Story of Paperclippe:

              A woman, who has been a gift, told me that this morning.

              I am remembering, and remembering well.

              When I was a child, I had a piano, and not just any piano: I had an upright Steinway grand.  It had to be a hundred and twenty-five years old, and it was stellar.  I spent time with it every day.  I was small, maybe five or six, hardly more, but I loved that piano, and even then, I knew it was worth more than the emotions I alone imparted upon it; I knew it was worth more than the ridiculous sum of money I thought it was worth (despite it having been free in the Pennysaver from someone who probably just needed it to be gone).  I knew it was important.  It was music, and it was history, and it was love.

              But it was also old, and each time it was played, it sounded worse and worse.  My mother had it looked at to see what, if anything, could be done, but after so much time, it was fragile; the once straight, silver strings within the piano were warped and would have to be replaced, the worn-out hammers refitted.  We were living on food stamps then; we couldn’t afford cable TV or a Nintendo, let alone refitting an antique piano.  So, instead, I watched PBS and I read, and my mother and I would play our hearts out on the old, warped piano, and we didn’t care that our favorite tunes from Jesus Christ Superstar didn’t sound much like the album anymore.  She played and I sang and after a while I played, too, despite the tone-deaf Steinway.

              Then came the time when we, too, had to move, and once more, the piano had a family that needed the instrument to be gone.  So my father (a fine musician himself, but with a more easily-restrung instrument, the guitar), perhaps not wanting to see music be forgotten or left to strangers who, upon moving in, would not know its worth, would not care about its past, or perhaps just wanting to give it to someone who he knew would and could use it, gave the piano to a good friend of his called Jay, who had a son who could learn to play too, in time; a friend who maybe could restore it, or maybe not, but at least it would not be gone or forgotten.

              I went and visited my piano a few times with my father, but I then grew up and got too busy, forgot to visit, and after a while, the memory of my beloved piano faded away until I was old enough to really care to remember it and take care in remembering it: to research it, to find out the monetary cost of such an experienced instrument, and the historical value.  As it turned out, it had earned a lot of both.  I remembered my warped piano then, and I was angry: angry that I had had to give my treasure away; angry that I no longer even possessed a real piano; angry, too, at the less-than-stellar keyboard to which I’d since been demoted, which was born of plastics and would age far worse than my sturdy, cherished Steinway.

              But my anger would burn out; I knew the piano was in good hands, even if those hands had painted on the keys an acrylic rainbow to make the notes, the warped sounds the piano produced, easier to remember. Of those hands, I have a memory.

              Jay’s son and I would play the piano, when I did visit its new home.  Later in the evening, I would sit on the wooden piano bench and my father’s friend would tell me about the universe, about space and time.  He had a pocket watch on a chain.  Jay would take the silver chain and fold it over on itself, and he would explain to me that the universe: its buoyant, bright stars and super-massive black holes; its huge, nebulous gasses where stellar bodies were born and tiny, rocky planets where human bodies were too, folded on itself as well; that time warped space and space warped time, and that space and time were one, together; that time, like space, could be shaped, and he would say all of this with the watch on the end of the chain, the clock hanging limply at the edge of space in a small, silver universe, and it would tick away the time quietly in the background of my impromptu astro-quantum-physics class, never interrupting, but persistent.  Even at six, at seven years old, I came to understand that this was the important part of the lesson.  At the forefront of my brain, I wanted to be a physicist.  At the back, I was aware that time stretched on, fused with space as it was, and even if I missed something that Jay had said on those nights, I am forever glad I did not entirely skip the lecture.

              Last night, I mentioned my piano to a good friend while we talked, and the evening passed.

              This morning, I was told that Jay had passed last night.

              Though I have grown up, and had only visited a few times, I do miss him.

              “To be well-remembered is a gift,” a cherished woman told me this morning.  I believe her, and I believe, in time, I will remember her well.

              I also still believe in physics, and maybe now I believe in a little of the metaphysical.  I believe that time warps space and space warps time and that the two will never be parted.  I believe all of us affect and are affected by space and time, since, in the words of another man from my childhood who is also now gone and missed, “We are star-stuff.”

              I know that being well-remembered does not allow us to interrupt the persistently short time we are given, as the ticking watch at the end of a small, silver, chain-link universe always knew, but I believe that it can be warped into the best shape that our stellar masses and minds can form, if we remember, and remember well, for as another man who affected my youth but was gone long before I could miss him had said, “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”

              I have decided to remember the time, and time, remember well, because that same, stellar woman also told me this morning, “Those that are remembered, are never really gone.”

              ~*~

              Below the cut are (perhaps selfish) dedications and thank yous for the creation and exponential, infinite expansion of my mind and self: things I have wanted to say, things I should have said already, and things I say too much.

For my father: I love you, Dad, and I hope you’re holding up okay today.  I know he was a good friend to you.  Thank you for the guitar, for letting me skip school to play it, and for intentionally making me teach myself.  It’s your fault I never learned any country, then.


For my mother: You deserve more credit than you get, more than I have ever given you. Thanks for the piano.  I should get you another; your playing inspired me to reteach myself.  You underestimate your talent, and I underestimate your utterly bizarre (but completely understandable) love of Muse.  I love you.


For you both, though you have parted ways from each other since the time the piano parted ways from us: Thanks for naming me after a song; for giving me the best tools you could provide; for listening to my young, fumbling fingers on strings and keys, my small voice as it grew into songs and opinions, my naive words as I began to neglect forte and piano in favor of  first-person perspective and faulty parallelism; thank you for the music you wrote in my heart, the blank staff paper you left in my head, the songs and symphonies that I now know I can never give up though I tried my hardest just to write, or even call music a hobby and not a passion, not even for all my writing motifs and metaphors and moods and one seriously failed attempt at being an English major, not even for the stories and essays you’ve bothered (or were forced by me) to read (probably like this blog).  And especially not for the ones you won’t.  Ever.  Read. Ever.


