Dear Harpy:
There you sit, in the corner of my dining room, a one hundred year old beauty in a state of Miss Haversham disrepair. Your sinuous curves, outlined to great advantage with thin scrolls of gold paint, contrast sharply with the strings that pop out in odd directions, like the black wires of Linus’ hair on Peanuts. You exude such a magnetic charm that children and adults alike are drawn to pluck your strings, to run their hands along your dusty angles, and finally to ask the question that you hypnotize them into uttering:
“Who here plays the harp?”
And I have to answer, every single time, “No one.”
Happy now? Thanks! We all get it! I never learned to play you!
I’ll admit that upon learning from my father that his mother had left me her precious 1923 Irish harp, I was touched. It was unexpected. She carted this harp around to old folk’s homes to give concerts, when she herself was an old folk. “She knew how much you like music,” my dad said. “She wanted you to have it.”
Music as in going to concerts and dancing in mosh pits and downloading songs until the credit card is smoking, yes, I like that type of music. Music as in playing it myself? Not since that fateful ninth grade day when I broke my arm in a game of tag football and finally had my excuse to quit early morning piano lessons with Mrs. Hargrave. Or as my brother refers to the event, “That day you stopped playing piano, one month exactly after Mom and Dad bought you a brand new one. What a good daughter you are!”
Do you see, Irish Harp, why I feel tormented by instruments? You’re like the best looking ex-boyfriend in the world. I want people to see you in all your beauty, and in the same moment I want them to know that it was me who decided we weren’t right for one another.
Listen, I made a couple calls about having you fixed, and taking lessons. I almost blacked out with boredom just listening to directions on how to restring you. I’d rather learn how to put a fork in my ear.
I have a cousin on Grandma’s side who was a musician as a young man, though his instruments largely comprised synthesizer and drum tracks on a home-built Commodore computer. His band was called Pulsar; when they cleared out Grandma’s house after her death, cousin Jimmy found a copy of Pulsar’s one cassette tape and we were left to wonder whether Grandma had been bootlegging his stuff all along.
Jimmy’s daughter has grown up to be a talented and fabulous jazz musician. Maybe you should go live with her? She slaps that cello and thumps the bass something fearful. I’d like to see her get her hands on you, make you appreciate the benign neglect you enjoyed here in my home.
But I’d miss you if you left. In a way, your disappointed aura makes me feel closer to my family.
With reserved affection,
Nancy
