I CAN

Twenty years ago, Saturdays meant sitting behind the antique staircase and spending the entire morning with old Mr. Weinstein who had very yellow keys and the amazing maestro, Lola Naty.

She taught my little fingers to glide along the piano keys in scales of A, B, C, D, E, F, & G majors and minors. Then we'd start to read and play the notes of the simple "Minuet in G Major" together, repeating them over and over again until I mastered it.

As a second grader in piano, I was never satisfied playing "Marry had a little lamb" or "My bonnie lies over the ocean" kinds of pieces. At the end of the day, I would always ask Lola Naty to play a difficult-sounding piano piece particularly the "Fantasia Impromptu", where I delighted in watching her fingers glide in split seconds and her body move gracefully, eyes closed as she felt every note, swarming the entire living room with music.

The next Saturday, I asked her to teach me that J.S. Bach piece, that only a sixth grader should be playing. She used to tell me I cannot learn it very easily and I would never be able to play it. But I insisted. I learned. And I played, the way she did. (With matching eyes closed, graceful little fingers moving, and a naughty smile of a child sticking out her tongue saying, "I can do what you do.")

They say it takes talent to play the piano.

But I say, if you think you can, you can.
If you think you can't, you're right.