The Perfect Instrument

This morning I had a conversation with Heather, my little, three-octave, Celtic harp. She was given to me by a sister harper, with the admonishment that, when I was ready for another instrument, she be passed on to a new learner. Heather is a learning harp, you see. Her small stature and lovely sound box make her a perfect palette for someone new to the instrument.

I had conversations, yesterday, with Jeremy, my well-traveled Spanish guitar. He had just arrived at the home of a friend who will love, care for, and hold him in trust for our reunion. I admit I have been absent in his life for a bit now and neither of us is happy about this state of affairs.

These conversations were long overdue. Conversations with Jeremy began when I was a little girl.

“You know she needs a better guitar.” My teacher was making himself less than popular with my Mum at that moment. I was eleven and had outgrown my Dad’s old Gibson with its folk orientation, narrow neck and iffy sound.

“This is her father’s guitar.”

“I understand, but if she is serious about this, and she seems to be, then…”

“I suppose we will have to find her something.”

I was going to get a new guitar? My own? Thrilled doesn’t begin to describe what I was feeling. I wanted to play the guitar before my hands were big enough to manage it… just like the piano, which I had begun at six years old. Guitar came into my life at nine. Finally!

I don’t know where Mum found Jeremy, except that he was custom-built by a father-and-son company in California. Apparently the intended recipient did not collect him, so he ended up with me. Beautiful, rosewood and maple body, with a lovely inlay around the sound hole.

It was love at first sight, let alone strum. And that was that. We were a couple. Jeremy went everywhere with me that circumstances would allow. Dad sighed heavily on seeing me heading to the family car with Jeremy in one hand and whatever else in the other.

“Does the guitar have to come along this time?”

Mum finally began answering for me, especially on long trips like driving from Ohio to Florida for school holidays, where interior car-space was at a premium with four children in tow.

“Now Dear… you know Jeremy is coming along. Besides, how will she play for us without him?”

That last had its flip-side as the years went by and “Play something,” became a demand rather than an invitation. But, for twenty or thirty years, Jeremy and I were inseparable.

When I began to travel internationally for work and play, Jeremy and I moved into a more long-distance kind of relationship that neither one of us was happy about. What became readily apparent was that Jeremy had been the one true friend I could count on. Not only did he compliment my mental and emotional states with superb sound, but he was good for a cuddle, albeit a crunchy one, every… single… time. No excuses, never too busy, never distant when held in my arms.

Heather came into my life rather more lately. She literally landed in my lap, placed there by another student of my about-to-be harp teacher. The gift of a learning harp was to be re-gifted, passed along, to another musician when ‘the time came’.

I thought that time was, now.

“I want to go where Jeremy goes. Why does he get to be at a friend’s house, waiting for you, and I need to be re-homed?”

“I promised, Heather. I promised that when I was ready for a more advanced harp with a wider range, I would let you move on to another new learner, who would love you for allowing them to learn.”

“Don’t you love me anymore?”

“Of course I do. I will always love you. You helped me to begin. I learned to love the feel of a harp because of you. I learned that ‘piano’ can be played ‘sideways!’”

“No, you learned that harp can be played ‘sideways’ and they call it a piano.”

“I suppose it does depend on one’s point of view. And, since you brought it up, you will notice that my grand piano now lives with a lovely community music program and my last little upright lives with a little boy who wants to ‘be Ray.’”

“I only knew the second piano. I knew she was too big and heavy for you to bring along in your new life. It made you sad. This makes all of us sad.”

“All of us?”

A definite resonating quiver shook my little harp.

“All of us. You, me, Jeremy, your harp teacher who would really want you to be practicing (ouch) and… other people.”

“Would you really like to go along with Jeremy? It will still be a little while before we can play together again.”

“I don’t think you are finished learning from me yet. You could get a new harp when we’re finished, don’t you think?”

“You would like to be introduced?”

“Yes. It is only polite, after all. Jeremy helped us to become acquainted.”

“And he was not in the slightest bit jealous of you, you might remember.”

“No, that was Roshini. She stalked me and growled at me to make me vibrate. She thought it was strange that I sat on the ground next to her and talked to her but couldn’t move.”

“Puppies are like that. They know everything is alive. She wanted you to pounce and play with her. Later, she understood.”

“She never liked it when you held me instead of her.”

“I’m not sure that is completely true, but nice try.”

“Please don’t send me away yet.”

“You win. You know it breaks my heart. And yet… there are more instruments waiting for me. There are more Scottie bodies for me to cuddle in this lifetime. There are always more instruments for the light to play.”

“Just for awhile longer then. You never know, your friend might want to learn…”

“That’s true. She might. Though she would have to take that up with ‘Bella, the Cella.’”

“I’ll take my chances,” Heather sighed, finally.

“Besides, we can ladle love together when you come to collect me.”

“We can do that, yes. Okay then. We’ll have another go.”

“Jeremy said to tell you that. He said that would ‘get you’.”

“Smart companion, that one.”

“You two will have to wait a bit longer for my travels to settle into some kind of adaptable-to-instruments flow. What do you have to say to that?”

“PLAY ME!” This time, from both instruments, all at once and loudly.

What is the perfect instrument? It turns out they come in all shapes and sizes. Love does not limit her expression to a time or a place or the shape of a space. {or the shape or size of a sound box, of any biological persuasion}

“Okay luvvies. See you soon.”

“Promise?”

“I will do my best, just as you have always done for me.”

With that, something felt like home to me. A settling of the heart that deeply rests. The promise of love, shared and expressed.