WORK IN PROGRESS (Maybe to become an episode of my newsletter about chronic pain?)

Song: Because of you - Kelly Clarkson

Setting: My parents' apartment in Sicily, my bedroom with my personal piano

Time: Last year of Middle School, getting ready for the Music High School of my dreams, listening to a lot of music and watching talent shows

"I feel my fingers caressing the piano. It’s smooth, nice, heavy under my hands. It’s going to be my life, I promised myself as much. My favorite talent show is on the background and my middle school friends all around me. I know what they think. I’m lucky, I’m destined. Not only my home has a piano in it (in my bedroom, nonetheless!), I can stay up all night listening to my favorite music.

 Every time we are together, they insist I play something. I’m shy, bashful even. This is not the same as playing in front of my teachers or in school band’s practice. This is real. They expect something real from me, a raw emotion I feel deeply and I’m not sure how to express. I can sing, dance and play alone in my room, but when anyone else is around, I stop. What if they listen? Shouldn’t it be the point though? To be listened to? Isn’t it something my teachers will require from me, not only in practice, but also in public, on a stage, in exams and shows? Music School will be like being inside those talent shows for real. My emotions on display, my talent for all to see.

 How stupid and childish this all seems now. Now that the pain is here, again. Now that my hands can’t do their job on the keys. Now that every movement brings immense pain and all the joy is submerged somewhere in my mind, my soul, my heart, unachievable by my body. I was good, really good. Well, not really good per se, but I had passion. My piano teacher said it was more important. I don’t know if she only said so to make me feel less inadequate in front of my naturally talented sister. It doesn’t matter. I did have a passion. Burning. It was all over me, like a wave crashing again and again against my heart. When I played, when I listened to music, when I watched those talent shows dreaming to be up there, that passion burned, flowed, took ahold of myself.

 'You can’t play anymore' seemed to be the solution when there was no solution to my pain. It was something I needed to stop, to preserve what little remained of myself. I don’t know why I thought that my hands were a part of myself more than my passion. More than music. More than what I truly am: an artist at art. More than what I still am, piano or not."