Come to Your Senses

    I remember sitting there, hands on the ivory, feeling this surge of power and music flow into my fingertips – ready to begin. I remember feeling, in that moment, like everything was set for me, and for once everything seemed to make sense and I could finally fit into this rushing world – even though I was only seven at the time. I looked out into the blinding lights and tried my best to find my mother in the crowd, but I couldn’t make out any faces. I didn’t think anything of it then. Stage lights messed with your perspective and blinded you to some things – so I simply thought nothing of it. But even if I had, nothing would have changed, really. No one could stop time – stop destiny. Stop what had already happened to me.
    So instead of fretting over those dim faces in the crowd below me, I began to play.

*    *    *

The city streets were ugly and slippery today – I could tell just by looking out my tiny apartment window. That was always me; apart from the rest of the world, just watching. Isolated. I guess I have myself, and my past, to blame for that. But isolated was the way I had lived for the past fifteen years, so it didn’t faze me anymore.
    Truly, I was practically homeless. I didn’t have much to show for myself. Twenty-two, unemployed and living in a one-room apartment in New York City. I was trying to get a job, but I guess I just wasn’t trying hard enough. I really didn’t care, though. I really didn’t care about much.
    Every day I would bustle around my apartment, looking for ways to keep myself busy, and when that didn’t work, I’d sit on my sad excuse for a couch and shut myself out of this world. I’d think, and I’d remember all that ever happened to me and I’d wallow until a hefty weight molded around my shoulders, threatening to come crashing to down to bury me. And then I’d lay down with my burden heavy on my     shoulders and maybe finally fall asleep.
    Day after day I lived this way. If you can even call me alive. I just was. My body was just here, taking up space in the universe without having any sort of purpose.


The old, practically useless telephone rang over on the counter, singing it’s out of tune song and breaking me out of my trance.
    “Hello?” I mumbled into the receiver.
    My father’s deep voice boomed in my ear. “Adam?”
    “Hi, Dad.”
    “How are you, son?”
    What was I supposed to tell him? I knew he was disappointed in me. And he knew I wasn’t trying very hard to make something of myself here in the city.
    “The same,” I finally said. He seemed to even expect that answer, for I gave him the same one every single time.
    “Are you looking for a job?” he asked quietly.
    I lied. “Um, yeah, no one’s hiring right now, though. But I’m looking.” He asked every time, but I think he knew the answer before he called. I think he even knew I was lying to him.
    I heard him grunt on the other end. “All right, then, son, as long as you’re trying.”
    I didn’t want to feel guilty lying to my father, so I made up some excuse to get off the phone and we said our awkward, stilted goodbyes.
    This was always how it was with my father and me. I grew up living in his house and under his rules, but I still didn’t know him. He was almost a stranger to me in that we never really connected in the way we should have when I was a child.
    But all this time, I’ve known that he’s right. I could practically hear the tax collector’s hard, unforgiving fist pounding on my door for money that I didn’t have, so I decided to set out to look for a job; for once putting myself into the hustle and bustle of the outside world.
    The streets of lower east side New York were covered in dirty snow and soot and, like always, smelled purely of gasoline, an ever-changing mix of perfumes and fresh coffee. To me, all these things meant people, and people were exactly the thing I had been avoiding nearly all my life. So I didn’t go outside much.
    After hours of halfheartedly searching windows for the red HELP WANTED signs and avoiding people’s eyes and acknowledgment, I stumbled my way into a nearby restaurant and fell into a leather booth near the back. I ignored the waiters’ furtive glances at my haggard appearance and their doubtful expressions at the check I handed them as I was leaving, and pushed open the door and lumbered my way into the frigid night air.
    It was dark now, and probably much too late to be out alone, but, like most things, that didn’t bother me much. I maneuvered my way around the city without really paying attention to where I was going, and ended up stopped short at a long line of people chatting enthusiastically and standing on their tiptoes, apparently trying to see what was at the front of the line. Feeling a curiosity stirring inside me that I hadn’t felt in a long time, I snaked my way up casually close to the front of the line that was looking more and more like a mob the closer up I got – honestly interested.
    Standing amongst the crowd, trying to be invisible, I heard a chipper voice to my side ask me a question. I jerked my head over, surprised, and there stood a woman, maybe even just a teenager, looking expectantly at me.
    “Excuse me?” I mumbled, embarrassed at being caught here with no idea what I was even here for.
    The girl smiled. “Did you like the show?”
    “Huh?”
    “Didn’t you see our show just now?” She motioned towards the quirky-looking man next to her, signing an autograph for a dreamy teenage girl bouncing next to me.
    Suddenly, I understood. I had stumbled my way around into the back alleyways near Broadway and all the theatres. A show must have just gotten out for the night, and the cast was out at the stage door signing autographs and meeting the audience. It was something I used to know about.
    Not knowing what to say, I just shrugged. “Actually . . .” I began, nervously watching her bright eyes bore into mine. “Well, um . . . no.”
    She laughed, obviously having realized this in my hesitation, and I choked out a shaky laugh along with her.
    “That’s all right,” she said. After a beat, she held out her hand. “I’m Lea.”
    “Adam,” I replied, gripping her hand for only a moment and then pulling away, my eyes following her slender fingers as they brushed a loose curl off her forehead.
    And then we just sort of stared at each other for a second or two, unsure of what to say next, until the man who’d been chatting with the teenager tapped Lea on the shoulder and motioned her forward.
    She smiled at me, revealing clean, white, braces-created teeth, and waved slightly. “Well goodnight then, Adam.”
    To my surprise, I think I smiled back. “Bye, Lea.”
    Bye Lea. I stared at her back as she moved over to another fan and blinked, almost disoriented for a moment. And then I turned on my heels and weaved my way through the diminishing crowd, heading back towards home.
    As I was walking back, blind to the flashing lights and honking horns that were the whole of New York City encompassing me, I found myself pondering that that was probably the most contact with another person I’d had in months. And for once, it actually felt okay.


