Piano keys

Chris and I have gotten into the habit of renting old seasons of House and watching them in an effort to satisfy our need for drama - or maybe that's just me.
Last night we watched an episode about an idiot savant who had a neurological problem that caused him to have extraordinary skills on the piano. I watched with fascination at first, until I couldn't bear to see his fingers cross the keys, I couldn't stand to hear the lyrical notes, I couldn't deal with the intensity of my emotions. I started wracking my brain for any possible way that I could find myself back on a piano bench, back with my fingers on the whites and blacks, back in the one place that has always brought me comfort and strength. It's been a good six months since I've had the opportunity to play, before that even longer. All together, I've been out of touch, musically, for three years, and the longer I go without it, the harder it is to sit back down and play again. The sheer disappointment that I feel when my fingers hit the keys, when the notes grace my ears, when the world around my falls away; it's enough to make me cry.
I miss the familiarity that playing the piano brings, the universal aspect of music. It gives me clarity, peace, centeredness.
In a time when I felt alone and overwhelmed by stress, the piano was there. When I needed to clear my mind, I would walk to the bench, sit down, begin playing, and it was like I had flipped a switch on my life - the room was gone, my problems were gone, the world was in order, and all that I needed to focus on was making sure that my fingers reached the notes on the page, that the music never stopped, that I was growing, stretching, building, learning, playing.
There's never been anything that brings calm to my life the way that playing did. Nothing has ever been able to replace that, nothing even comes close. When I close my eyes, I can imagine the feeling of being able to play a piece that I've worked hard on, knowing that I have learned something brand new - struggled over it, worked at it, shaped my hands around it, and conquered it. Now, when I play the piano, the satisfaction is gone. I know that I have not been able to play a new piece in over 4 years, the work I've done has been completed long ago, when I dreaded Friday afternoons, the daunting piano lesson ahead of me. I am disappointed in myself, in my receding skill, in my lazy fingers and the silent keys. I hate the sound of choppy waltzes, I hate the way I struggle over pieces that I learned when I was in middle school. I hate my fingers and my mind and my lack of talent.

I want that back, whatever it was. I want the feeling back, I want the peace back, I want the talent back. I want the naivety that came with it, the feeling that I would never be without the piano, the innocence that I had when I sat down at the keys.