The sky is grey,
Tall buildings all around
My eyes turn to the girl,
the girl walking alone
down the street.
I’m invisible.
Through the rain
she walks,
Hood of her jacket
thrust back.
I’m invisible.
She stops,
stares,
at something that’s
not there,
Does she see
me?
I’m invisible.
She walks on,
her eyes
downcast
But she saw
me.
I’m invisible.
They don’t want
to see
me,
So they don’t.
No one does.
I’m invisible.
But she saw
me,
She knows
And that’s
enough.
A cigarette butt lies next to my foot, still emitting a trace of smoke. Nearby on the dusty asphalt a pigeon waddles self-consciously, bobbing its head as if pecking the air for some invisible food. A squirrel churrs a threat to his brother, challenging him to romp.
The walkway before me never becomes silent. A buzz of voices blends with the city soundscape of cars driving and trucks backing, swingsets squealing and sparrows chirping. A toddler, holding tightly to his sister’s stroller, yells “Achtung! Achtung! Achtung!” at a squirrel that crosses two inches from his foot. His mother comforts him, in German. A man sits down on the bench across from me, eyelids dropping on his creased red face as he stirs his cup of coffee.
The bench I sit on is green, painted over years of dents and names scratched in wood. My backpack sits to my left with its main zipper opened just wide enough for me to extract my notebook and pen. At my right is my suitcase. Its pockets are crammed full like the subway this morning, barely room left to breathe, creaking and complaining of the overburdening load.
The subway. A couple of hours ago it brought me here, and soon, I will hike the blocks back to the station, shoulder chafing from the suitcase, and it will bring me to the train station. I’m going home today.
At home, the mountain overshadows our farm in the same way that the thirty-story apartment building a block north overshadows this park. They both recede as they rise, shadowed places standing out against sunlit sides, seeming to hold themselves back from too much involvement with their surroundings. This building stands behind a wall of brick rowhouses like the low hill of alfalfa fields blocks a view of the lower reaches of the mountain.
The rowhouses’ potentially beautiful façade is marred by rusty air-conditioner units and a high trim of metalwork, corroded to a bright green, contrasting with the clean brick and the white window frames. Trees obscure my vision slightly, holding onto their last few dirty-brown leaves. A puff of air, cool enough to make you shiver but too warm for a jacket, rustles them.
Strains of harmonica waft from the park bench opposite me. A street musician of sorts has opened for business, a blue-green flowerpot at his feet. His nearly empty bag is next to him on the bench, surrounded by his array of harmonicas. A contented Labrador Retriever disinterestedly glances toward him, not missing of beat of his lazy gait. “Swing low, sweet chariot…” The man plays each line of music, then sings it. “Coming for to carry me home…”
Two benches to his left, a couple of students eat their lunch. One feeds pigeons that strut in a semicircle around his feet. A sudden crash from a nearby construction site sends every pigeon in the park into flight. Their wings create more noise than the blast that scared them.
A lady sits down next to me, lighting up a cigarette. The noxious gray fumes begin to flow from its burning tip. I think it’s time to leave.
1. Crystal
The elephant,
fragile, distorts the waves
trumbling out of the lamp,
and throws an angry rainbow
on the wall.
The earrings slip
out of the case, their icicles
hang from a screw, and drip light
on your shoulders.
In the valley that the snow cannot reach,
It is cold and dry; the ice on the mountain
Looks down at it and laughs.
2. Window
“You must hurry up if we are to make it.”
I lounge on the chair.
The creatures below carry their light well.
Ants with lanterns, they rush home with food.
At a certain line, the moon bends,
And the stream twists to get a better view of our room.
One creature looks up: me on the chair,
You at the mirror, and we giving them a light from above.
3. Windscreen
Soundless driving. In this cage, we hold
Ourselves together as best we can
By looking at a road… some road, this road.
A dog barks in the distance.
The windscreen does not let me see it.
4. Cup
The wine seeps into the deep red carpet,
And is lost.
The maid cleans up the pieces,
Relax,
It was not our cup.
Upon the sun-beaten hills
In the hot and citric embrace of the wind
Under the benediction of the coyote who loves
—the moon
Sanctioned by the sage and the deer, a quiet
—people without judgement
There dwells the Juniper, Old and gnarled
Arms open in an embrace of the midnight sky
He reaches to the stars in prayer and reverence.