For the next week or so, I found myself reliving that night over and over. It didn’t make sense to me why it had made such an impact, why it even mattered; but it did, all the same. I’d go to the same restaurant, slowly spending the rest of the little money I had. Then I’d stroll down Broadway and end up back at the stage door. Her stage door. I’d mingle with the crowd, hiding myself from any cast member just to watch her and the man greet people, all the while pretending it was me she was smiling at, me she was happy to see.
    I would stand there and study her, curious in a way I probably didn’t have the right to be. I picked up on how she rarely shifted her weight from foot to foot like most women, and how she sort of fluttered through the mass of people, light as air. It made me feel satisfied in a way I couldn’t explain how she would smile and talk to people she didn’t even know. How genuinely interested in them she seemed, rather than always wanting to rush home and get some sleep.
    And after nearly two weeks of almost stalking Lea, I decided to be reckless and put my financial status on the line and bought a ticket to her show. I put on some relatively dressy clothes that made me look like Mozart without the wig and merged myself with a thousand other people at this show – actually merged myself with other people.
    I wasn’t very much interested in musical theatre, but I’d been to a Broadway show or two; and it was all worth it to just watch Lea bounce around the stage, to watch her stand under a spotlight, bleached white like sand by the sun, and to listen to her sing. Her voice was melodious and clear, and she could take it from being small and beautiful - a quiet, flowing melody line – to a tremendous sound that filled the whole one thousand seat house and made her seem so much bigger than the short, eccentric woman I saw in person.
    After the show, I went back to the stage door for what seemed like the millionth time, and this time I found her again and didn’t try to hide.
    When she saw me, I could see a flash of recognition in her eyes, and then she smiled brilliantly and turned from her male costar to me. “Hi. Adam, right?”
    I grinned like a fool. “Hi, Lea.”
    “So . . . did you like the show? Did you see the show?”
    I nodded. And we looked each other full in the face and smiled; it was like we’d known each other for years.


