Tag: memories

#42 – Being Content

Is your life today what you pictured a year ago?

A lot can change in a year, but this past year thankfully had not been one of those big, earth-shaking years. Things have been consistent and I am grateful because that is not a guarantee from life.

When I was younger I used to think a year was boring if nothing huge happened. But my past self was overlooking the little moments of life that once it changes you yearn for in memory. Overlooking the small choices that make a good, consistent year happen.

It’s important to value each day and look for the good, the pleasant, the fulfilling in each day no matter how minor it may feel in comparison to others.

Looking back on who I was a year ago to now, I’m pleased with the emotional and relational intelligence I gleaned. It wasn’t something I set out as a goal, life happened that way but looking back I’m thankful that in the moments that would end up being meaningful, I showed up.

I could have phoned in those little moments and not built stronger foundations in relationships new and old. I’m glad I didn’t because in the past I have not been as present in my friendships and relationships with family. I would have regretted that.

Because of that, life is a little different than I pictured a year ago – it’s better and joyful instead of being listless and empty.

Life is also a lot sweeter because of you all who take the time to read my blog. It’s made my whole year!

Ironically a year ago I had no intention of starting this blog, I was going to start a podcast with a college acquaintance Errona Lee but that didn’t happen and it is probably for the best. Our schedules were never going to make it easy on us. I wasn’t ready to be on a YouTube-based podcast so that may have been a disaster for my confidence.

Blogging has helped me face some of my fears, like sharing my designs with others. It’s taught me discipline and reminded me that hard work is rewarding. I’ve been challenged to manage my time better and honestly shake off the cobwebs of my creativity and expression. It’s been an unexpected gift and I just wanted to say thank you for making this year a superb one. 💓

#41 – Cut Out Cookies

Whenever I am feeling a bit glum, I think of baking. I learned this from my Grandma. Her mom, who lost her parents at a young age and grew up quite poor would make herself “feel” rich by baking a cake.

I think this is such a sweet sentiment to hold because baking is something you can do with a little money or a lot of money. You can make something for yourself for a little pick me up or can brighten someone else’s day. It is shareable, communal, and made with love.

Baking is a moment of connection for me. A connection through the generations. So much about our present world is different from what it has been in the past, except for food. Food bridges those time gaps.

It even bridges distance and time. As I baked last Monday evening, on the other end of the phone my sister-in-law had just finished baking her own cookies and was making dinner. It was like we were together in a shared experience.

Mixing, resting, rolling. The process of rolling the dough to a thin layer, dunking the shaped cutter in flour, and pressing a new image into the dough was timeless. I could have been four or fourteen or thirty and made these cookies with my mom. We always did every year, every Christmas time. I sent her pictures of the cookies and we reminisced about years past.

The dough, the cookie dough reminds me of meals at Eat’n Park and their free smiley cookies. It’s childhood, cozy in a bite. It makes me feel rich in memories and moments spent with people I love.

Baking is my cozy corner of retreat, cut-out cookies my warm fuzzy blanket. I think that is what makes The Great British Bake Off irresistible. What a wonderful place of solace in a gloomy world.

Thank you, dear reader, for spending time with me today. I wish you love and comfort wherever you are.

#40 – Crying or Laughing

What a weird couple of days. It was like a rollercoaster and now, just as Sookie asks on the ‘Deep Fried Korean Thanksgiving’ episode of Gilmore Girls, “Am I crying or laughing?” After Jackson deep fries the turkey, and almost everything else, including a part of the lawn! Yeah, I felt that confusion.

It wasn’t all bad though.

Friday was actually a spectacular day! As the sun descended behind the rain-filled clouds and darkness ensconced the day Kyle and I found ourselves in a magical wonderland of lights. It was Keystone Safari’s holiday night! The entire zoo was decked out with holiday splendor, under the twinkling of lights and interludes of rain, a familiar place transformed into a magical experience. I even got to meet a Kangaroo joey!

Saturday was good too, my mom and I had a wonderful heart-to-heart that filled my heart with joy. But then Sunday came. As a believer usually, Sunday connotates peace, freedom, and comfort. This day instead, was a big bummer. A friend, I was building a strong relationship with in spite of a lot of limitations, like distance and ease of communication, well she just dropped a chaos bomb and put our relationship in a tailspin.

