There she was, staring at me when I entered the room.  A vision of beauty in red.

Well, reddish brown.

A baby grand piano at my friend Tony’s house was calling my name the moment I stepped through the door.

I was at a potluck at a bus buddy’s house on Saturday.  Tony’s wife Irene is taking lessons now but she’s been practicing mostly on her little keyboard in the other room.  Their daughter who has moved away to the east coast used to play the piano.  So nobody has really played it for quite sometime.

I surprised everyone there when I sat down and started playing when were having dessert and coffee.

The baby grand sounded wonderful.  She felt wonderful.

For a moment, I was transported back to my playing piano when I was at home in Bangkok.  The evenings where I would sit down and played a medley of just about everything I knew.  All the Disney’s transitioned into Andrew Lloyd Weber transitioned into the standards and end with perhaps Hey Jude, Can’t Help Falling In Love, Somewhere in Time, or Desperado.

My mom would be nearby,  sitting in the dark in the living room or doing her “evening walk” around the house, humming to the tunes she knew.  My dad would pop in through the door from the office for dinner any time now.  He would either come over to watch, or go upstairs to wash up and pause at the mezzanine to watch for a while.

A little later on that evening at Tony’s, the host sat down in a chair to the right of the piano and watched me play.

Their daughter who played is no longer in the house.  The same way my parents have felt without me at home.

I have to say that at one point I thought I might have teared up a little bit.

It felt so familiar.

For a moment, I was home.