The fantasy always begins the same way: I’m alone in a crowd. There are snatches of conversation, laughter over stereo music. Maybe it’s a house party or a holiday gathering, but I don’t know anybody. Whoever brought me has dissolved among the unfamiliar faces, leaving me alone with my second napkinful of sweaty cheese cubes and chocolate-covered pretzels. I scan rooms, pretending to look for someone I know. But really, I’m looking for a dog to pet, another cheese spread, any small escape.
Then I see it: an empty bench. And without ceremony, I sit, with one foot lightly touching the pedal, ready to begin. In the fantasy, the notes start soft, like the first flakes of snow, but soon people notice. The stereo music gets turned down. Someone whispers, “Who’s that?” In the boldest versions, another guest slides onto the bench beside me and we duet, falling into a rhythm that ends with the whole room singing.
The setting might change – a piano in a café, in a park, in a hotel – but in all the versions, the piano appears like a pop quiz, and I’m always ready. Every time the refrain is the same: I’m good. And because I’m good, I belong. That’s how it ends.
I’m not sure when this fantasy took root, but it’s one of my oldest daydreams, maybe even from childhood. I didn’t grow up playing piano. Piano girls, to me, belonged in the same category as horse girls, mystical creatures from wealthy families whose monogrammed worlds were out of reach. Maybe that’s why the piano became a symbol of longing. I saw it as an unachievable aspiration, grand even in its baby forms.
And the piano is kind of a baby in the family of instruments, or at least a teenager compared to wizened fiddles and grandfather drums. Born around 1700, the piano was the offspring of the harpsichord and clavichord – a wunderkind that made its mark on musical history. But by the 19th century, pianos had become more than just the sound of luminaries like Bach and Chopin; they were also cultural symbols. The piano was a fixture of upper-class drawing rooms where Victorian girls – death-pale and corseted – were expected to play well as a way of proving themselves to be marriage-material. Playing the piano wasn’t just music; it was proof that a woman had grace under pressure, discipline, and the ability to perform for others.
I didn’t give much thought to history when I decided to make my childhood daydream a reality. This was a few years ago, on my 30th birthday, when I went to an antique shop that was selling a Blüthner piano. The Blüthner was made of pale tan wood, scratched-up just enough to make it affordable but still charming. The piano had a romantic voice, deep and resonant, which made sense since he was older, quite a bit older than me. Born in Leipzig in the 40s, he’d been built to fit into smaller, more compact homes constucted after the war. His keys, I later learned, were made of ivory, which meant that he’d never been out of Germany and wouldn’t be able to cross the borders. Not that I was planning on traveling with him. I hoped that Blüthner would offer stability and be the kind of instrument that might inspire me to settle down, too.
A few hundred bucks later, Blüthner was in my apartment getting a much-needed tuning. “There’s really not much to it,” the tuner said when I told him I’d never played the piano. “It’s just pressing buttons.” How hard could it be?
Lessons began that spring in my teacher’s apartment, a fifth-floor walk-up that smelled like incense. Before we sat down, he’d make us tea with milk and honey while I pet the two cats who often jumped on the piano mid-lesson. I didn’t mind, especially when I was stumbling through scales or trying to not to hunch. “Good form,” my teacher said, “makes everything easier.” But I didn’t have good form – my hands were stiff, my fingers strained. We did exercises where I pretended to hold a tennis ball to keep my wrists loose. Good form hadn’t been part of my fantasy, but I tried.
At home I plunked out beginner’s pieces – Minuet in G, Gynmopédie no 1. The sound wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good either. I kept at it, though, pressing buttons and eventually memorizing enough to play in my first recital. The other students had either been playing for decades or were more comfortable performing in front of a crowd. I always started too fast or too slow, and every mistake felt like an apology.
When I stumbled, I often thought about the fantasy version of myself, the one who played without effort, who was smooth under pressure. She’d raise an eyebrow as if to say, That’s all you’ve got? before turning back to her adoring party. I wanted her to inspire me, to bridge the gap between her confidence and my reality, but she was out of reach. When I’d slip into the daydream and try to listen to what she was playing, I couldn’t even hear the notes. Maybe I just needed to learn to play the right music.