As a kid of divorce, messy boundaries and lack of consistency are tough, random disappearing maneuvers just plain suck. I’ve done a lot of work on my own and with God over the last five years to break free from childhood pain that was stuck to me, so that I stopped letting those wounds dictate my life. It’s tough when life just throws you a curve ball. The experience, even though we made some efforts to right the damage, raised more questions than I have answers for.

When you put a lot of effort into growing something, only to have the other person rip out your progress without thinking it through, it uproots the relationship. It makes it hard to keep those established and healthy boundaries. Your roots are shallow, although you are fighting to go deeper. I was discouraged by it.

Then Monday decided we should go another round, and I’d say Monday won. That’s okay, life is all about those unexpected moments and how you roll with it. The day started with a false alarm that our bank information was stolen. It’s quite the wake-up! A few minutes later we realized our furnace was not working. Living near Pittsburgh, this time of year can be chilly. It was 20s or 30s Fahrenheit outside, our house was going to need a heat source for sure.

It all worked out because God provided for our needs, and I knew even if the furnace never started again, there would be a way forward. The waves of unexpected problems were tiring though, after the unnecessary drama from the day before. That is where I felt like Sookie. It was 7:40 am and the day already seemed doomed to fail.

I’m learning a lot from these moments though, something I plan to dig deeper into in a future post. How do you handle those kinds of moments? Do you have a go-to thing that pulls you out of the frustration?

I tend to listen to music. This song was a go-to for me this weekend:

So, What Do You Do?

What’s something you believe everyone should know.

I believe that everyone should know that your worth is not defined by the career you currently do or do not have.

I wrote an essay on this subject during my post-grad meandering and I believe in this sentiment even more in the eight years since.

Growing up I didn’t realize how blessed the people in my life were because they had steady jobs at the same company. My mom worked for a civil engineering firm and then switched jobs to work at her alma mater when I was five so that she would be commuting less. My Papa had steady employment as a chemistry teacher, a defensive coordinator, a dean of students, and an athletic director. My Grandma had a well-established piano lesson business and worked a 40 to 50 hour schedule of teaching from home. Their careers were not their entire personalities but I associated them as a child with these occupations, I dreamed of being as successful as them, never thinking that a recession or slow job market was possible, I was a kid. It made sense to me that if you worked hard, developed skills, or got a degree that work would find you.

It was quite troubling to me when I put the work in and found myself failing to launch my career at 22. Two years of applying, interviewing, and finding nothing to show for it in my decaying Rust Belt region was a bit hit to my confidence, my ego, and my identity. I would dread social gatherings and new acquaintanceships because of that one lingering question. That dark cumulus nimbus hanging over all interactions – so, what do you do?

A lot of things! I wanted to reply, but any answer other than what my job title was would receive looks of disapproval like I was being immature. As a kid, adults seemed to celebrate things that you are interested in but as an adult myself, they looked at me like I wasn’t trying hard enough. That I was lazy, that I was failing. Falling behind. Nothing going for me. The conversation would either stop there or there would be more questions to get at the root of why I wasn’t where they were at 22 with a job, a house, a spouse, a kid, etc. Once I got married a little pressure came off, but then I was just a wife and unless I hinted at a due date or a new job, the same puzzled looks appeared.

Now this opened my eyes to how poorly we communicate and how shallow our relationships have become in North American society. It’s not dissimilar to how the question of “How’s it going?” or “How are you?” should only be answered with one reply – “Doing well.” or “I’m fine.” Because no one really wants to know, it’s just a greeting. A passing ship. If you answer the question with depth, that’s weird or too personal.

But we don’t have to stay in this place. I believe with each interaction we can change this on a personal level, and it starts by knowing that you are more than what you do. You are not defined by your career or your bank account, that is not where we gain our worth because we are humans and not stock portfolios!

Following Fashion Week With New Excitement

This past fashion month (September) I actually was paying attention, something I haven’t done since college. I even watched clips from the shows, something I used to stream between classes at the library. So what made take a break? And what brought me back?

Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, W, ANTM, and Project Runway

There’s no denying that in the 2000s fashion magazines were king. There was no TikTok, nor were there social media influencers or Instagram baddies. It was a time of slower trend cycles, compared to the cycle we have seen so far in the 2020s. (I’m talking about you, micro trends.) At the time, as a kid and then a teenager who dreamed of being in the fashion world one day there were a few ways to get acquainted – America’s Next Top Model, Project Runway, and fashion magazines.

