The Music Box Dancer

This one's for you mom.

You know how smells can bring you instantly to a memory of something? Maybe something you haven't thought about in years? Well, that happened to me today, but, with music.

On Thursdays after school, the piano class is held in my room. Eight keyboards with elementary students of all different (beginning) levels. Mostly it's a lot of fun noise (they don't use headphones) as two Indian piano teachers walk around and tutor each of the students. One of my fourth grade girls had her keyboard set up closest to my desk. As I was working on some lesson plans she and her instructor started playing.

Suddenly, I was 8 or 9 years old again, sitting in my parent's basement at the piano, in my pajamas (pink floral- the ones that my best friend Ann and I both had so we would match), with wet hair after having showered, playing the same song-- The Music Box Dancer. I was seriously there for an instant. I remembered how much I practiced that song, how much I loved it (especially when I could play it fast) and that I got to play it on the high part of the piano and how cool I thought that was. How crazy our brain is! Why did such a VIVID and distinct memory stay lodged way deep in there for so long, totally forgotten, to then resurface 20 years later, with an Indian piano instructor teaching a Korean student in my classroom in Mumbai.

Random, surreal, and precious.

Love,
Rachel