The Piano Tuner

The piano tuner came yesterday.

I knew it had been awhile, with the adventure that is called 2020, but I was surprised when he said he last came back in 2017, without a mask. I think piano tunings are supposed to happen yearly but don’t, kind of like physicals and window-washing.

I told him that the C above middle C was sticking on repeated strikes, and I thought there also might be a note sticking below middle C but I couldn’t remember which one.

I also told him that I finally started playing again, after a break of about twenty-five years to get married and birth and raise boys, and that he should be proud of me because the keys won’t stick so much now that I planned to play more. At least I thought that might be the case.

I moved aside the notebook of eleven songs I printed so he could get his work done. I had discovered that the songs were too easy for me; I could play them straight through, and I wasn’t sure if that was encouraging or disappointing. The last time I practiced regularly was when I was the age of our youngest son, who is now a freshman in college. So it’s been awhile but I guess some things you never forget.

But time does move quickly–as the piano tuner’s absence of three years which felt like one–reminded me. And now our kids have grown and flown.

Empty nesting has its perks.

In addition to piano, I’ve recently pulled out my watercolor pad, labeled “Cheryce Leff”—the person I used to be–two art pencils, an eraser, and a box of watercolor paints. These also haven’t been used since college, where I actually received a minor in art. I’m not sure what I did, exactly—it was more like independent study of whatever art I wanted to experience. Someone asked me last week what type of art I minored in and I said, “Painting?” like that—with a question mark.

I also went to the library a week ago and got a stack of books, although I keep starting one and then switching to another because the library somewhat unhelpfully sends me frequent emails where they renew some items and not others—so I’m never sure when I’ll have to suddenly return a half-read book. I decided not to go back to the library until there were more people. An already quiet place with only three masked patrons frightens me. Plus, the adult department is not nearly as much fun as the children’s department, but I didn’t have a reason to venture downstairs and look at picture books like I used to.

That’s not all I’ve been up to since starting empty nesting. I cleaned out a refrigerator and freezer in our garage, with food spills that dated back to the early 2000’s, and donated it to our middle college son, who hauled it in the back of Mark’s pickup to his campus house of twelve people. Twelve college students need multiple refrigerators. And now that there are two of us at home, at least until the college students come drifting back in, we need less. Of course I then bought ten pounds of hard goat cheeses to vacuum seal and freeze—and realized I didn’t have the freezer space I remembered. So I had to be strategic in my menu planning for this week to eat what didn’t fit.

We bought the goat cheeses at a goat farm in the middle of Wisconsin, on our way home from Door County where we took our empty nest getaway. It was a “take pictures of old barns” trip for me—the kind where you pull to the side of the road and jump out with a camera when you want to. That was another thing we didn’t do in twenty-three years of keeping up with boys.

Door County was wonderful. We didn’t have a plan, other than to take a couple of boat rides, eat steak and goat milk gelato, walk around, visit old cemeteries, drink chai lattés, read books, and ride a tandem bike through a state park. I do recommend state parks but I don’t recommend tandem biking. Mark was right when he warned me that I wouldn’t like it so much. I was hoping it would help me keep up with him, as he bikes daily, but it instead scraped up my ankles because I am right-footed and he is left-footed. But it did help me keep up.

I loved being with just Mark. He is an amazing husband and a gift from God. Even though we are different, we love and respect each other and truly have fun together.

Two evenings we walked to the end of the road to watch the sunsets from Sunset Beach, appropriately named, with about twenty-eight other empty nesters and one young family. As the young dad chased around his two-year old daughter in her pajamas while the rest of us sat quietly on the grass, I wavered between contentment and envy. I was able to concentrate on the sunset and the conversation with Mark. But he had a chubby little hand to hold.

I miss those chubby little hands.

I miss chasing our precious boys, and taking trips with them, feeding them, reading children’s stories and spending evenings playing games with them instead of playing through my eleven songs on the piano.

I’ve decided, though, that each season is a gift, and I will delight in this one. I will open it layer by layer, like something elaborately wrapped, and enjoy each new discovery. If I spend my time longing for a season past or yet to come, I miss the one I’m in.

So for today, I will delight in my empty nest. I will play piano, paint, read, cook smaller meals, and travel with my husband. And of course work, which helps fill all the empty hours and places in my mind. And wait eagerly for our boys to visit.

I will also leave space to pour over into the lives of my friends who still have chubby little hands to hold. I won’t tell them that it goes too fast so enjoy it, because they know that already and it sounds like everything next is downhill. And it’s not.

The piano tuner always finishes his tuning by playing the same song. I wanted to ask him to try something different—a new song, perhaps with different keys. I think if I were a piano tuner I’d quickly tire of playing the same song, even if I really liked it to begin with. I would want a new challenge, a different experience.

It’s how I feel about empty nesting. It’s a different experience, and even though I miss the familiar tune of raising boys, so far I’m liking this melody.