His soft and weathered lips, whispering without
—sound
Waiting for the stars to answer back
Waiting for deliverance and absolution
I will miss him, that sad old man who is
—waiting
Lost in a world of which he is no longer a part and
yet still watches over
You see we are so much alike
My soul and I.
I strolled toward the double glass doors, deliberately kicking at a large spiky chestnut pod as I went. It skidded across the concrete and sent three more spike-balls rolling before toppling over the edge of the ramp. Gazing upward through the branches, which were camouflaged by green and brown splotched clumps of large, tear-drop–shaped leaves, I could see bits of crisp blue autumn sky. I repositioned the strap of my viola case on my shoulder. It’s too bad I can’t stay out here to enjoy the weather. At that thought, I slowed my walk. Why am I nervous? I’m more prepared for my lesson this week than I have been in a long time. The set of doors now loomed ahead of me, and I tugged one of them open, making my way up to the second floor of the building. I knew there was no reason for me to be nervous, but the butterflies flitting around in my stomach didn’t seem to care.
As I approached Dr. Sternberg’s office, his door came clearly into view—I always enjoyed looking at it. The dark wood could barely be seen beneath the dozens of cartoons pasted all over it. There was even a picture of Dr. Sternberg himself, with a carrot protruding from his mouth, and a sign below asking, “Do you know this man?” I smiled and could feel my anxiety floating away. Poking my head through the door, I spotted him working at his computer. Dr. Sternberg was in his mid-thirties, with dark hair and a beard he had just started growing over the summer. He looked up and smiled a greeting, motioning for me to come in. “So how are you doing, Miss Marie?”
“I’m fine,” I replied, closing the door and looking for a spot to set my case. The chair where I normally put it was stacked with papers, and there were orchestra parts, folders, CDs, and violin and viola music scores scattered in piles all over the floor. “How are you?”
“Good,” he said, before guiltily apologizing for the mess. We go through this exact conversation at the start of every lesson, I thought, smiling inwardly. I pushed some of the piles out of the way and laid my case down in the cleared spot. If he feels bad about this mess, then he should see my room—at least his stuff is in piles.
I unzipped my case and began getting my viola out. After clamping the shoulder rest in place and tightening and rosining my bow, I put my music stand in the middle of the room. Dr. Sternberg got up from his desk and came over to see what I had brought. Picking up the music and looking through it, he asked, “What’s on the agenda today—should we work on an etude, or did we do one last week?”
“We did work on one last week,” I began, “but after I played it, we got distracted talking about something else…”
“Imagine that…” he grinned.
I returned the grin and continued, “…and you forgot to give me something new to work on.”
“OK,” he said, scratching his beard and leafing through my etude book. “How about if we skip etudes for this lesson. I’ll put today’s date on this…” he scribbled 11/6 at the top of one page, “…and we’ll do it next week. Is that okay?”
“Sure,”I replied, not bothering to hide the note of happiness in my voice. Not etudes! Yes! This means we get to work on the fun stuff.
“Let’s dive right into the Vanhal then,” he suggested, walking over to his desk.
Nodding, I took a deep breath, prepared myself, and began playing the first movement of the concerto. After the first page I looked up to see if he wanted me to go on. He held up his hand, and I stopped.
“I just can’t figure out what’s going on with your bow hold,” he said. “I couldn’t do what you’re doing if someone held a gun to my head.” Oh, that, I thought. Is it still not right? We had been trying to figure out what my bow hand was doing for weeks but hadn’t been able. Somehow I was managing to keep my first, second, and fourth fingers curved on the bow, while the third finger would straighten itself out.
“Let me start by asking you some questions,” Dr. Sternberg continued. “Is your thumb losing its curve underneath the bow?” He illustrated what he meant on his bow. After trying it for myself, I told him I didn’t think so.
“Well then, do you feel like you are trying to push down with your third finger?” I tried that, too, but it didn’t feel like what I had been doing. He kept on asking me questions, and having me try different things until he suddenly had another idea.
“Try thinking of it as holding the bow with the tips of your fingers.” It worked! “Now play the beginning of the piece again.” I did what he asked and could tell he was getting excited. “What do you think?” he questioned.
“I think it’s better.”