America’s Next Top Model was my first foray into this world, with the second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth seasons being particularly formative. In the third season, they went to Tokyo and introduced my mind to Japanese street fashion. The sixth season featured a finalist from my hometown. I practiced the poses, the smize, and my model walk with dreams of getting to Bryant Park either as a model or a designer. It wasn’t until I realized you needed to be 5’8″ or taller to be a runway model that I began to pivot to designing as my full-time dream, like Melanie in Sweet Home Alabama. I had been sketching since I was 10 when my friends and I decided to make our own fashion magazine. I was in charge of sketching collections and I’ve never stopped since. 🙂

In middle school I found Project Runway and was hooked on the design aspect of the fashion world, that’s when I knew I wanted to become a designer, and I wouldn’t be happy until I found a way to do it. With this newfound fascination with becoming a fashion designer instead of a high fashion model, I learned from Tim Gunn how important it is to understand the history of fashion, and from Michael Kors and Nina Garcia, I took note that I should understand the industry at large to plan how to make my mark in this world. That’s when I began seeking fashion magazines. My aunt gifted me a subscription to W magazine for Christmas and my mom gifted me subscriptions to Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. She even took me to Barnes and Noble to track down French and Italian Vogue. Together my Mom and I became students of fashion. It was a blast.

Fashion in the 2010s

Social media and politics have taken fashion magazines on a weird bender, in my opinion, and by the mid-to-late 2010s, I was on a much tighter budget, with underwhelmed expectations for these once beacons of fashion. Social media through the platforms of Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest were far more fashion-forward in my opinion by this point, and the best part was they were free. And so I swapped my magazines for social media pins, posts, and clips. From 2015 to 2019, I found fashion quite dull and overrun by minimalism and athleisure. With thrifting gaining popularity, searching through clothes that already existed to create fashion called to me more than the glossy pages of Vogue. It was such a weird swap, that at times made me feel confused. I always loved fashion, but the high fashion runways became boring to me during this time period, and I began to question the point of it all. And so I opted out.

I still learned about fashion through deep dives into fashion history but this was far from the runways I used to fawn over. At this time, Vogue seemed far behind the trends, but they still do, to be honest. Social media opened a world that wasn’t curated by fashion people, instead, it is the fashion of people.

Global Ambassadors and Kpop

Then I met K-pop which was a new way into fashion, an electric explosion of ideas fresher than my fashion magazines of old. With each comeback, performance, and music video slaying with a lot more fun than the Met Gala in my opinion. But there was this old ghost hanging in the background. Global Ambassadorships. When I began to listen to Blackpink it was quite evident that they were connected to the fashion world. With Jennie Kim working with Chanel, Rose with Saint Laurent, Lisa with Celine, and Jisoo with Dior. It was in the lyrics, the music videos, the posts. Everywhere. I paid attention a little, but not much.

Then I noticed Hong Joong from Ateez attending Balmain shows. Okay, my interest was piqued.

But the ultimate tipping point came this summer when Hyunjin was named an ambassador for Versace, a few weeks later Felix was given the same honor by Louis Vuitton. It was hinted that Lee Know was going to be at Milan Fashion Week for the Gucci show, unfortunately, a car accident occurred days before the show and both he and Hyunjin were unable to attend. Thankfully they are okay.

The ultimate tipping point for me to give in and watch Paris Fashion Week again was when I.N. was invited to attend Alexander McQueen’s show – and sit in the front row. Is this the dream collab for me? YES! Alexander McQueen is my all-time favorite designer. And so like me ten years ago, I watched the runway. I watched the McQueen show and clips of the Louis Vuitton show, of which Felix was front row. Who knew K-pop boy band ambassador appointments would reunite me with the world of high fashion. Life is a funny thing.

So what do I think of the runway since taking a 10-year break? I think my love of luxury fashion and fashion week has become refined. Instead of wanting to consume all of it, I now find myself enjoying specific designs and aesthetics. Maybe it’s maturity or maybe it is because I am working on my sewing and design sensibilities for myself. The clothing really has to speak to me for me to see them as high fashion now. Luxury no longer equates high fashion to me. Street style has just as much impact to me and I would rather consult Steal the Spotlight and Pinterest’s offerings than the runways exclusively. I can’t stop seeing the business side of fashion magazines and runways now. Some of these items, are blah and played out yet they get their face time simply because they have a label attached and that is stuffy to me now.

