Back when our older children were babies and toddlers, Richard wanted an autoharp. I had my piano, but he wanted to have something he could play too.
He and I had both had a county music teacher who traveled to our elementary schools and taught us songs to sing while she played one, the happiest part of the schoolweek. Probably the same teacher. Fond memories for both of us.
Autoharps were not found in great abundance in southern New Hampshire in the early 80’s.
And yet somehow we found one. It had been a public-school music teacher’s–perfect!–offered up now at a music store an hour west in a small picturesque old New England town near the Vermont border.
The place was magical. Stepping stones for our oldest to jump along on cleared the way through the last bits of snow scattered about the melting winter’s earth, taking us up to the door of an old building at the top of the hill amongst the trees; inside it was warm with old wood shelves and walls and age and stories to tell.
The shopkeeper hefted and opened the slightly battered case with affection, telling us of this autoharp’s history, glad to see it go to a young family that would appreciate it.
Our kids have grown. The instrument has been quiet awhile now.
I got an email today and forwarded it to Richard at work: a young mom was looking to borrow an autoharp for a week while doing some volunteering in the schools, and if she could buy one, all the better; did anyone know where to find one?
I struggled to remember the name of that shop in that small old town in the mountains in a land far, far away. I wondered if it had continued to remain through the years.
We would not sell. But we could share.
She thinks she has a lead on one to buy, now, but we are her backup plan in case it falls through.
Richard came home from work, and, after dinner, having had it pull at him ever since her query, pulled that battered case out, improved with further age only in our own eyes. He found the tuner. He worked at it awhile then strummed quietly, remembering the chords, the fingering, the sequences.
He came into the kitchen behind me at one point and the music was infectious by now, the only possible response to dance for the joy of making music together again, for all the memories, for making new ones right here right now.
But our outer cases are getting a bit older, too, (Mom and Dad: I can hear you guffawing) and at some point I sat down over here, he sat down in there, and as he continues to play and I continue to listen I write this down for Parker and his little brother and all the other grandchildren to come.
Parker’s parents say with a cheerful smile that they have forgiven us for giving him a Christmas present that was a roll-out plastic pad like the old Twister game, only the picture was not rows of colored dots but of a piano keyboard. Which does indeed play the notes little boys might have fun stomping on to create their own tunes. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord all ye lands!
Start’em young and watch them blossom.