learning to play. It seems a perfect fit; the piano will stay locally and will exist in service to music education and edification of children. There is no better choice for Patty's piano. It has gotten harder lately to remember her clearly, or summon her support by imagination. I have had the gift three times in the past month of having someone approach me to tell me they knew my mother, followed by the story of how; her advocacy for children, her ability to demystify print for the struggling reader and her quick sensitivities.
Her friend told me I have never seen anyone cry as hard as your mother, with such depth and pain. That is a strange comfort to me, because I need her to tell me that our family will coalesce, that I will survive unexpected threats against the lives of those I love. Her saying, for years, was "Life is a series of adjustments."
It is easy to remember, as a daughter, her strength and fortitude. Of course she would shield me from the grief of her own worries. Where I can't, she would be able to tell me that although I too am sensitive, take too long to get over circumstances and entered the social world much later than the typical adult, that I am going to survive and even thrive.
It's a lot to think about, but perhaps PMAC will let me sit with Patty's piano soon, and pluck out some old tunes and maybe feel her there with me.
Smoking? Is this a column about smoking? Maybe next week. suzanne.danforth@gmail.com.