Will I check out the shows next year? Yes. Surprisingly, it still has a magic feeling about it. I love the spectacle. And maybe one day, I will be closer to the dream of showing my own collection.

Jack-O-Lantern Lounge Pants

One of my favorite memories from childhood is carving pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns with my Papa. Together we would plan out our pumpkin design, and like the pals we were, we would set to work! Papa would carefully place the gourd on newspaper and we would ponder the sides, choosing the perfect canvas upon which to carve. Then with Mom and Grandma in toe, we would gather around the kitchen table to begin our masterpiece. The very same table I sit at now as I write this.

The kitchen table with my sewing assistant, Bones.

Papa would handle the knife and I with a spoon in hand was in charge of scooping out the seeds and pumpkin flesh. Like an assembly line, Papa would cut a small piece from the top, which was attached to the stem making a lid. With my mind-filled young curiosity, my hands would dig into the pumpkin, into the cold cavern of seeds and orange squishy goodness, wondering if would it be as fun as last year? Would it be as squishy? I still love squishing my hands between the seeds and the pulp. My Mom and Grandma sorted the seeds from the mess, rinsing and soaking the seeds to later roast in the oven. The memory of this process still lingers in my mind at the taste of salted pumpkin seeds. It was something I looked forward to, a hallmark of October.

Each year the pumpkin face was different, spooky and goofy, the way we liked our Halloween festivities which consisted of carving this pumpkin and the neighborhood trick-or-treat. The pumpkin carving happened a few days before trick or treat. I remember getting excited when the night came because I knew that meant I could dress up and wander the neighborhood with my friend a few days later, collecting candy as we went. When I saw this fabric at Joann’s it tugged at my heartstrings of those memories of childhood. The faces of these pumpkins look just like the way we would craft our jack-o-lantern. It was nothing too fancy, we were far from experts, but the expression carved from a kitchen knife had a certain charisma that I loved.

Not only did the pattern call to me, but the fabric was incredibly cozy, being made from a heavier flannel. I had to buy it. In true me fashion, I cut one side of the pants upside down, so my trademark pattern-matching mishap carries on into my fall-winter sewing escapades. I think at this point I should just embrace it. I’m not sure if we will carve a jack-o-lantern this year but here is our proud pumpkin friend from 2019. Happy Halloween!

#33 – Farewell to My Soundtrack of Summer 2023

Ice Melting as Tea Pours Over – The Iced Tea Maker

Crack of a Bat Making Contact on a Pitch – Masataka Yoshida and Matt Olson

Swishing into Water – My Watercolor Brushes

The Quiet of Windpower – Sailboats in Lake Arthur

Till We Meet Again – Aespa

A Duel of Roaring – Cash and Simba (Lions of Keystone Safari)

General Sawing Sounds ft. Router into Wood – Kyle’s Woodshop

Rotations of a Fan Blade – Window & Pedestal Fans

The Sloshing of Mud – Fish Pond Course of Tumbleweed Ranch

Popping – Boba Pearls

Sliding Across Dirt – Ronald Acuna Jr. Stealing Another Base

Words of Japanese – Hamusuke’s Japanese Learning

Antlers Scratching – Reindeer Barn

Small Munches – Goats

Tapping of Bamboo – Knitting Needles

As If It’s Your Last – Blackpink

Screaming Goats – Stephanie Canada Videos

Cardboard Opening – Alexandria Ryan

Shrimp Sizzling – The Wok

Crackle of Caramelization – The Grill

The Yell of an Incoming Pitch – Shohei Ohtani

The Tortoise and Hare – Stray Kids

Whoosh of a Golf Club – Driving Range

Sound of Accomplishment – Animal Crossing New Horizons

Thread Pulling Through Aida Cloth – The Burrow Crossstitch

Severe Weather Briefing – Reed Timmer

Thunder that Shakes the House – Cold Fronts

Squeaks on the Front Stoop – Chipmunk

Lawn Mower – Bob’s Landscaping Service

The Real – Ateez

Rattling of My Bobbin – Singer Heavy Duty Sewing Machine (aka Señor Senior Singer)

Sticking of Clay to Make Faux Wood Grain – Rachel Maksy

Pedaling – The Exercise Bike

#27 – Scones

Each week I find myself, hands covered in dough. The way I used to be as a kid, except instead of baking bread or sweet roll dough, I make a little thing called a scone. Or “scon” depending on whether you hail from Northern Ireland. It’s a simple thing. A new part of my routine. That little moment of quiet time, as I cube the cold butter and measure the dry ingredients. It’s a ritual. Between my fingers, I delve deep into the bowl molding vegan butter, sugar, flour, and baking powder into a sandy mixture. A sandy mixture that feels like the sand on the beach, a little wet, pliable. The sand I still love to squish in my hands, in a drifting mindless void of experiencing the texture. A sensory delight.

