The Instrument She Became

A ballerina at a grand piano. Her hands are on the keys but her face is turned upward — toward something above and beyond the instrument, her body at the absolute edge of the bench as though the only thing keeping her in contact with the piano is the music itself, pulling her hands down while her whole being rises toward whatever is calling her upward.

She is not playing the music. The music is playing her. This is the distinction the artwork makes and refuses to soften.

She has passed through the relationship of student — learning the notes, the technique, the discipline. Through the practitioner. Through the master. And now she has arrived at the fourth relationship. The one where she is the instrument.

Everything she has lived — the unturned shadow she finally saw, the hand she opened, the weight she chose to carry — has assembled her into the precise resonance chamber that allows this particular music to be what it is. You cannot play this piece on another piano. Not because of the instrument. Because of the player.

Because of what she brought to the bench tonight — the whole accumulated substance of everything she chose to carry and everything she finally released. She did not make the music. The music made her. And she spent her entire life becoming the instrument it required.