The first object you see upon entering the front room in my house is my Great-Grandmother’s grand piano. It is a beautiful instrument, stained a lovely deep brown color, its ivory keys in perfect condition. On its left side, where it has faced the windows in every house it has ever resided in, the dark brown stain has faded to the golden yellow color of goldenrod, and the sun has chipped and cracked the stain away, leaving the chipping stain rough and splintery. The right side is smooth and cool and in near perfect condition. The soundboard, the pedals,and the weathering on its left side are the only things that give away its age. The soundboard is cracked, which means it will never play in a grand concert hall and fill it with music, but it fills our house just fine. The foot pedals are coming loose, so one must be gentle when using them.

The piano’s matching bench is topped with a handsome red velveteen cushion, that collects copious amounts of dust, defying even our staunchest attempts to keep it clean. The bench’s inner compartment is falling away at one corner, but it is still stuffed full of books of music that are seldom played.

An integral part of our lives, the piano is decorated for the changing seasons by my family’s gentle hands. Fruit ripens in large crystal bowls and platters, that stand on crystalline feet upon the piano’s back, catching and reflecting the sunlight from the window onto their contents, tossing rainbows upon the floor and the sweet scent of fruit through the room. In autumn, apples come to replace the summer peaches, and when at last some of the apples have grown to old and soft to be enjoyed on their own, I fill my shirt with the softening apples and walk into the kitchen and soon the delicious mouthwatering scent of an apple strudel fills the house.

The piano hasn’t always been in our front room. It first belonged to my Great-grandmother, a gift from my Great-grandfather. My mother and all five of her siblings were taught to play the piano on it. I and my little sister were among the very last of my Great- grandmother’s long line of students. I was not the best student. I never wished to and hardly ever practiced, and I went to my lessons with the grudging attitude of one forced to do something against their will. The lessons ended rather abruptly as my Great-grandmother’s health declined, and a little while later she passed away. I regretted the loss of the lessons, and yet when one of my aunts stepped up to be our new piano teacher, I performed only a little better with her than I did with my Great-grandmother. Those lessons ended with my aunt’s move out to the Valley, and as no other teacher was to be found, my musical education came to a sudden end. I now regret the stubborn and unwilling attitude I had then, as my fingers cannot evoke the beautiful music from the piano’s ivory keys that other fingers can.

Now my little sister is the one who plays the piano the most, her small hands drumming out a melody that none but her own ears can find enjoyable. My mother, the only one of us who can actually evoke beautiful harmonies from its strings, rarely plays, as it hurts her to sit for too long at the instrument. She mostly plays to rouse her lazy slug-a-beds, my sisters and I, out of bed on Sundays, playing rousing hymns at full power to urge us out of bed. It never works as well as intended though, as I prefer to continue to lie in bed and listen to the beautiful music rather than get up. I love it when my mother plays, and I like to sit on the couch in the living room and listen or stand by the piano to sing along to the hymns as she plays.

MIRIAM MOCKETT is a sophomore pursuing a degree in fine arts. An Alaskan Resident of ten years, Miriam is the second of four sisters. In her free time (of which there is little) Miriam enjoys writing on the various novels she has in the works.