![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
LJ Idol Week 12: Barrel of monkeys
Jun. 19th, 2014 07:15 amSynchronicities
Twenty-five years ago, my mother managed to scrape together the money to buy me a flute, despite bringing up four children as a solo parent. She had no musical background herself, but it was important to her that we learn. I was a mediocre player, but continued all through high school, dabbling in baritone saxophone as a bit of a contrast.
Seventeen years ago, I went to university, and didn't bother to play again, aside from a few forays into folk music with a tin whistle.
Twelve years ago, my mother decided that it was her turn to learn. She bought a clarinet, and taught herself to read music. Rapidly succumbing to instrumentitis, she also tried trumpet, trombone, and tenor saxophone, before settling on baritone saxophone and bass clarinet as her instruments of choice.
Seven years ago, my mother's concert band performed in the national festival. In the entire weekend she saw only one other band play; it was only by chance that they were from the area I was living in. She rang me and raved about this band, how they had this fantastic woman conductor and how it was important for me to get back to playing music. I had a two-year-old and was deep, deep, deep in post-natal depression, but I somehow scraped together the nerve to email the conductor. "I'm a lapsed flautist," I explained, "But I'm willing to pick up anything. What do you need?" And that's how I came to play the tuba.
Three years ago, having had to take a hiatus from band due to the demands of twin pregnancy and infancy, I sat next to a particular trumpeter each week. One rehearsal we got chatting about her plans to tramp the Routeburn Track. "My mum's doing that soon, too!" I exclaimed, and we soon discovered that they would be in the same tramping group. They hit it off immediately and had a great time.
Two years ago, my mum and the trumpeter tramped the Milford Track together.
A year ago, the seating arrangements in the band were changed around. My new companion was a euphonium player, the trumpeter's sister.
A month ago, I became determined to get a piano for my children, so that they could start lessons, and I could maybe start to learn. It was hard to find one inside our budget (especially since we're a one-income family in New Zealand's most expensive city, with an unexpected bonus child that our life plan never budgeted for), so I posted a "Wanted" notice on the local Freecycle group, crossed my fingers, and hoped.
A week ago, I read the LJ Idol topic, "Barrel of monkeys", and had a powerful memory of carefully linking chains of plastic monkeys together, sitting at my grandma's table. We played many games around that brown formica table; when she passed away last year, the thing that brought me to tears, weeks later, was being given her game of Yahtzee, and finding my childish handwriting scrawled inside the lid, proudly bragging about beating my grandma's high score.
Four days ago, I got a text from the trumpeter, offering her father's piano. She had no idea I was looking for one; the text was sent to everyone in the band. Her father had just gone into a rest home, and with his house sold and time running out, she wanted to re-home it. It was ninety-two years old, the same age as her father; her parents had bought it for her childhood lessons. She couldn't face just leaving it on the road side. I said "Yes, please!" without knowing anything more about the piano. I had low expectations; frankly, if it made even roughly the right noises, I'd be happy. The only space we had to put it was in the basement, anyway.
Three days ago, our band did a concert. My mother was there, being briefly in town on her way to fly out to Africa for a month, to climb Mount Kilimanjaro and do a half-marathon in a game park. I don't often see her; her life is peculiarly busy for some reason. Cough, cough. She was delighted to see the trumpeter and meet her husband.
Two days ago, I was frantically cleaning our basement. I call it a basement, but really it is a concrete-floored garage, tucked underneath our house, and turned to purposes other than car storage. It is a geologist's dream; layers of sedimentary crafting offcasts, piled together over time, shifted and slumped together from periodically seismic attempts at tidying. As I strip-mined a clear area large enough for a piano, I swept up piles of sawdust, paper scraps and BB pellets. A yellow plastic monkey with curved arms grinned up at me from the dust.
I genuinely have no idea where that monkey came from, and I swear this is a true story.
But I do know this; if I hadn't found a plastic monkey when I was clearing the basement to make room for a piano from the trumpeter I sat next to because I was playing tuba in the band that my mum made me join after she saw them by a fluke when she started playing music thirteen years after I started playing music, then I'm really not sure what I would have written about. This story is literally twenty-five years in the making.
One day ago, my sight-unseen piano arrived in a mover's truck. They wheeled out a beautiful, upright piano, with rich whorls in the polished walnut wood. It is tuned and sonorous, and I feel incredibly blessed.
