memories (part one)

a couple of my happiest memories are the following: - i must've been five or six. my brother was learning how to play the piano, an old grand piano someone had given my parents that they kept in the garage. i would sneak down to the garage and write music. i still remember the first piece i ever composed. i was seven. it was called "the glad and the sad", a simple study in arpeggios, of course i didn't know what those were at the time. i didn't know what major and minor chords were or perfect fifths or fourths or anything. i just felt, and i played how i felt. i wasn't very good. i remember my dad would open the garage door and sit on the steps. after i played, he would start clapping, as if he were attending a live performance of a world-renowned musician. he'd always tell me how i had such a natural knack for the arts, this was before that idea got corrupted. neil eventually stopped taking piano lessons, but i asked mom and dad if i could start, or maybe they proposed it. i still remember the piece of clear scotch tape on middle c, with a crudely drawn c in graphite and my brother's handwriting. I remember being told to imagine tennis balls under my hands. i remember my frustration when i couldn't reach an octave. i remember hating my piano lessons, quitting, swearing it off. my regret is not knowing what i wanted, not realizing that i didn't care one bit for classical music but i wanted to learn composing, improvisation, jazz and blues and soul and bossa nova. i will come back to it one day. even after we upgraded– a grand piano in the basement instead of the garage, so i'd be able to play in the winter too. even after we upgraded my father would sneak down the basement steps, i was getting older now and embarrassed to find out people were listening. i can't remember a time i was playing and he was home and he didn't sit down to hear. when we got our house renovated in 2020, he removed the basement door completely. he said it was because it worked with the architectural plans better, but i always wondered if it was because of the secret hope i'd go down and start playing once again. growing up with a father who was gone more often than not, growing up in the shadow of his beloved middle child, ive always felt disconnected from him. i have few memories growing up with him, he knows even fewer things about me. music was always mine, even if neil started lessons first, even if the piano was for neil in the first place. it was something i owned, something he associated with me, one of the few things along with interior design and avocado toast.

- it was the summer before junior year of high school. i spent two or maybe three weeks in peru, on my own, volunteering teaching elementary school children english. this was in the thick of it, the events that would lead to me being diagnosed with several mental illnesses years later. i was lost, i was alone. i was self-isolating from my friends and absent from my family and i spent every waking moment and many unconscious ones working towards a future i dreaded. it's been six years now and i still can only write about it through blurry eyes and a pile of used tissues by my desk. i remember the world cup on, a match peru was in. i was invited to a party for the game, and when peru scored a point the whole room lit aflame, more than cheers, more than ecstatic screams, but a primal explosion. People threw themselves on top of one another, and soon enough there was a ragdoll pile of red and white smack center of the living room. i remember someone handing me inca cola for the first time, i would've hated the bubblegum sweet taste of it if it didn't, to this day, take me back to one of the happiest moments of my life. i remember for the next two years, i would drink a cup of chamomile tea every night before bed, because they always had a vat of it on hand in the hostel i stayed at. i remember going down to the kitchen dining table at midnight with a few of the other volunteers to drink a cup. i remember me speaking in english, and someone translating that to german so another volunteer could understand, and her then translating it to french for the other two volunteers. i remember us hollering, the game of telephone almost always gone awry. i remember the sense of community i felt in that moment, the idea that you could become so close with complete strangers that didn't even speak the same language as you in such a short period of time. and then i understood.