I’ve been improving a lot, I think— I’m playing this one piece that’s arguably pretty difficult for my level, and also learning an Etude that involves a lot of precise finger work and reading, but it’s… alright.

I don’t know how to feel, ya know? Playing piano— that’s always been something I’ve felt inferior with. Many people play piano, and many people play piano well. I know this intimately; I have a brother who’s one of the best pianists I’ve met, I’ve been in competitions with players leagues ahead of me.

So I’ve never considered piano one of my most impressive talents. I do consider it something I do that is notable, and perhaps intimidating to some people, but it’s not something I speak about because I’m good at it. I speak about piano because through my journey with it I’ve discovered important life lessons and had several unique memorable experiences that I think are worth sharing.

But now I think I’m good at it. Now I think that it’s something I’m proud of, and something I would talk about because I got better at it recently. It’s a new feeling, and it’s new for several reasons.

One, I think I’ve always thought I was “bad” at piano because of one teacher I had in the past. She wasn’t particularly terrible, but I guess at the time the words she said impacted me a lot, and she was a super strict teacher. I remember every day after class I would be holding back tears; sometimes I couldn’t hold it behind my lashes and I would cry once I exited the room, tears dribbling down my face through the elevator ride to the street and salt tracking my cheeks even on the subway ten minutes after.

That experience caused side effects in me that I’m still slowing discovering. I’ve noticed that I always have a strange and uncalled for sense of anxiety before piano class every week, I’ve noticed that when I play for my teacher I’m always stiff. It’s to the point that my teacher has pointed it out too— just two lessons ago, I had played my Impromptu for him, and the first movement was stiff but the repetition of it was “flowing and free”, by my teacher’s words.

It’s these types of things that I didn’t even realize until now. It’s even more odd because now is the time I’m improving a lot— so I guess what I’m saying is that I’ve improved a lot because I’ve started noticing all the byproducts of my old piano teacher’s teaching style.

Another thing I noticed today, that also is a direct cause of my former piano teacher, is my obsession with my nails.

I don’t mean in terms of nail art, or that I mean I enjoy painting my nails— I mean that I have a particular requirement for them at all times.

They must be short, always, and they also have to be perfectly filed; smooth, no thorns, cut just so that there’s no white showing. If they do not fit any of those requirements, then I immediately fix it.

I was reading a book before (rereading Percy Jackson just for the nostalgia), and I had been flipping a page with my right index and thumb fingers when I had noticed that there was a bit too much white peeking over the skin.

I didn’t have any nail cutters with me, or scissors, or whatever else could be used to cut your nails with. So absentmindedly, I stuck my finger in my mouth, and started to chew off the excess keratin.

After throwing the dead nail piece into the trash, I set down my book to walk over to my desk, looking for my nail filer. For a few seconds, I filed my nails. Then after that, I sat down in my office chair, and wondered why I had done what I did.

(I’ve gotten into a mood of thinking over things lately; I think it’s largely due to the fact that I’m now doing daily blog posts. Every day I wake up and eagerly wonder what thing, no matter how small, would occur in my life. Then for the rest of the day, I think throw every one of my actions, almost like I’m looking for something— I never know what, but I always find it.)

I realized, after some pondering, that it was because of one small event that happened years ago.

My piano teacher, who we’ll just call Gold for the sake of anonymity and respect, always looked for things to “improve” on. The thing is, if she finds something she doesn’t like and also something that her student isn’t improving on, she’ll become verbally aggressive. She’ll attack anything you possess, raise her voice, whatever.

One class she honed her anger on my nails. They were too long, apparently, although I was playing piano fine— and she’d screamed a few lengthy sentences about it.

It seems like such a small thing when I talk about it. But the thing is, at that time, I had been growing out my nails because I wanted to try nail art. My friend had offered to paint my nails, but she’d said that my nails were a tad bit too short to paint well, so I agreed to grow them out.

That ended in flames. And tears. Many, many tears.

(I cried after the lesson, and also when my friend bought a tube of alcohol-free red nail polish to school the next day. It was not a good experience.)

So yeah. Nails.

I don’t know where I was going with this. But it just made me realize that I’m a collection of so many memories and experiences, and I’ll probably be connecting things with other things in my life for the next decade or so.