NOTED

She pressed one key then another and I listened as she discovered the sound each made as a result of the pressure she applied to them. She smiled as the song she created filled the room, a melody-less tune of questionable rhythm, the soundtrack of a three year old, music to my ears. Just as quickly as her tiny fingers danced over the black and white music maker, they stopped and she ran off to another task in another room leaving the keys vacant and alone.

I sat down in a chair much too small for my frame, with my knees nearly touching my chin. Like a giant surrounded by objects I’ve dwarfed, I pulled the miniature piano forward and placed my hands upon the keyboard resting them like I do on the home keys of my laptop, waiting for inspiration to encourage movement. Notes, like words, revealed themselves one at a time until the story was complete… until a quote I heard once before visited and lingered like an old friend.

“Life is like a piano. What you get out of it depends on how you play it.” 

–Tom Lehrer

She ran back in the room pressing random keys as she passed, laughs interrupting whatever song she was singing, before she climbed onto my lap. We sat there, our combined weight threatening the limit of the tiny chair we occupied, creating a song with my right hand and her left. These are the moments our days consist of that I think I'll remember the most several years from now, little moments of clarity and truth that reiterate just how beautiful life can be when we play along.