angle. It is a fact of nature that the thumb goes into the curl of fingers like surfer in wave
when ring finger sits on ebony. There is no fight involved.
Two against three, three against four, by separation of thirds, all to keep scales fresh. Fingers alert
even though it is familiar ground. Exert now, collect later when runs on the page drill via retina to synapse to fingers. So solid a pathway that the mind can drift.
"Do not be thinking of what is for dinner tonight when on stage" my piano teacher once said.
The terror of looking down at flying fingers you forgot were there, wondering how they got air
borne.
Presence always scares the wise, easier to reprise that argument from earlier today or consider your next play. Wandering away from present truth. What comes next is prescience. What just happened is lost, like a miracle sent back unopened.
The problem with retinas is they are always looking. Shutter the eyes and the fingers still find their way, the legs still spin on the path. Sudden focus gained, the deranged mind chatter stops. Blindness is safer on piano than trail running where roots grab toes, with bloody aftermath.
Softening the gaze, lowering the hunched shoulders, marveling in the harmony of hamstrings and quadriceps, smelling the salt air, hearing the crunch of crab shell underfoot, slipping on the rain slicked redwood fronds, imbibing dopamine and other endorphinic hormones. Heart and hamstrings burning bright.
The scratched piano wood is from nails slicing through air. All those hours etched in plain sight.
