A/N: I spent a lot of time on this one, so I hope that you like it. xD Also, I know next- to- nothing about the technical elements of music, so go easy that... Please review, if you have time!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything!
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Natalie Goodman
Yale School of Music Application Essay
Essay Choice #2: How has music affected your life?
Broken Keys
If music were a religion, then the piano would be my savior. I grew up in a very un-stable household. I'm sure you'll receive essays from students who visited or are from third world countries, who have lived through the horrors of war, who have survived rare Cancers- my story isn't as epic as their- but it's mine. It's a story.
I have grown up with mother who has Bipolar Depression with delusional episodes. When I was 11, her dosage of Xanax, an anti- anxiety and panic disorder medication, was just upped. We thought that she responded well to Xanax, so Dad didn't think that a few hours alone be an ussue. (This was before things went from bad to worse.) Well, mom fell into a deep sleep and little did she remember that she had left a dishtowel on the stove next to a burning pot of chili cooking on an open flame. Tom next door called the fire department, but by the time they got there, mom was unconscious from the combination of medicine and smoke and our house, the epic red door, and everything else we owned, was ash.
I don't know if there's a God (or many Gods), but I believe in a God of music, because while the house on Walton Way was burning down, I got my first piano solo. It was for my sixth grade music class's Winter Concerta. I couldn't have gotten through the loss of material things, my mom in the hospital, and my dad left to pick up the pieces of everything, without the excuse to spend all of my extra time in the practice room and escape to a place where I didn't have to think about my parents and the house that I no longer had to go home to (the one room apartment was not optimal for piano practice). Also, though I'll never tell anyone, I used to play Verdi for my mom, and she would always fall asleep. I have always been terrified that if I play it for her at home again, she will fall asleep, and accidentally light the house on fire again.
I got my driver's permit the day I turned 15 and a half- I was looking forward to driving myself to piano lessons and being able to spend all of my extra time on the baby grand in the practice room at high school. Dad wouldn't have to pick me up at 4, on his way home to check on mom, before he went back to work until late. That year, mom's medicines were all "working" well enough that the doctors approved her to drive, and therefore teach me how. One day, we were driving around the neighborhood and mom was giving me a couple of tips. For a while, I forgot about my mom's illness and how things could change without notice. I have since learned never for a moment forget that things can change without a moment's notice. "Pull into the driveway." I remember mom instructing me. I began to park exactly how my Dad had previously instructed me. "Stop!" my mom screamed loudly and reached over and grabbed the steering wheel, which swirved the car. I felt several small, distinctive crunches from beneath the Honda's tires. In the following moments, I would learn that we crushed my cat, my sole companion on the nights that mom and dad would spent out at doctors or on dates, pretending to be a "normal" (well, next to "normal") couple. "Sorry," I remember my mom's words clearly. "I thought I saw a boy." I would later learn that boy to be my dead brother who died before I was born. I didn't know what to do then, so I ran into my house, up the stairs, into my bedroom, and locked the door. I played a song or mourning for my dad cat, I played a song of confusion, because I couldn't help but blame myself for my mom's actions. Back then, I didn't understand that no one could be blamed for mom's actions; not even mom.
Two years ago, I was at my swim meet. I was set to swim freestyle in the co-ed division semi- finals. I dove in- I had finally perfected my dive and I was feeling confident for the race. Suddenly, I felt the waves of someone else jumping in the pool. I didn't stop. Instead, I continued to the end of the pool, did my turn, and allowed myself a glance at whatever had "fallen" into the pool. It was my mom! I don't remember the details of that day; time has allowed me to block out the scene that has often played in my head, but I do remember where I went afterwards. I went to my piano, and I played every emotion until I was numb. And when I'm numb, I can thing without the sharp pang of emotions playing though my body like a high E. The lesson that I learned that day wasn't about my mom, but about the piano. I learned that although I love to swim, at the end of the day, I will be playing the piano.