The world has a funny way of changing itself for you, or so it seems, and then slapping reality back in your face just as you feel that life really does work out fairly like in all the stories about life and love. When you’re in love, time stops and you forget that you’re not supposed to like the world, or people, or that you’re flat broke and this city is about to grind what’s left of you against the rugged pavement if you don’t get your act together.
    It was easy enough to fall for her. For Lea, I mean. To me, she was like a beacon of light that shined in my blackened world and almost made me forget what that black really looked like now that I’d seen some color to counter it. Things had just fallen into place for us. We met. We talked. And we came back again. I saw her show two more times, pushing me further into debt. I gave her every single thing I had, and things I’d never rightfully own, too.
    Because, for the first time since I was seven, I actually cared about something. Someone. And it was easy to be in love. She opened me up to her, taught me to confide in her. No, she couldn’t open me up to the rest of the world, but she did her best to see past my indifference and my gloom because she cared.
    So today we were leaning against the piano in my apartment. My grand piano was one of my most prized possessions, even though it mostly caused me more pain than joy to sit down and play. It took up the majority of space in my tiny apartment, though, so I learned to work around it. Lea and I were talking, laughing, smiling; just content to be with one another.
    The familiar pitchy ring of my telephone sang its song in the middle of our conversation, and I hesitantly answered it. It was my father. Calling again about the job issue, how I was doing, even though it was the same every time. I told him the same lie, that I was looking but no one was hiring. I quickly hung up the receiver to get back to Lea, who was studying me with the strangest expression on her face.
    The second the telephone locked back into place on the dock, Lea spoke. “Why did you lie to him?”
    I was caught completely off guard. I mumbled some unintelligible gibberish, unsure of what to say.
    “You know you’re not looking for a job, Adam,” she said sternly.
    "I know,” I replied, dejected, but cautionary.
    And, without my even knowing how it happened, we were fighting. She was so angry with me, and I never knew whether to yell back or just take the heat from her until she was finished.
    “I apologized for lying to him. Lea, I don’t know what you’re blaming me for!” I screamed at her.
    She flung her hands in the air, exasperated. “I’m sick of you being so distant! You won’t go outside, you won’t talk to people. It’s like you don’t even care!”
    My eyes narrowed, testing her. “Care about what?” I hissed.
    “About anything!” she cried.
    The whole room flashed some place behind my eyes. I saw my dirty apartment, my empty wallet on the counter - every bit of the nothing I had. And I saw my piano, standing stolid and dominant in the middle of my floor. I saw everything that had ever happened to me play in my head, all the way back to my seven year old days when I was happy and passionate and cared about things. I watched the change occur, from carefree to careless. I saw my reasons for shutting everything out. I could feel my eyes widen and my feet stagger backwards, looking for support against the piano.
    “Adam?!” Lea’s eyes widened in panic, seeing me stumble and lose myself. Her hands were on my shoulders, steadying me, her eyes boring into my unseeing irises. “Adam, can you hear me?”
    I broke down.
    And I told my story.

    I used to be going somewhere. I used to be brilliant. I used to be a prodigy. My mother home schooled me and taught me how to write poetry and work with my mind in ways other elementary school kids didn’t. My father worked a lot. I didn’t really know him.
    So it was me and my mother. She showed me the piano. She taught me how to play when I turned seven. I did the rest. I could do what normal adults couldn’t. I was astonishing. And I was going to move to New York and go to Julliard, and become a concert pianist. It was my destiny, and everyone who knew me knew it.
    On the day of my very first piano recital, my mother died. She had been sick with something that the doctors overlooked and when she checked into the hospital that afternoon, she never made it out. My father told me after the show was over. She never got the chance to hear me play.
    And with that, my whole perspective changed. The way I used to see the world didn’t work anymore. It was like a sheet of gray had been laid over the picture, and all there was was black and white. My father didn’t really encourage my music, but I still did play; just not for pleasure. I had to go to public school. I didn’t fit in. I liked to be alone.
    So I isolated myself. Kids learned not to talk to me because I wouldn’t talk back. I lived through my senior year like this. I auditioned for Julliard because that’s what everyone had always expected from me since I was seven. I got in, on a full scholarship; not too much of a feat for a prodigy. After nearly a year there, I lost that scholarship. I would miss rehearsal, or not support the others there. I just wasn’t immensely passionate about my instrument like all the other prodigies there.
    So now I am here, in the city without a job and nothing to show for myself but this piano that symbolizes what I used to be. My life is a blur of grays and blacks and I am bitter and unfeeling and uncaring about anything. Aside from Lea, of course. But how much can she change fifteen years of isolation?
    I felt a lump rise in my throat as my story spilled out to Lea, and my eyes redden as it came to a close. I finally looked her in the face, so ashamed of myself and what I’d forced upon her. I saw tears glinting in her eyes and her lip quiver as I jumbled out some mixed-up apology, halfway between begging her to stay with me and telling her that she didn’t deserve this – no one did – when she leaned over took my head in her arms and murmured words of comfort to me as I cried like a baby into her shoulder.
    But I saw a resolution in all this dark, crying mess here in my apartment: I was through shutting out the rest of the universe.
    I was back alive.