Surreptitious music

The night air is a blend of the strains of piano music- very likely Chopin's Nocturne in E flat- and the distant rumble of thunder, sleepy, like the cats with half-closed eyes. Apart from the stealthy pianist and her snotty feline audience, there is no one else at home.In stealth she plays, furtively; like rag dolls, My Little Ponies and Action Figures come alive at night, long after all other members of the household have fallen deep into sleep, like school girls on a midnight feast- clandestine and secretive. It is the only way she will have it, the stealthy closet pianist.

That was I, the pianist-only-when-no-one’s-looking.

And yet, the fingers have their reason reserve knows not of. A new piano has just been placed at the newly opened tuckshop extension, and has immediately become a source of delight for students. Piano performing diploma holders, Richard Clayderman fans, Chopsticks players alike find they have to have their tuckshop-piano moments.

And so do I, the pianist-only-when-no-one’s-looking.

I have touched those keys but once, one late school day when there was nobody but the odd student around. It mattered little that I have a piano at home I can play anytime, very often to an audience of two cats; touching those keys was just not the same. Yet it was almost essential, instinctive: the only reason my fingers know of the piano’s presence is connection- what meaning otherwise?

And so it is with this blog. After a year of being a faithful blog skulker, leaving the odd hint here and there of my presence in the form of the rare comment, after months of wanting to participate in Blogging by Mail, Book Swaps, IMBBs, SHFs and WCBs, even this stealthy keyboardist just had to brave the challenges of the animate audience, the less-familiar keyboard.