In the rhythm, I cube the butter. Careful, long cuts with a sharp knife divide, and divide again until with swift chops little butter cubes line up on the counter. Flour cup after flour cup, building a powdery mountain in the bowl. A sprinkle of sugar, leavening, and salt. Blend, blend, blend, and watch Youtube. Let your mind drift away to far places. Watch the squirrels hop around the yard. Add water and raisins, and make a wet, sticky dough. With a spoon drop the scones one by one on the parchment. A warm oven, here they go.

My scones are a bit like biscuits, a little like shortcakes. A dash of raisins, the quick lift of soda bread. They are an amalgamation of what I remember relatives baking for me as a kid, and a new thing influenced by new boundaries. New limitations by a dairy-free restriction put into the practice of a nostalgic moment. I cannot bake the way I used to, but I can still make things with new ingredients. I can carry on the old ways of the past but in a way that makes sense to me.

Coming from a Northern Irish background, my grandma’s side called them “scon” and she made them with raisins. She drank tea and ate them with a little butter. Traveling south, I had biscuits – buttery and lightly sweet biscuits which felt like these scones of my memory. Strawberries and shortcakes, with a dash of whipped cream, a dish reminiscent of evenings at my mother-in-law’s house. A quick baked treat after a long day of hard work, that we would eat while my father-in-law showed us old episodes of Star Trek. Irish Soda Bread is an item I discovered later on in life to celebrate my heritage. A treat my mom would make on St. Patrick’s Day. Its dense yet fluffy texture creeps its way into my scones. These are a bundle of memories in one bite.

A bite I have quite often now. A bite that is my current breakfast staple with a handful of berries and almond milk whipped cream. I eat this with a cup of Yerba Mate.

I used to avoid breakfast, I simply wasn’t hungry. Then I picked up some bad habits like granola bars, pop tarts, or sugary cereals to start my day. This is the first breakfast routine, I appreciate. Maybe it’s the responsibility of making those scones by hand and keeping the freezer stocked for the week that has given me agency. Or an open eye to how food is nourishment, not fuel, not the enemy, nor is it a coping mechanism that reminded me to enjoy this simple thing.

It’s Monday, and I only have one scone left. I’m honestly looking forward to getting my hands covered in dough, in my little weekly routine. To create that taste of home in one bite. For the love of baking. The joy of homemade, handmade things that are a privilege to make.

I hope you have a wonderful start to your week!

#24 – Neon Shoes & Sichuan Peppercorn

After a tense Thursday-Friday which I’ll go into in another post, Friday night felt like a breath of fresh air to my mind. The pressure was gone like all the weight on my shoulders melted away. To celebrate, my husband and I decided it was time to return to our favorite restaurant, Golden Dragon, which in our little town, no joke, has awarding winning Chinese cuisine. His food is legit.

Since we have been watching Strictly Dumpling at lunch and Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations in the evenings, we’ve been hungry for some spice, something new, something mouth-wateringly delicious. We mixed up our usual order. Kyle decided on Moo Shu Pork and I chose the long-awaited Mala – I chose Sichuan Chicken. It was good, just as addictive as they say! I went with medium spicy thinking there was no way I could hang at that level, but it was pleasant for my spice tolerance. I’ve been leaning more toward spicy food recently like gochujang and mango-habanero sauce along with vinegary flavors for the health benefits. It’s definitely refining my palate, from someone who didn’t enjoy spice, to someone who could handle it with dairy, to learning dairy was making me sick, to learning how to manage my spice without any dairy cool down. Isn’t interesting to think about how our tastebuds change?

