the world a letter

Last night I spent a little time on my grandfather’s piano. I was never able to understand how to play such a thing, confused from the beginning by any instruction at all. But now that he is gone and it is ours, I sit at it, alone, and peck out simple songs, using the insertional ‘sheet music’ from my son’s zither as a guide. Playing music is really something, last night after half an hour at “Michael Row Your Boat Ashore” I was able to sustain certain emotions which I think would be difficult to with poetry. But I remember how happy I used to be with what now would seem only a bathetic & disjointed scribble, so this feeling might be due to the blessed ignorance of beginning. All the same, I'm excited to finally be learning to play an instrument. It's nice to be satisfied with plinking out a simple tune.
Now that my grandfather is no longer here, I have his piano and no audience (beyond memory and its attendant emotions), and that has made it easier to try my hand. I have always had an awful fear of offending, both with ill-talent as well as opinion. So why a blog from me? In addition to the reasons I started describing below, I have one more. That is, I am recovering interminably from an interminably chronic illness, and really have much less of a community than I think I ever have before. I can’t work, and conversation even is taxing, and I have not been able to maintain any but the closest and most indulgent friendships over these past four years. So this medium seems ideal, because there are lots of intelligent and talented people to potentially converse with concerning a topic I love and need to maintain a self-ness in, and I can do so at my own pace, as my energies dictate; that is, here is a high-level discourse I can give a go at. Besides, I’ve always found the epistolary model attractive, and this, as an extra-dimensional manifestation of that model, feels potentially vital.