Buddy, can you spare a...piano?

Some of you already know this story, or parts of it.

When I first moved here, I started looking around for a place to practice the piano, and decided that churches would probably be the easiest places to start: they usually have pianos, and many days of the week they are unused. My first stop was the very large Catholic church a few blocks up the street. I spoke to an aide, who gave me the priest's phone number. After calling him, our conversation went something like this:

Me: I just moved to the neighborhood, blah blah blah, I'm looking for somewhere to unobtrusively practice, on some day that would be most convenient for you.
Priest: I see. So you are in my parish.
Me: Well, not exactly.
Priest: What parish are you in?
Me: I'm not in a parish.
Priest: So you are unchurched [note: he actually said "unchurched," which to me sounds like something from the Spanish Inquisition.]
Me: Erm, well, I'm not Catholic.
Priest: Well, why don't you stop by mass sometime, and we can have a discussion.
Me: Would it be possible to meet at some time other than mass?
Priest: No. I will see you at mass. We can discuss this further then. Our church is often occupied, so meeting at another time would be impossible. Goodbye and god bless.
Me: [stares at phone]

Now I take his point that it is his church, and I am "unchurched," so perhaps I shouldn't be allowed to use his piano, or apparently even enter the building. (This begs the question of what I would do at mass. I can't take communion, nor do I say the rosary, and isn't that kinda the whole point?) He was, however, extremely condescending. I fumed about this, and told my friends, who thought it was hilarious. It's pretty funny in retrospect. It's also funnier if you know that I spent my senior year in college writing a lengthy paper about nuns and art patronage, and I actually know more about saints than normal people do (in a fit of scholarly activity, I signed up for Saint of the Day emails). I also spent a weekend in a Benedictine convent in Erie PA. I didn't mention this to the Priest, because, frankly, my nuns are too good for him.

The next opportunity presented itself a while later when I was walking to the library and passed a Presbyterian church, and figured, why not? So I met the secretary (who has blue hair, and who offered me the cornbread and greens she was eating for lunch). She introduced me to the music teacher who uses the church, and he said I could come any night that he has the church unlocked, and that he'd be happy to teach me some jazz sometime if I'd be interested.

So I've been going there once a week, or every few weeks, whenever my schedule cooperates. I volunteered to help out when they have a concert with the little kids who are taking lessons, which probably won't be until the spring. The piano seat is too high, and the bass keys stick, and chucks of paint from the ceiling occasionally fall off, but who cares? I can play and no one bothers me. It's a cool old building: cool as in there is no heat, and cool in that the rafters are hung with rows and rows of West Indian and African flags. It has a musty church-smell of candles and damp and old choirbooks. And when I leave, Mr. B asks me how I am, and we talk a little bit about Chopin, and I ask about his students, and then I go home.

And that, my friends, is what music should be all about.