“So do I—your hand looks much looser and more elegant.”
A little later in the same lesson, Dr. Sternberg switched the focus from bow to tone. We were working on a section with some relatively high notes when he asked, “Can you get a really big tone way up there? I don’t think you can do it—not the poor little sister of the violin. It’s just not possible, is it?”
“Yes it is,” I retorted. I could see the humor in his eyes and knew he was trying to get me worked up about it.
“Prove me wrong then,” came his playful challenge.
I put my viola on my shoulder and played, pulling my bow even closer to the bridge. I could feel the vibrations of the string in my bow hand, almost as if it was my hand touching the strings, not the bow. The sound spilled from my viola, rich and pure.
“Good! And you intuitively moved your bow closer to the fingerboard as you shifted back down. That was much better. You’ve practiced more this week, haven’t you?”
I nodded. He noticed a difference! The week before, I had gotten very little practice in, and this last week I had been trying to make up for lost time. It’s amazing what a difference three hours of practice can make.
While I was thinking, I took my viola down from my shoulder. It was then, however, that I realized my hair was caught in the shoulder rest. “You’re really getting ‘attached’ to your viola, aren’t you?” Dr. Sternberg teased.
“Yep,” I agreed, laughing as I tried to untangle it.
After my lesson was over, I walked up to the glass doors again and stepped out through them into the sunlight. The sky was still the same vibrant blue, and the chestnut seed pods still littered the concrete ramp. But there was a new lightness to my step, and a bubble of happiness inside me which felt ready to burst. It was wonderful seeing the progress I was making with Dr. Sternberg’s help. For the past few years, I had wanted so badly to play the viola as well as I could, and being able to see that I really was getting better made me feel light enough to float up among the clounds. I wonder if it works this way all the time? Would knowing I did my best at something, even if others could have done it better, make me feel this way in other areas, too?
Suddenly, I remembered something Dr. Sternberg had told me before. He said he had seen lots of students try to excel at too many things. It usually resulted in them being unable to do their best at anything. So, my thoughts continued, I should pick one thing to do my very best at, and then work hard in the other areas with the time and energy I have left. A smile of understanding slowly spread across my face. Through my lessons, Dr. Sternberg had taught me many things about playing the viola, but what I had just begun to understand was, perhaps, of even greater importance. I realized now that this truth, more than any technique, would allow me to reach my goal of playing the viola to the best of my ability. Sighing happily, I tilted my head upward, breathed in the refreshing fall air, and with a well-aimed departing kick sent half a dozen more spike-balls shooting off the ramp.
This essay was honored with the 2003 Frodo’s Notebook Essay Award in the annual Central Pennsylvania Scholastic Writing Awards.
Someday, this will be mine
This cold salted slab
An extension of myself.
It will crack and freeze,
In the fall it’ll cover
With red and pale orange leaves
In the summer it’ll clutter
With mothers and stroller babies.
I’ll live in these suburban castles,
And kiss my wife goodnight—
A ritual of eightteen years
From our wedding night.
We’ll be fighting our heavy
Eyelids, about half past nine
We’ve got to get up early
We’ll be working nine to five.
I’ll carpet bare floor.
Fine art will cling to my walls.
And I’ll slide the deadbolt
To keep the outside out.
I’ll sit by the brick fire
Reading in its warm light
One of the countless volumes
That my towering bookcase stores.
I’ll be a family man.
I’ll leave bright blue bulbs
Along my fine French doors.
Like harbor reflections of moonlight,
They’ll stay long past the new year
Breaking away the dark night
From my red minivan
And its double sliding doors.
I’ll read to Steve
And ask him what he’ll be;
Then I’ll sing to Suzie
Before sending her to sleep.
I’ll wonder what they’re dreaming,
Their breathing steady and soft;
I’ll lose track of their sizes;
Lord, they used to be so small.
I’ll stand in the warmth behind
My double picture window,
Looking at what I’ve shoveled
A few hours before.
Remember leaning a shovel
On my hardy potbelly
And thinking to myself
“Why’d I do this for?”
And I’ll snap back to my window,
My study light casting a glow.
Then I’ll see him running;
Hooded head sprinkled with snow.
I’ll see his breath
Frozen life, rejoining air,
And I’ll wonder if he
Is the boy I used to be.