Recurring dream....(Pt 1)

A four day weekend of migraines and feeling "odd" led me to back to my familiar nocturnal adventure - the one I call "the piano dream". Often stress, slightly imperfect health, high or low mood - sometimes no reason at all - triggers the little beastie. It always takes me by surprise and leaves me feeling anxious as well as somewhat excited in an anticipatory way....though I never quite know what about...

32 years of the same recurring dream. It started in my mid-teens - we were moving to Rarotonga for a job placement at the Airport that my father could not turn down. (one of those offers ya just can't refuse....!) I had been learning the piano for 12 months. I was absolutely obsessed with the piano - I practised hours and hours a day - sometimes kicked off the instrument in favour of the news on telly, or a sitcom that my mother wanted to see (the Dick Van Dyke show springs to mind). But I was usually supported in my obsession, I think because my mother loved hearing me play, and my father because he often asked me to do the performing monkey thing when he had friends to dinner. I refused to take exams - that wasn't my reason for learning - I wanted to PLAY! For enjoyment and soaring of spirit! And boy, did my spirit soar. I was playing Grade 4 classical pieces after 6 months - because I loved them (Robin's Return, Remembrance, Fur Elise, Walk in the Black Forest, Liebestraum, Alley Cat...). I also learned modern pieces (The Carpenters "We've Only Just Begun) and a range of Rogers and Hammerstein pieces (The King and I, South Pacific) - because I loved them too. I like to fantasise that I would have been a piano musician of some note, had I been able to continue to play.

We moved to Rarotonga, and we had to leave the piano behind - something about the humidity warping the instrument - I suspect it was more to do with shipping costs. And fair enough too. I refused to give up my craft. I drew a full piano keyboard onto paper, and used to play it every night, with the music in my head...ringing.