Today I bought a piano from a Craigslist posting my roommate saw a few weeks ago. It's a 60s-era Kimball upright, small and delicate. I chatted with the man I bought it from for quite a while--he was a conversational, cheerful fellow. It belonged to his mother years ago in New York. It grew up on the LES, on E Houston Street, I think he said. She bought it because she was seeing a musician, and she thought it might be nice to have him play on it. Well, the man didn't stick but the piano did. It moved from the 4th-story walk-up out to Arizona in the 80s, I think.
He was selling it because his mother passed away, and he recently got divorced. His wife and children moved to Texas and she remarried. He said he'd kept it thinking that maybe his daughter would learn to play, but that wasn't going to happen now, so he might as well sell it.
As we were loading it, he said, "I'm so glad it's going to a good home. I'm so glad you're going to take care of it." Then, as we were getting ready to drive away, he patted the slim little front leg and said, "I'm going to miss it, you know. It's sort of like a baby to me. I'm going to miss it."
Now it is sitting in my living room, badly in need of a tune but otherwise in beautiful shape. I look at it and think about those days in New York, with merry young people in the heyday of the 60s, and how much splendid, brash life it saw then. I think about the move to Phoenix when it was still an infant city, and how the instrument must have mellowed as the New Yorker settled and raised children and passed it on to her son. I wonder about the sweet early married days and the children, and the split, and the long long decision of finally parting with it for a trifle. I wonder if the room feels emptier tonight, with the symbol gone and all the memories floating about with nowhere to settle. But I'm glad he told us, and passed the piano on to us, and I will try to remember for him.
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