I’ve watched Mike Chen and his Strictly Dumpling content for five years now, and in that time it has educated me and encouraged me to get out of my comfort zone, such as trying hot pot, appreciating mochi, miso, and now the Sichuan peppercorn. When I first started watching, I didn’t think anything of what I was watching other than, it was an escape to travel vicariously through his content when I was broke, but it has truly been a cuisine education, like watching No Reservations.

Back to the food – Golden Dragon’s Sichuan sauce had so much flavor. I was expecting it to be spice-forward without the layers of flavor, there was sour, savory, sweet, and warming spice. The peppercorn is fragrant, floral, unlike anything I had tasted before. I literally felt warm inside as I ate it! And the numbing sensation was fun, addictive, a rollercoaster ride of taste. I definitely want to try it hotter next time. Something I appreciated was the fact that it didn’t give me a thunderclap headache like Thai chilies have given me in the past. The experience made me so disappointed because the flavor of the Thai chilies was incredible! Oh well, at least I found a new friend in the Sichuan peppercorn.

On Saturday, we were going to go bowling at the local lanes. Both of us enjoyed bowling as kids and hadn’t gone probably since college. With a rainy mist in the fall-like air of May in Western Pennsylvania, we went to explore the unknown of our small town’s bowling alley – it was a rather disappointing discovery. There are those bowling allies stuck in the seventies/eighties that have a certain charm because of their vintage and rundown aesthetic, like a time capsule. There are also those bowling allies that have been renovated that may be stuck in the cosmic bowling thing of the aughts, I don’t mind that. But this place was just unwelcoming.

So we bailed and headed over to the outlets to walk around in the clearing sunshine. I’m really glad we did because there was one of those once-a-season mega sales at Under Armour where my husband was able to find something he had been looking to replace for years! When we started dating in college, he had this pair of neon green sneakers. I think the original pair were from Nike. He wore them to pieces, literally the sole falling into worn-out layers. Since then the trend cycles changed the styles, and there have been no sneakers such as the beloved neon ones. He has hesitated to commit to any pair, finding the necessary pairs to get by but nothing as beloved as the neon green ones with black accents.

Behold! We walked around the outlets, to a far arm where Under Armour resides, a store we tend to avoid because the prices are outrageous. Normally. Not this time, we hit like the motherload of clearance. We just had that feeling, the feeling of we should go in there and I’m so glad we did! Perched toward the back is a glorious neon green shoe, with black accents, as though Kyle sketched out a shoe, and of his dream. The white whale. That’s not the best part! The shoes are on sale for $50, regularly $100+! I was shocked, he was delighted. It was a good trip for sure. I love to see my buddy smile.

Another small delight, I spotted as we made our way our way out of the outlets, was this one car. It had a curious, yet strangely familiar phrase written on its back window. “The one, NCT vega.” I had a feeling, there was another one among us and I was right – I was in the presence of another NCTizen! Anytime I see a K-Pop reference on a car, a shirt, or a hint of a song on the radio, I feel this wonderful sense of camaraderie with whomever the stranger is. They get it. ❤

It was one of those good, simple weekends. I restarted my Stardew Valley farm and my husband leveled up his grilling prowess with an impressively tender pork loin. We closed out our time with the 2023 PBR World Finals and a delicious bowl of ramen. I hope you, dear reader, are able to relax and recharge, whatever that looks like in your schedule. Enjoy the little moments with the ones your love.

#20 – A Beethoven Milestone

When I moved to coastal Georgia, it was a big, unknown kind of step. New family, new culture, new job description, new kind of humidity I’d only heard of. It was disorienting at times, exhilarating at others. Yet it made me perceive what really made me feel at home. I realized it was a piano. No really, a piano.

Life of a Piano Teacher’s Kid

When I was very little my mom and I moved in with my grandparents, at the time my grandma was a full-time piano teacher. My grandma’s living room had not one but two pianos – an upright piano and a grand piano. Due to wear and tear, the two consolidated down to one new grand piano that filled the house with music from 6:00 am to 6:00 pm during the week. My breakfast routine included the broken melodies of piano lessons and a bowl of cereal. At the time, I would grow tired of the piano music, but as an adult, I look back on those days with fondness.

Something that I think is interesting, is that before I left for Georgia, my grandma gave me my old piano lesson books that she kept from my failed lessons in 2nd grade. I thought that was really sweet, and I think a bit of comfort from the Lord because I did not anticipate how hard homesickness was going to hit 6 weeks into my new life. I was all settled into a nice apartment and little community, a new church, and a new side of the family to hang out with, yet bam I was thrown into this wave of sadness.

