On Silence

He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him.
He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so there may be hope.
                     LAMENTATIONS 3: 28-29

When I finally quit playing the piano, the first thing I learned to appreciate was the possibility of my own silence. This was difficult. I’d played since I was four, and for almost twelve years I’d filled my life with music, performing and competing to the noise of concert programs, California state competitions. Beneath the pace of fingering practices, lessons in theory, and the lessons in stage presence, remains the youngest form of me, and I barely remember being there. I was a worn stripe down the Los Angeles highway, the girl between school, lessons, competitions, performance. I was the rustle of satin and cotton tights in the photographs that have streaked from a water pipe accident my mother had seven years ago. And now that I am immersed in my own silence, people treat me as though this music were a kind of being away, as if now were the time to question me for the unearthly details. “What did it feel like to perform?” they ask me. “How did you begin?” More confusing, they always ask, “Do you still play?”