the piano next door

I live next to a piano teacher.

I know this because I live in a converted house; 1 house became 7 small studio flats, with thin walls.

I hear him teach through skype or zoom, hear the knocks and welcomes of visiting students and I hear him now, at 10pm playing for all its worth loud and proud.

And I get annoyed at the well performed pieces coming through my walls because I like quiet as I prepare for bed, I like to own the noise around me and I like to go to bed as early as I can justify it to myself.

And tonight as I heard him start his evening performance, as I felt the annoyance and frustration well up within me while putting away clean dishes, I caught myself.

Here in the same building as me, is a man who loves his music and his craft so much he teaches it all day and chooses to play it at night.

Sometimes classical and sometimes moody, always with passion and emotion, through the walls of my flat I hear a part of someone else’s life. Maybe not intended to be shared.

I still want to own the noise in my space and send a note through his door to politely but firmly ask him to plug headphones into his keyboard past a certain hour.

But I also want to acknowledge that he is good. That sometimes he is a reminder of a world outside of mine that I might never know; sometimes a reminder that although I live alone, I am not alone.

Sometimes I am sure he hears my Whitney record playing through his walls on a Saturday morning and he wonders when I will turn her down. (Although I am unsure Whitney should ever be turned down, rather danced to and sung at the top of your voice)

When it comes down to it I won’t send the letter through his door, and I will most likely never say anything if we pass on another in the corridor, mainly because living alone allows me to have full control over how everything lays, and having lived in shared housing for the majority of my life I know this is a luxury and one I am not really sure I like.

The piano next door is a reminder to me of the joy of compromise and the growth and character formed by allowing space for other people, choices beyond your own and the beauty, like notes on a keyboard, that comes from it all.

R/

(Photo by Isaac Ibbott on Unsplash)