The Piano

Image: Johnny Depp

"I've only dared to take to an extreme that which you haven't even dared to take to halfway." - Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Underground Man

I went to visit my old piano today.

And there I was tinkering away on the keys of my out-of-tune upright in a dark and cold storage unit, surrounded by ghosts in neat stacked boxes, playing what I could remember of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1. I can hardly play anymore but every now and then a classical piece will come back to me.

And now here I sit on the Eve of Christmas Day with an open bottle of wine and a deep love for a dark and brilliant man: Dostoevsky. I'm in the midst of reading his life works. Wine. The Brothers Karamazov. And me.

And the travelling scents of the makings of our Christmas Eve feast coming out of mom's kitchen.

And so I wish you a Happy Christmas, darlings.