I felt like part of me was missing. For some reason, those piano lessons came to my mind and, all I wanted was to hear the piano music again.

I would say before this point I appreciated classical music but it wasn’t a regular rotation within my Spotify profile, it then became my comfort music with Claire Hwangci’s Rachmaninoff Preludes album being one of my favorites. My grandma used to play Rachmaninoff, Chopin, Brahms, and Beethoven. Moonlight Sonata was one of her favorites. Since then I’ve been determined to learn piano, one day. The problem was the keyboard I had access to was pretty busted, with a whole octave not registering noise when I tried to play.

Grandma encouraged me to keep going even if my keyboard was not great, she was thrilled that I felt the call back to music lessons.

We eventually moved back to Pennsylvania, and as the ebb and flow of my time changed, I had a lot more time to practice in my new routine. The problem was I lacked discipline and was a lazy student. Instead of seeking to learn musical theory again, I went to my Pinterest and YouTube feed, to find quick learning techniques. Watered down piano guides and on Pinterest, I literally found pins that were just the notes in sequence. I learned a watered-down version of Hedwig’s Theme, The Phantom of the Opera Overture, and Jurassic Park. It was a good way to gain quick satisfaction, and it was a blast to hear the piano music again.

It filled my heart a bit fuller again when I felt empty.

The Yamaha P-45

Fast forward to 2023, I had let the broken keyboard go and was keeping my eye out for a used free piano on Craigslist, but truly my current rental is too small to accommodate such an instrument. But something really cool happened, Kyle found a music shop nearby and encouraged us to go. He was on the hunt for an electric guitar. The music shop was incredible. It smelled like all the piano shops I had gone to with my grandma as a kid. A flood of memories came back, warmth deep in my heart. With great surprise, they carried something that would make me feel reconnected with my past – a digital piano with weighted keys that felt the same as my grandma’s grand piano!

Since she passed away in December 2022, I’ve felt a bigger emptiness in my heart. A vast homesickness that can’t be solved until I move on from this world. But, when I put my hand on those keys, the expanse felt a bit smaller. Have you ever felt that way? It’s this pure bliss of memory that is like a big hug to your weary heart.

There is one elephant in the room, pianos even digital ones are quite expensive.

Like, it’s not an impulse purchase. But that is where another principal comes in – delayed gratification. Over several months and previous months of careful saving, we were able to purchase the digital piano and stand. Through the process of waiting, saving, and dreaming, I was primed and ready to dive in and be a committed student. This was not going to be a repeat of my previous tries, I even bought a piano theory book!

To my surprise, all those mornings of eating breakfast to the accompaniment of piano lessons, some of those lessons stuck.

The book is teaching me musical theory, treble and bass clef, and how to read music – the foundation. And the foundation is jogging my memory to all the little techniques my grandma used. How to navigate the guide notes, how to skip thirds, and to make sure to not play by ear but truly understand the technique of what I am doing, and have good form with my fingers. Although sometimes I get sad that she doesn’t get to know this part of me, through my memories, I feel as though I am still getting to do this with her.

Crescendo

Sunday I felt the peak of my piano success, a real milestone. I have been diligently playing through my lesson book, learning and repeating the instructional songs, even if I feel like I know them. I want to remember and have the skills not hubris. And so, to begin my lesson I went back a few pages, as I do. I played through the French Minuet sample, a bit of Mozart samples, onto Home on the Range, through a taste of bass clef practice. Moving to the understanding of C Pentascale, on to let’s play hands together up to a bigger octave. I am so engrossed in my lesson that I begin to play a familiar tune without stopping to see what it was. I moved on to this song, not thinking much of it because I’m learning here, really getting it and somehow I am playing hands together! With a rhythm and respect to the time signature, who are these hands? But my hands, are uncoordinated and frustrating! They don’t do this, right?

I feel the same thrill that came when I drove our standard transmission for the first time in top gear. It feels good.

Then I stopped to notice, hey, this is my first Beethoven piece.

A simplified version of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Ode to Joy or the Hymn ‘Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee’ depending on your context. What a milestone! I wanted to learn how to play the piano, with theory and discipline, and learn not a popular tune but a classic. In that moment I understood why good things take time. It is a craft. It cannot be rushed.

I look forward to my next piano milestone!

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