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I heard the piano before I saw it. Its music floated through the old house, the decor of which appeared to have been untouched for decades. I walked toward the sound, passing glass tchotchkes, ornate chairs, and pots and pans stacked high in a kitchen where the walls and ceiling both were swathed in wallpaper covered in giant blue flowers climbing over gold trellises.
I had arrived at the estate sale looking for Pyrex bowls for a friend. I was not looking for a piano.
No one, it seems, is looking for a piano. I eavesdropped as the woman running the sale chatted to the shopper who had been playing the music. The saleswoman regularly runs estate sales for local families, and she lamented how often a sale ends with her throwing a perfectly good piano into a literal dumpster, the expense of moving it, the perennial lack of space for such an object, superseding its history, its potential.
About a year ago my middle daughter started taking piano lessons. Uncertain about her interest and commitment level, I had borrowed an electronic keyboard from my sister so that my daughter could practice. She was enjoying it and improving. Maybe I was looking for a piano. Still the $250 price tag seemed a bit much.
I wandered upstairs and into a tiny room, the walls of which were papered with memories: a poem, written on a typewriter, about turning 40 and watching too much TV; a greeting card that read “This is not a Hanukkah Card …” on the front and “… it’s a flat matzoh ball” on the inside. But my favorite was a card addressed to Bill and June, presumably the deceased homeowners, that read: “Here’s hoping that your cruise will be a perfect combination of enjoyable activity and pleasant relaxation.” It was signed from Myra and Sid and dated November 1967. Myra and Sid wrote that they hoped to see more of Bill and June. Nearly six decades later, I can only assume the card was saved because the friendship continued.
A fellow shopper beside me looked over the memories with interest. “Don’t their kids want any of this stuff?” she asked rhetorically.
Bill and June, it seemed, liked to save things. Our legacies are not in things, yet there is much that is worth holding onto. And so, I offered the saleswoman $50 for Bill and June’s piano, made in 1946 of dark brown walnut, with art deco details. And now it is my family’s piano, and it sits in our living room, and its music floats through our kitchen, which has lots of pots and pans but no wallpaper.
My daughter often walks in the door after school and puts down her backpack and starts to play a song. Sometimes it is a song she has perfected, other times it is a new song she is struggling with. Sometimes she sits there writing her own songs. Often, she plays while I prep food for dinner. I let the music wash over me like waves, and I can’t help but think Bill and June would agree that it feels like the perfect combination of enjoyable activity and pleasant relaxation.
