Ask For What You Want

“What are four walls, anyway? They are what they contain. The house protects the dreamer. Unthinkably good things can happen, even late in the game. It’s such a surprise.”

Watching the movie Under the Tuscan Sun makes me want to up and move to Italy.

Or, at the very least, go back for a very long visit.

That time back in March 2008 was quite the awakening for me. I realized how unhappy I was, and I realized just how asleep the artist inside of me had been. I was living too fast—all of my days being soaked up by commuting, working hard, worrying, eating too much, sleeping too little, and generally not taking care of myself in any tangible way.

Murano, Italy - 2008 

But in Italy, it was so easy to care for me.

I woke up each morning to rustling trees, birds singing, people talking, and bright sunshine gleaming through the windows of my room.

I leisurely got dressed and walked all around Murano, sitting in a different bakery or restaurant each morning for my cappuccino and pastry. I watched people. I wrote. I listened to the lovely lilt of Italian, spoken all around me.

I spoke what few words I knew, and the shop keepers were more patient with me than they should have been, helping me when I fumbled a word.

When you’re in Venice in the early spring, it’s difficult to feel angry, sad, exhausted, frustrated, or lonely.

It’s easy to walk for hours at a time, stopping here and there to snap pictures, take in the sights and sounds around you, or to just breathe. It’s easy to forget the fast pace and mind-numbing rut of American life.

Piazza San Marco, Venice, Italy - 2008

My senses were flooded with life: flower stands with so many bright colors; people of all shapes, sizes, nationalities, ethnicities, and statuses surrounding me; gelato around every bend—and yes, there were times when I had two in one day; quintessential pushy Italian men in black and white striped shirts and red berets trying to get you to ride in their gondola for “a good price”; rustic iron gates with black paint flaking off—

The images go on and on, carrying me into a blissful, colorful, dreamy land where I once lived for two weeks.

Now, it is just a collection of memories.

But, still—that movie urges me to do something a little outlandish—a little silly, a little out of the ordinary.

During the movie, Frances questions her purchase of Bramasole. 

She says, “This house has three bedrooms. What if there’s never anyone to sleep in them? And the kitchen, what if there’s never anyone to cook for? I wake up in the night thinking, ‘You idiot. I mean, you’re the stupidest woman in the world. You bought a house for a life you don’t even have.’
“Why did you do it, then?” asks Martini.
“Because I’m sick of being afraid all the time and because I still want things. I want a wedding in this house, and I want a family in this house.”
Martini says, “Signora, between Austria and Italy, there is a section of the Alps called the Semmering. It is an impossibly steep, very high part of the mountains. They built a train track over these Alps to connect Vienna and Venice. They built these tracks before there was a train in existence that could make the trip. They built it because they knew someday the train would come.”

I’ve always dreamed of uprooting and disappearing to some unknown land, far away. I’ve even done it a couple of times, in not so many words… with my sudden move to Philadelphia after graduating from college, and then again, when I got a job outside of Boston and moved there—without knowing a single soul.

Back then, I was searching for a place to belong.

My motives are different now… I know that I belong wherever I am. I am where I belong.

If I were to do something so outlandish now, it would be to keep my life moving, to keep my energy expanding, to keep my heart opening, to keep my soul stretching.

I dream of owning a home in Kennebunkport, Maine.

I dream of traveling around the world.

I dream, and yet—I am here… still.

When I was in Italy, my days were blissful and often filled with lots of laughter, dreaming, and connecting. Connecting with other artists, with beautiful towns built on water, and most importantly... connecting to myself. 

I collapsed in bed each night utterly exhausted, and I slept harder than I had ever slept.

The first night in my apartment reminds me of the good sleeps I had in Italy. I sleep very soundly in this place. I feel safe here, in my little haven. Dallas is my home, after all. 

It may not be that way forever, but for now—it is.

At the end of the movie, Martini gives Frances a knowing look.

Martini says, “I think you got your wish.”
“My wish?”
“On the day we looked for your snake, you said to me that you wanted there to be a wedding here.”
“Yeah.”
“And you said you wanted there to be a family here.”
Frances says, “You’re right. I got my wish. I got everything that I asked for.”

I have faith. And I will continue on the path laid before me, as I traverse only one step at a time.

Ask for what you want. And when you are still... it comes.

A Dream Deferred

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore—

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over—

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

(Poem by Langston Hughes, from the Dream Deferred Montage: Harlem) 

I strolled through the mall the other day and paused when I passed the piano store.

I’ve passed it many times. Usually I toss a quick glance across the name brands facing the windows, and I move on without slowing my pace.

But Saturday was different.

They had a Steinway in the window.

It was used. A five foot grand in perfect condition, with ebony lacquer finish—the only finish to get, in my opinion.

I had nothing else pressing to do, so I slipped inside and made my way to the bench without a sound.

I touched the keys.

Pressed down on a few.

Played a few chords, then a few arpeggios.

But it was calling me to really play it.

I relented.

Sitting down, my fingers fumbled over keys that long ago, I had spent so many years trying to know. For the first few minutes, I felt truly foolish sitting there, trying so hard to deserve the gorgeous sounds the keys made when pressed.

I took a deep breath.

All the memories came flooding back, in an instant. The memories of winning piano competitions, of auditioning for the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt, of sitting on the bench of Mrs. Hansen’s Steinway as she showed me her latest find at the music store—a piece called Toccata that I would instantly fall in love with…

It’s the first time I’ve actually sat at a Steinway in years, and I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: there is no piano like a Steinway. No piano feels the way a Steinway feels when you press the keys. No piano makes music the way a Steinway does. When I sit at a Steinway, I never want to stop playing, and the Steinway never wants me to stop, either.

I soon forgot I was sitting in a piano store in the mall. I became deaf to the voices mocking the huge price tag on this very piano as shoppers strolled by the window.

So quickly, I enveloped into my own little world, where only I and this perfect combination of black and white keys existed.

I played one of the only pieces I can still play—my own—a sort of half-piece I wrote many years ago, and never finished.

I can’t help but look at how many things I’ve started and never finished, and wonder where I may be standing if I actually had.

Those things don’t matter anymore. They’re in the past, and the past is all but forgotten.

I’m not a concert pianist as I once dreamed of being. I don’t even play anymore, except on a rare occasion here and there, where playing piano is akin to satisfying a need I can’t even describe—a need that absolutely nothing else will quench. Sometimes, playing is the only thing on my mind.

And sometimes, words fail. My emotions run too deep, and the only way to let them all out is through the keys.

It’s still my dream, though… one day, I want to own a Steinway.

Preferably a full concert grand. Nine long feet of piano, with its own room that I can close off and keep a constant perfect temperature so the piano stays as healthy as possible… and of course it would have to have its own room because of the cats.

Ideally, I’d like to buy it brand new. Order it to my customization and make trips to the factory to see it in its various stages.

It takes months to build a piano, you know.

I’d travel with it on the long journey home, and I’d celebrate its arrival with an in-home concert.

This is a big dream of mine, as a nine foot concert grand costs well over $100,000, and most folks don’t buy a Steinway brand new because of that.

But... you never know.

I may win the lottery someday. And if I do… a Steinway is most definitely on my list.

Until then, I’ll settle for stealing a few moments on a beautiful five footer at the piano store in the mall.

(If I close my eyes while I’m playing, I imagine myself on stage, about ready to give the performance of a lifetime…)