The New Year

2011 is off to an anticlimactic start. Ever since I came back from Las Vegas with my best friend Marie for the new year, I've had little to do, so I really want to go back to school. Being back at home with mom and dad is so dull and sad. I'm locked up in this house all day since there is nothing to do in Scripps Ranch. It wouldn't be so bad if the piano was still here. My dad, in some sick and vicious mindset, has finally put a flatscreen tv in every single room in the house except the bathrooms and laundry room. The last TV to be put in was the 50' plasma in the great room, replacing my Bechstien German piano. It's gone.

I loved that piano. It arrived at my house mysteriously one summer afternoon when i was 14. I came home from a day at the beach, and crammed in the front doorway was a large brooding mexican man and his sturdy wife, pushing a big, black, dusty piano. When the piano was moved into the great room, the man played me a few numbers including 'Hey Jude' by the Beatles. The song filled the entire house in a dark, melodic tone. I wanted to fill the house with that beautiful sound after they left. So i benched myself in front of the stained ivory keys and began to tap out my favorite tunes.

Over the years, I taught myself chords and melodies on that piano from what little memory was left of my musical database. I sang along with 'Colors of the Wind' and other Disney songs before moving to the pop stylings of Lady Gaga and a favorite ballad of mine, 'Jar of Hearts' by Christina Perry. That piano was an everlasting source of intrigue and discovery. I wanted to learn all of my favorite songs. I was getting so good, and filling my house with that piano's rich sound made my heart flutter.

I came back from Las Vegas to see the new flat screen proudly mounted in the alcove where the piano had sat. I could see its dusty shadow remaining on the wood floor below, freshly plucked from my home. How sad. That beautiful instrument, art creating art, was replaced by the epitome of what my parents have become: television. Mindless, lazy, bored, stagnant, spoonfed. It's a miserable glow, one that brings insomnia of the brain. Awake, but lifeless and empty. The piano that sat there before was beautiful, engaging, creative, mysterious and full of heritage.

I am mourning a vicious death. A personal stab at something I loved, taken away from me and replaced with an instrument that slowly kills my family. I am actually shedding tears over a piano, yes. But i mourn for more than that. The vividness, whatever was left in this house, has been squeezed out finally. The last piece of the human mind eliminated. My house is all TVs now. I miss my piano and I want to go back to school.