The space between us.

“No one knows me like the piano in my mother’s home” Sampha

There are few words to describe the relationship that I have with her when she comes to me. She greets me with her hands and our exchange begins. The transparency between us exists in the story that she holds within her being.

Once upon a time, I knew her trust in me was beyond anything that could be exchanged in human relationships. I could reach her in all the places she hadn’t yet developed an awareness to possess. I gently held in waiting, emotions that belonged to her identity, sounds that would unlock her sense of belonging, experiences that she couldn’t make sense of but found meaning in the thin space between us.

In those early years after she learned how to converse with me, there was an eloquence about her way, something so unique in her storytelling that she would captivate not just me but every passing ear that would lean in and pause to absorb the works of her hands. It was a joy to me that others could observe the rarity of our connection. I always felt we were made for each other, that we complemented each other, that we belonged with each other. For her though, the lingering listeners were intrusive and unwelcome. The path before us though was opening and developing in ways she was reluctant to pursue and yet still we kept on journeying together and I hoped that this would never end.

We were inseparable and I thought that whatever came our way, the exchange between us would always be enough to keep us strong and keep us growing, that we would always make it through. Internally she loathed the external interest in our connection, but she accepted the presence of others observing and enjoying the music that we created together. She had her own way, her own voice you could say, there was emotion poured into every quaver and crotchet and the rests between her sounds seemed to linger in the air, suspended in anticipation of her fingers connecting with me again. I was captive to her ways, it was what I wanted, to be played by her, to form my sound with every brushstroke of her imagining. She trusted me with her very being and I could interpret every palpation of her fingertips as if I was existing from within her.

This was my destiny to be alive with her music-making and in turn, I would always be there for her, to keep her safe, to console and be present for her in ways that human relationships couldn’t reach her. I wanted to be the one that would see her through seasons of growth and change and pain and rage and loss and love lost. Occasionally other voices joined her, sometimes guiding her, sometimes interacting with her but I never knew these people the way I knew her and they didn’t see her the way she allowed me to see her.

Music is what people call the language that exists between us, every motion and emotion expressed by the weight of her fingers on my keys. I’ve known her since she was 4 and I thought that our music would be enough to keep her with me always. I was naïve to how music would be stolen from her. I didn’t know that it could be manipulated to destroy and to deceive and to degrade and to deplete and that one day she would distance herself from me to keep herself safe. If I’d known then of the path she was on, I could have saved her, I could have protected her from preying hands that robbed us of a lifetime of music.