A Love Letter

A friend is thinking of doing a photographic project based on love letters. She said she might write a love letter to her pet moth. So I wondered - what would I put in a love letter to my piano?
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My Darling,

Then, when we parted, all those years ago, we were very different from how we are now. I was so unsure and so serious. You were difficult and indifferent. They warned me against you. They said I wasn’t good enough for you. They were probably right. I put loving you away in a box in the cupboard at the back of my heart. With the other things from my youth that couldn’t be thrown away.

I’ve cleared that cupboard out many times. I’ve had to. I moved physical and artistic homes too many times to carry much baggage. But I never threw that box away. 

Time passed. The road forked and forked again. I followed many paths. Always unsure, always just a little bit lost. But I never stopped learning the things I needed to know to make the best of loving you. I didn’t even know I was learning them because that box was locked away. I was having fun. I was just resisting, just dancing, just clowning, just drumming, just grooving along with my life. 

Now I’m finally being shown the way, you seem different. You are still difficult, yes, but no longer indifferent. My guides are good. They give me maps. Maps painstakingly drawn in toil and tears. I can see the path back to you. I owe my guides much. 

Now I’m ready for you. We can be in this thing together. I am learning not to doubt that you want me too. I can dance with you because I know, now, what it means to climb inside the groove and just play. 

Just to touch you – in all your incarnations – when you’re new and plastic fantastic  or when you’re old and warm, ivory and wood – fills me with joy. 

I have opened the box I put away then, and I find that, still, I love you now.

xx