The "Artifact"

A week ago, a friend sent me a text. She said her son had an "artifact" for me and that it was very heavy. A cheeky-peek picture showed me something with lots of metal strings. That next weekend when I visited my friends, I was about to meet the newest addition to my home.

The "artifact" was indeed heavy. It was the soundboard of a deceased Baldwin upright piano from the 1960's. Cast iron. Weighing hundreds of pounds. Took four people to get it into the trunk of my Toyota Corolla which was then very obviously weighed down by it. Thankfully, none of my tires blew out! But man, did my car sound haunted on the trip back home!

Currently, the "artifact" rests on a guest bed. It's job has been to shock and amuse my grandmother on a recent visit and to delight my children with spooky sounds. The strings can be strummed or hit or slid across for different effects. Weirdly enough, this IS the piano. None of the rest of what once stood around it and was most visibly associated with the identity of a piano was necessary for it to be an instrument that produced sound. This is the heart.

Still, why does this heavy artifact matter so much to me now? There's a special connection. First of all, the memory of the first encounter with it and the laughter of trying to struggle to get it into my car is what makes it mean so much more than the sound it produces or the weight that it throws around.

Secondly, so many things in my life are heavy. I have lived through emotional abuse, religious trauma, special needs challenges, isolation, and financial insecurity for so many years. Things have improved this past year. But the journey remains heavy. And that in turn has inspired so much more music from me.

So much that I never knew was inside of me erupted into music as my life bore down into pain. It's as if it took seeing the rumors and dreams and ideologies and past hopes and naivety that had encased my inner sound board fall apart and burn for me to recognize that the most solid gift lay inside of me still. Thankfully, I have also discovered that there are at least a few people in my life who are willing to struggle with the weight of both my challenges and gifts along with me. And they truly do make the journey and its weight worthwhile.