For my brother, too, possibly too young to remember pianos and particle physics during late evenings with older people’s friends (do you?):  You have developed a mature, reasoned, impressive taste in music with nearly no influence from me.  Your mind is more open to the world than I thought and you have a fine ear for details.  Thanks for liking the same brooding, sarcastic, minor-key and majorly strange things I do; it’s good to talk with you again, now as adults.  You probably won’t even read this.  Jerk.

For Chris, whom I love and refuse to be parted from even when you totally don’t get it and think I must be very, very tired (you’re right, I probably am.  I usually am): Thank you for trying to understand my musical rants when you can’t read or play music and sort of hate my taste in it, for listening to me bitch about literature without ever having read what I have, but trying (and often times succeeding) to debate the finer points of second-person narrative, and for not kicking me to the curb when I’m sure there were times you wanted to and I deserved it.  Yes, I know, there were times when you deserved it too. Because I love you, that’s why.  Because I said so.  No, I can’t give you an example.   Just… go away. I’m writing important things on the internet.  …PS: Can you feed the cat? Before he completely chews my foot off?   Yes, I know, he loves me too.  PPS: Stop picking on Meludaria.  And tell Brenda I said hi.  PPPS: Warriors do so suck more than Paladins, and I’ll finally be able prove it to you when I reactivate my accounton July 7, when you start your new job; congratulations! [U r t3h m0a5t l33t g33k 1n m1 <3] Now will you please feed the cat, he’s dying.  Look at him.


For Kristen, the newest and most unlikely member of my ‘family’: I hope you don’t mind me calling you that, but you have given me more hope, inspiration, and laughter since we met only months ago, beneath the leaky and unnecessary virtual storm-shelter of one-hundred-and-forty-characters-per-Tweet than some ‘more-real’ ‘friends’ had and have given me in my entire life.  I am completely unafraid to stand in the thunderstorm of reality with you.  I hope you’re not wearing any metal.  You are truly a stellar (stellar; STEHL-ur {not to be confused with Pittsburgh sport(?) team STIHL-urs, which is not only not a word, but is also nowhere near as stimulating as watching the Penguins kick the Flyers to the curb – and sending their teeth after them in bags – on the first night we ‘met,’ which I’m still calling ‘a sign’, and also, ‘fucking awesome’} [adj], slang [hippies, people who still think it's the 80s]: awe-inspiring, out-of-your-way-going, snog-mongering, home-driving, Lady-Gaga-shot-taking, comfort-food-encouraging, migraine-counseling-and-cosuffering-I’m-sorry-you-feel-like-shit, jukebox-feeding, respect-earning, viciously-intelligent) friend, and a stellar (stellar; STEHL-ur [adj], astronomy [Carl Sagan, Michio Kaku]: anything born of glowing fairy space dust, of which we are all made, – and which is a pretty alright Moby song, considering it’s Moby – together; of or relating to stars or stellar events, which are flaming balls of fabulous, hot, bright, nuclear, and of course, potentially deadly elements, so I guess we are all of that, too, right?) sister.


For Mike:  You let me invade your personal music space, steal your tunes, and force my tunes on you; you’ve bought lunch in Pittsburgh when you have no idea what ‘cole slaw’ means in Pittsburgh (or ‘sandwich,’ apparently), and you’ve taught me more than a thing or two about the illustrious history of the noble bloodsport we sometimes call hockey and never call during, because we’re busy watching hockey, damn it.  I mean, you’re hosting this very site at this very minute (which was your first real mistake).  You’re a god damned enabler, that’s what you are.  Thank you, and prepare the fallout shelter.


For Carl Sagan, who taught me humanity was probably doomed but didn’t have to be if we could just Plan A: get along, or Plan B: not build stupid fucking nuclear weapons that we build because our leaders are insecure about science, their fellow leaders, and the respective sizes of said leaders’ male genitalia (and are too busy wondering what science can do about that to dismantle the nukes; it’s a wonder we ever got ‘em built, actually); what is this, a Matthew Broderick flick?: Thank for being an inspiration, for being a child at heart, for being an adult in mind, and for using small words when I was small, and big words now that I’m big (figuratively, anyway).  You will never be replaced.

For JRR Tolkien: Thank you for the the eucatastrophe (a sudden swelling of good overcoming evil in the darkest hour; the opposite of a catastrophe; something we could all use every now and again; something that never happens on Lost – or does it?!), for the Elves, for the Hobbits, (and Dwarves and Men, I guess…) and for the foresight to write down all of the beautiful places you traveled inside your mind while grading shit term papers, even if you did end up writing them on the backs of shit term papers.  Thank you for love-everlasting even when life is short, and for knowing what really matters in life: Good friends, good food, good drink, and good tobacco/Music, family, stories, and green things that can grow.


And for Jay: I hardly knew you, but I know you believed in seven-year-old girl with a piano: believed that she could not only understand, but appreciate and enjoy emerging quantum theory, even if she wasn’t so hot on math; believed that you could treat her like an adult.  You were right, and I will never stop appreciating that.  Thank you.  May whatever lies before now you be full of the music of the spheres, the stars, and peace in between them.

Tags: blog, dad, death, dedication, emotional, feelings, footnote, friends, friendship, jay, kristen, love, memory, mike, music, nostalgia, personal, physics, piano, quote, space, time   Posted Personal Essays |