In the second year, my teacher shifted direction, introducing more modern pieces: Max Richter’s The Departure, Fleetwood Mac’s Landslide, Nils Frahm’s Screws. When the cats jumped on the piano, my teacher would shoo them off, but I welcomed the chaos and distraction, especially on weeks when I hadn’t practiced and was still shaky on scales. If you’ve ever shown up unprepared for a music lesson, you know the misery of having an instrument call you out for not practicing. Every missed chord, every wrong note was a betrayal. Most of the time, I felt like I was in trouble, even though no parents or teachers were forcing me into lessons. No one was making me spend my money and time learning the piano, but I didn’t feel like I could stop. There was a force, the force of that fantasy, that told me I had to keep going, that I had to be good.
The idea of letting go of the piano felt impossible because it was rooted in something deeper, my perceptions about what it meant to be a person who played piano: smooth, intelligent, cultured, stable. Giving up felt like giving up on this version of myself. But the more I tried to hold onto the fantasy, the more the reality behind the fantasy began to show. The person in the fantasy version was a loner who talked to no one at the party. She dealt with social pressure by performing and earning the crowd’s approval. Maybe she would’ve been happier at the cheese table, or with the dog. Or if she’d just gotten up the courage to talk to someone. The reality inside the fantasy was that the fantasy person wasn’t playing piano for joy; she was performing to earn her place. And somehow, that performative part of the fantasy, had become my reality.
I knew piano wasn’t right for me anymore, but I kept going to lessons, hoping I was wrong. Another recital came and went, and I still couldn’t find that joy. I was relieved when my lessons got canceled, but that relief was tangled up in guilt and frustration. Why couldn’t I just be the person I wanted to be?
This wasn’t just about piano. I also felt misaligned in my work, in friendships, even in my home. I could see how the roles I played might look good from the outside. They might even earn me validation. But the truth was, I didn’t want to perform anymore. This wasn’t about giving up on a dream but letting go of what didn’t feel true to me.
When I quit my job last summer, the piano lessons soon followed. Then I let go of even more: expectations, relationships, old clothes, keys, passports, books, friendships, hopes. I let them go, and every time there was grief. When I lost my passport I grieved the person who could have traveled to the Netherlands to visit my family. When I let go of my tinted sunglasses I accepted I was not someone who would probably ever go to a music festival again. When my friend moved away I let go of the dream that we would be able to live in the same city forever. Each loss stung.
But of course, the other side of that is that every loss makes room for something new. And when that loss is the size of an upright piano, who knows what might fill its place? At least that’s what I told myself when I finally got around to putting an ad up for the piano. I had avoided it because it felt like the last anchor of my fantasy. Stopping my lessons was one thing, but selling the piano was truly giving up. When I posted the ad, a part of me hoped that no one would be interested.
People were interested in Blüthner, including a woman who’d been a piano girl. She hadn’t played since she was fifteen but was ready to start again. There was so much excitement in her voice when she came over to test out the keys that I got jealous. I almost told her the piano had been sold, but I knew Blüthner would have a better life with her. And a few days later, with the help of some strong movers, he was gone.
What was left was an empty corner of my apartment, a blankness that’s been familiar in this season of my life when I’m letting go of so much but still waiting for the next phase to begin. For me, the hardest part of letting go hasn’t been the release but the aftermath of sitting with the empty space and not knowing what will come next.
But something always comes next. This time, it was Christmas. I had plans to escape the city and spend a few days in the mountains, somewhere I’d never been. When I arrived with my travel companions, we were told that, although we’d rented one part of the home, we were going to be upgraded to an even better accommodation. Maybe it was luck or fate. The upgraded room had a cozy fire stove, wooden beams, views of the forest and in the corner, a piano. It appeared out of nowhere, just like in my fantasy. Dark, glossy, tuned and watching me, as if to say, Are you ready to play?
A part of me wanted to sit down and prove something – to impress or at least show myself that I still had the skills. I let my fingers test a few keys, but that was it. I told myself I could come back later, but later, the piano didn’t have that same charge. All those lessons and hours had shifted something and pulled me away from my fantasy.
Instead, I played with the cats that roamed the property. I took walks in the forest and beneath the stars. I made trays of lasagna and got mad every time I lost at cards. I’m terrible at betting and not a great cook, but it’s only in the fantasy that I have to prove myself, only in the fantasy that I’m perfect. In reality, I don’t have to be good to belong.
I grieved when you lost your passport and couldn’t come to Amsterdam too!