Sometimes I totally forget that I'm not still in my twenties. My body reminds me. The baking I did before Christmas was so exhausting, but it was exhausting in a good way. Nevertheless my body is finally telling me I need some rest. I went to bed at 8:30 last night.
And on Christmas Eve, whew! I fell apart. I had mistakenly agreed to bake cinnamon rolls for a neighbor. I thought to myself, "That won't take long. I'll just make one batch." It was too much. I found myself at 4 o'clock in the afternoon with a messy kitchen and tons of work still left to do before dinner. We'd made plans. We were going to go to a party at my friend Nancy's house then go the late Christmas Eve service downtown at Calvary. We'd planned to have dinner after the 10 o'clock service. But as the time grew closer this didn't seem like such a good idea and things went by the wayside.
Mamie and Sam came back to Memphis from visiting in Brighton with Jimmy, Mamie's father. They arrived around 4:30 and I'd just gotten off my feet. I heard Mamie knock. I went to the front door and I think she was a little alarmed. I looked bent over, slow, hobbling. I was stiff from having lain down.
She came right in and told me to lie down again and that she'd clean up the kitchen.
I was so mad at myself for not planning better. I had a fresh spinach casserole to fix and I hadn't stemmed the spinach. I rested a few minutes then got up to do that while Mamie helped by wrapping last minute presents. One of these days I'll learn how to be prepared for a Christmas Eve Dinner!
We had to cancel my friend Nancy's party.
It all worked out.
I think it was 8 o'clock by the time we sat down for dinner. My nephew, Will helped me in the kitchen and everybody else helped by being of good cheer. Here we are at the table. Martha's friend, Sean took this picture of us. He's a photographer can't you tell?

Here I am in the kitchen with my nephew Will. He's living in Memphis now. I'm so proud of him. He's doing so well. He's a real joy in my life. In fact, I call him my Christmas miracle at Christmas. ( I called him my Thanksgiving miracle on Thanksgiving). I'll probably call him my MLK miracle on MLK day.
After Christmas I was taking my dog Blue for a walk. I started thinking about the money I'd made over the holidays. It was a sizable sum for my little pocketbook. Like a bolt out of the blue I realized that this was the time for me to have my piano.
I grew up with a piano. I learned to play on the piano my mother had inherited from her grandmother. When I married my first husband and moved to Brighton out on the farm, I took that piano with me.
My children learned to play on it and I continued to play. That piano burned in the house fire in 1997.
I inherited a little money right before we moved into the new house and with that money I bought a baby grand. I LOVED my piano and played every day. I even started taking lessons and occasionally played for my church on Sundays when our organist was out of town.
When I left and moved to Memphis I had that piano moved into my little tiny duplex here in Midtown.
Then I met and married Billy and moved the piano to a condo we bought over on McClean. It looked beautiful in that upstairs space. It was a very neat place to live, but it was really too small for us.
We moved to Virginia for a year and a half for Billy to serve as interim rector for a large parish in Virgina Beach. While we were there we decided to sell the condo and look for a house when we got back. The condo sold on the day we put in on the market. The people who bought it wanted the piano.
I said, "Billy, I'll sell that piano, but you have to promise that you'll buy me another one when we get our house."
He promised.
But we moved into this house and things just came up. The floors had to be refinished. We took out a plaster wall in the kitchen that ended up costing $5000.00. We put a closet in the bedroom. We pulled up carpet that had been in the house since 1979. There were so many expenses that I just didn't want to insist on a piano. But I longed for it. I longed for a piano.
I bought a guitar, but that didn't fill my longings.

I came home from my walk with Blue that day after Christmas and I started thinking about where to put my new piano that I didn't yet have. When I found the right place the dream became not a dream but something tangible.
A few days later I mentioned my tangible to Billy. To my surprise he heartily agreed. He hates for me to want anything I can't have.
I just left it up to him after that. He's much better at those details than I am. He looked in the paper and found a classified ad for a baby grand.





He called the number and the voice on the answering machine said, "Hey this is Jim, leave your me a message and if I like you I'll call you back."


Billy had a set price in his head that he wanted us to pay. He's much better at bargaining than I am so I left the poor piano man at Billy's mercy.
I had an address and a phone number so I called and made an appointment to go and see what the piano looked like.
I talked with Margaret, Jim's wife. She gave me directions to the house which is over on Jackson near the Raleigh Springs Mall. It was a warm afternoon, cloudy and almost muggy. It reminded me of a New Orleans day. Everything was gray and brown, the streets, the yards, even the little houses seemed to blend into the winter afternoon landscape.
I pulled up into the driveway and went up to the porch to knock on the door. Margaret quickly answered. She opened the door and the first thing I saw was the piano. It was love at first sight. It was smaller than the piano I had before and the finish on it was in much better condition. I played a few songs on it to see how it sounded, told Margaret that I wanted it then drove home dreaming of the day when they'd deliver it.