Exerpts From A Memoir I'll Never Write, Part 2

For Ms. Hsu and all the white marble grand Steinways she deserves to own

I always say that the first piece I ever learned on the piano was Radetsky March, but that's a shameless lie to make me seem cooler. 

In reality, the first piece I ever learned was Twilight. Haven't heard of it? Yeah. Me neither, and I'm the one who played it. Basically, you put your hand on five consecutive black keys (technically which ones they are matter, but one of the many joys of this pieces is that messing up is impossible) and then press, in order: 5-4-3-2-1-2-3, 1-2-4, 1-2-5, 5-4-3-2-1-2-3, 1-2-4-3. And repeat. 

That's it. That's the song. 

Back then, my idea of talent was speed and the least number of fingers touching the keys possible -- I learned how to play Twilight with three fingers, then two, then just one, sliding my hand up and down the keyboard so fast it sounded like I was glissando-ing. 

I played this piece every single week for years; occasionally, my piano teacher would suggest that I start class with any other warmup: "Sweetie, what about a scale? Hanon?". But she quickly realized that I was adament on performing Twilight, and so she became an Oscar-worthy actress: her eyes lit up, her hands clapped vehemently, her smile stretching across her small face. "You have the best memory!", or perhaps, "Your dynamics are so well done!". Once, she said, "I don't know how, but you've mastered legato, darling," as though I didn't learn it all from her.

Thankfully, I've graduated out of my Twilight phase (it's funny: most people who say that and mean something entirely different), and Ms. Hsu morphed from my doting piano teacher into my therapist, counselor, confidant, friend. She helped me choose the colleges to apply to, reading the Forbes rankings and asking her sons for their personal opinions on each school (given that they're both Harvard boys, it's no surprise I didn't apply to Yale). She yelled at my father once, for "forcing me into choosing a major I didn't love," and asked me if I needed help writing my supplementals -- if I did, she assured me, "well, that's the whole reason I had two children!"

She can play any piece with her eyes closed -- probably with her hands tied, too, though I've never tested that theory -- yet still teaches me that skill means nothing without passion. Her astounding intelligence and keen observations are only overshadowed by her humility. She's all my firsts, all my lasts. 

All my bests. 

It's not often someone like that is handed to you on a silver platter. 

A couple classes ago, as she was finishing up with the six year old boy who had class before me, I plopped down at her piano and began, almost out of muscle memory, to play Twilight. She rushes back in. 

"You know," she says, "you simply must buy yourself white marble grand Steinway when you're rich and famous."

Anyone who knows me at all knows that it took everything in me not to cry as she said this. "No," I told her. "I think I'll buy a Yamaha Grand instead. You know, since yours feels like home."