Twenty-five years ago, my mother managed to scrape together the money to buy me a flute, despite bringing up four children as a solo parent. She had no musical background herself, but it was important to her that we learn. I was a mediocre player, but continued all through high school, dabbling in baritone saxophone as a bit of a contrast.
Seventeen years ago, I went to university, and didn't bother to play again, aside from a few forays into folk music with a tin whistle.
Twelve years ago, my mother decided that it was her turn to learn. She bought a clarinet, and taught herself to read music. Rapidly succumbing to instrumentitis, she also tried trumpet, trombone, and tenor saxophone, before settling on baritone saxophone and bass clarinet as her instruments of choice.
Seven years ago, my mother's concert band performed in the national festival. In the entire weekend she saw only one other band play; it was only by chance that they were from the area I was living in. She rang me and raved about this band, how they had this fantastic woman conductor and how it was important for me to get back to playing music. I had a two-year-old and was deep, deep, deep in post-natal depression, but I somehow scraped together the nerve to email the conductor. "I'm a lapsed flautist," I explained, "But I'm willing to pick up anything. What do you need?" And that's how I came to play the tuba.
Three years ago, having had to take a hiatus from band due to the demands of twin pregnancy and infancy, I sat next to a particular trumpeter each week. One rehearsal we got chatting about her plans to tramp the Routeburn Track. "My mum's doing that soon, too!" I exclaimed, and we soon discovered that they would be in the same tramping group. They hit it off immediately and had a great time.
Two years ago, my mum and the trumpeter tramped the Milford Track together.
A year ago, the seating arrangements in the band were changed around. My new companion was a euphonium player, the trumpeter's sister.
A month ago, I became determined to get a piano for my children, so that they could start lessons, and I could maybe start to learn. It was hard to find one inside our budget (especially since we're a one-income family in New Zealand's most expensive city, with an unexpected bonus child that our life plan never budgeted for), so I posted a "Wanted" notice on the local Freecycle group, crossed my fingers, and hoped.
A week ago, I read the LJ Idol topic, "Barrel of monkeys", and had a powerful memory of carefully linking chains of plastic monkeys together, sitting at my grandma's table. We played many games around that brown formica table; when she passed away last year, the thing that brought me to tears, weeks later, was being given her game of Yahtzee, and finding my childish handwriting scrawled inside the lid, proudly bragging about beating my grandma's high score.
Four days ago, I got a text from the trumpeter, offering her father's piano. She had no idea I was looking for one; the text was sent to everyone in the band. Her father had just gone into a rest home, and with his house sold and time running out, she wanted to re-home it. It was ninety-two years old, the same age as her father; her parents had bought it for her childhood lessons. She couldn't face just leaving it on the road side. I said "Yes, please!" without knowing anything more about the piano. I had low expectations; frankly, if it made even roughly the right noises, I'd be happy. The only space we had to put it was in the basement, anyway.
Three days ago, our band did a concert. My mother was there, being briefly in town on her way to fly out to Africa for a month, to climb Mount Kilimanjaro and do a half-marathon in a game park. I don't often see her; her life is peculiarly busy for some reason. Cough, cough. She was delighted to see the trumpeter and meet her husband.
Two days ago, I was frantically cleaning our basement. I call it a basement, but really it is a concrete-floored garage, tucked underneath our house, and turned to purposes other than car storage. It is a geologist's dream; layers of sedimentary crafting offcasts, piled together over time, shifted and slumped together from periodically seismic attempts at tidying. As I strip-mined a clear area large enough for a piano, I swept up piles of sawdust, paper scraps and BB pellets. A yellow plastic monkey with curved arms grinned up at me from the dust.
I genuinely have no idea where that monkey came from, and I swear this is a true story.
But I do know this; if I hadn't found a plastic monkey when I was clearing the basement to make room for a piano from the trumpeter I sat next to because I was playing tuba in the band that my mum made me join after she saw them by a fluke when she started playing music thirteen years after I started playing music, then I'm really not sure what I would have written about. This story is literally twenty-five years in the making.
One day ago, my sight-unseen piano arrived in a mover's truck. They wheeled out a beautiful, upright piano, with rich whorls in the polished walnut wood. It is tuned and sonorous, and I feel incredibly blessed.