The Piano Man
Scared.
Yesterday I was on Instagram (a social media application on my smartphone) and asked the following question…
If you had to pick one word to describe how you are feeling these days, what would that word be?
Of my billions of followers, I got 26 replies. I am surprised it didn’t shut down Instagram.
Bleak, BULLSHIT, Empty, Limbo, Determined, Overwhelmed, Unstable, Confused, Spent, Improving, Inspired, Hopeful, Grateful, Spikey…
Spikey?
I like spikey.
The one word missing was healing.
My dad died when I was 21 years old. He was my hero and my enemy. A few years ago, I got to have a final conversation with him. We were sitting together at a piano. I was on drugs.
It was night two and my second Ayahuasca ceremony. If you don’t know what ayahuasca is, well, google it. A putrid-tasting jungle juice made from unicorns and aliens that introduces you to God and guides you through 40 years of therapy in six hours. A real doozy.
At one point during the experience, I was transported to a piano bench where I sat next to my dad. When I was a kid, I used to sit at the piano with him as he played. It was magical. Now I was back at the piano next to him, one last time. We had the conversation I always wanted to have.
It was painful and beautiful at the same time. For me, it was…
healing.
Alice was 110 years old when she died in 2014. At the time, she was the oldest living survivor of theHolocaust. Born in 1903 in Prague, she was detained in the concentration camp Terezin for two years during WWII. An article in Time magazine noted…
In the years after her release, she became a successful pianist and music teacher at the Jerusalem Conservatory, before relocating to London in 1986. Her love of music was said to have sustained her and her fellow inmates while in the camp
She stated “music was our food. Through making music we were kept alive.”
The oldest living survivor? A piano?
Healing.
Right now I can’t stop thinking about the 10,000 Holocaust survivors who currently live in Ukraine of which, 500 are confined to beds and have no option of leaving. Greg Schneider, who represents the Claims Conference, mentioned recently "I spoke to someone who said I hid in the basement in 1941, and here I am, back in the very same basement.”
Then I saw David.
David is from Germany and is still alive. He recently drove 17 hours to the border of Poland and Ukraine.
At the border, he unloaded his bike and pulled his weapon to the frontline. His weapon is…
A piano.
He plays in the cold, during the night, and throughout the day. He plays as refugees cross the border, hopeless and overwhelmed. He plays as they arrive confused and empty. He plays his piano.
Healing.
In 2015, David rode his grand piano by bike to the Bataclan theatre (the venue where 89 people were killed in a terror attack) and started playing "Imagine" from John Lennon in tribute to the victims of the Paris attacks for a crowd gathered outside the hall.
He played at the protests after the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota and in Afghanistan.
A guy, a bike, and a piano.
Healing.
When we suffer, we need to remember Alice and David. We need to remember there is always Hope and Healing.
And maybe a little Spikey.
Trey
Check out David playing here