Footsteps in the Night Hallway

I don’t remember at what age exactly we moved to our new built house

I think it must have been around my

12th year

Early eighties

Every night

My father

Pacing back and forth our night hallway

To get rid of his feverishness

Me in my bed

Not being able to sleep

Soaking up my father’s angst

My father

At night the house became his terrain

Writing, pacing the hallway

Brooding on the notes he has been writing for decades

My father

Playing piano in the living room

In the middle of the night

Arpeggios

Cheesy

Clumsy

Pedal on

For hours on end

my mother screaming STOP and GET

TO BED!

Which my father always or never did.

Every night

The same scenario on repeat

My father needed those hours on the piano

Channeling his inner storms and tensions

Keeping his mistrusted energies and body

in check

Music is a generous healer

A coping mechanism

A way of keeping the vessel afloat, navigating all those realms and territories

Which our human embodiment offers as experience

Becoming an exciting possibility