Last year was a very challenging year for my family. I know that I shouldn't be talking, seeing as I've grown up in a middle-class suburban existence, but it doesn't mean that middle- class life doesn't have it's complications. Last year was also one of the most perspective- changing years of my life. One day, I was practicing a Motzart piece in the practice room for my recital, when this kid who I had seen before waltzed through the door, like it was his turn on the Gershwin (It was Piano Sonata No. 16, okay?) Initially, I was annoyed that he had interrupted my practice time, as I had just gotten lost in the song after a particularly diffuicult and sleepless night at home. It didn't take long for his humor to lighten my day- and he knew about music, too! I didn't talk to many people back then, because every time I did, disaster usually followed. I soon learned that my new friend's name was Henry, and it wasn't long until we were having discussions about classical music versus improvisational music. Of course, I had only played classical music, at that point, but Henry did almost everything by improvisation. I played classical music, because there is only one way to play it- one thing to focus the mind on- one care in the world. So if I can make a song exactly a certain way, then I was perfect, and everything else in my life went away, and I was, if even for a brief moment, content.
Henry questioned my view about the same time that my mom's health went down. At home, my mom had just attempted suicide and the doctors said that my mom could be a candidate for electroshock therapy. Also at home, I found some of the pills that my mom wasn't taking- I think that they were Xanax, Adderall, and Robitussin- and took them all at the same time, then went to a series of different night clubs. I found release in the static- beat that played so loud nothing could be thought about except the beat and the moment. Mixed with alcohol and pills, I didn't think much about my mom, my dad, Henry, college, all of my extra- curricular activities, or my dead brother. As I got further away from the piano, I lost more and more of myself. The less I played piano, the more I put more I put into my system. And instead of targeting the drugs and alcohol, I was targeting Henry, my friend. I should have realized that Henry loves music so much, that he is the music. He is his own unattainable note. So, as Henry pulled me away from the substances, he pulled me closers to the music.
My earliest memory is of when I was five years old. I was sitting on the floor of my dad's office, tracing a piano from one of the interior design magazines in my dad's architecture business offices. I colored it in a While my dad was working hard on the plans for the house that he was designing, a soft, sweet, melodic piano piece played in the background. It was like the kind that they play in fancy department stores, but with more pure intentions and a lasting impression of a feeling on me. The feeling that I got that day, I felt once again, when my mom back in with her parents, it's the feeling that I get when I know that my dad loves me unconditionally, it's a feeling that leaves me thinking that I can fly anywhere I want to, it's the feeling that every eye in the room is on my music, and the knowing that I am not invisible.
It's just dad and I now, and that's been hard on him. It's not because he doesn't love me, it's because my mom has been with him for so long, and she is such a huge part of him, that he has been left to learn who he is without her. That day, I colored- in a non-descript piano a shade of violet purple. The purple is the same color of the bruising that my mom got when she fell down the stairs after the wrong dose of something. But there is something to be said for sharing the coloring with a bruise. A bruise is under the skin, but in time, it will change colors and heal, as if it were never there. A bruise is a reminder that blood is flowing through the system, and that the body who the system belongs to, is very much alive and the body very much has blood that is flowing.
In combination with therapy, a low dosage of Celexa, which I take for my anxiety, a dad who loves me, a mom who is making her way through an emotion plateau for the better, and a supportive friend named Henry, the piano is an essential part of my being. I would love nothing less than to be able to study, critique, and grow with you all at Yale. I am not perfect, I know that I'm not; but as Henry has taught me, perfection doesn't create music, imperfection does. It's about learning to love the perfectly imperfect. It's about learning to love the chipped ivory keys and the strained strings; it's about learning to play an out of tune piano. It's about maybe, just maybe, accepting that my mother is exactly like the piano.
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"Nat?" Henry asked, suddenly appearing behind Natalie, who was hard at work on her application essay on the computer in the school library.
"What?" Natalie demanded to know in a hushed- whisper, slightly annoyed that someone was interrupting her concentration.
Looking up and turning around, Natalie saw that the person was Henry, and she relaxed a little. "Yeah, Henry?" she asked, her voice slightly softer.
"Music Gods?" Henry raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah…?"
Natalie expected Henry's arms fling open, encompass her, and his voice cracked, "I'm so proud!" or some other equally as humorous tease. Instead, Henry gently wrapped his arms around her, pressed his right cheek to her left one, and whispered, "I love you."