A Monstrous Keepsake

I am a packrat.

And as a packrat, I have a basic inability to let go of acquired objects. This compulsion is fueled by my conviction that the object in question is invariably either a) sentimentally significant in some way or b) sure to be useful in the very near future. I inherited the packrat gene from both of my parents, so I suppose it was inevitable. Luckily, Moonshot suffers from no such delusions. She tosses items into the dumpster with glee. A well-ordered storage room satisfies her in the same way as a room filled with “useful” and “meaningful” items does me. We compromise a lot.

As one who is prone to over-sentimentalize any item once owned by a relative or friend, I stepped naturally into my role as the keeper of the family “heirlooms.” Some big, clunky piece of furniture that used to belong to Aunt Ethel? Unless it just happens to fit perfectly into someone else’s house, odds are that it will end up at Moksha’s house. I’m not complaining, per se. I’ve got some truly beautiful antiques from the deal and I’m generally more than happy to find a place for a piece of furniture that holds some small nostalgic twinge for the family. But I’m even keeping heirlooms that have no family connection to me. The rocking chair in my sunroom belonged to my cousin’s other grandma, but I assume that someone in their family will want it someday…so it waits. With Pumkin on the way, however, Moonshot and I have been rearranging the house. Suddenly, I find myself a bit less generous with my space.

Which brings me to the reason I mention my hording compulsion. You see, my Great-Grandma had a piano. Big, ol’ upright monstrosity that used to be a player. Middle C had a jagged “x” carved into the ivory, an obvious teaching devise from one of the many generations who sat down to this piano. The wood was worn and the high gloss coating had cracked in a thousand tiny fissures, like the skin on the back of your hand. But it was beautiful, an aging movie starlet that still radiated its 1930’s appearance. When my great-grandmother moved into a retirement home back in ’99 or so, the piano moved to my aunt’s basement. It was covered with a blue tarp and forgotten for a very short while. It could have rested there for quite some time, but instead, my aunt moved a year later. There was much debate at this time concerning the fate of this musical beast. No one wanted it…and no one wanted to throw it out. All my aunts and my uncle had fond memories of playing that piano as children. There were pictures of my grandmother sitting at that piano as a six or seven year old. The piano must be saved; it was family they decided. I had just gotten my first solo apartment in St Charles and figured it would look good in the living room. Due to years of neglect, it was unable to produce anything resembling a beautiful sound, but I figured I’d get it fixed up eventually. So, I rented a truck in Kansas City and drove it back to St Charles. I paid two movers far too much to tote the thing through the apartment courtyard and into my living room. It sat in my living room, looking good for a few months and then I moved into my current house. So, I again paid the same movers far too much money to heft it to the dining room of my then new home.

There it sat for quite some time, ignored but adding a certain sense of regality to my dining room…so long as no one tried to play it.

Eventually, I decided the time was right for the ol’ gal to sing again. I had a piano technician come out to take a look. The soundboard was shattered, but he could certainly fix it up for a mere $3000. I was stunned. I calmly asked how much it would be worth after this $3000…investment. He replied matter-of-factly, “$1500 or so.” That didn’t strike me as such a good deal, and the technician seconded my opinion. The piano stayed as it was for another few years.

In 2003, Moonshot moved in and together we purchased a real piano. It was a beautiful Yamaha U1 that went to live in our sunroom where Moonshot could easily use it for piano lessons. And with that, the Gren home had two pianos…one of which was really just a one thousand pound piece of decoration, a half-ton knick-knack.

A few months ago, the piano tech came back out to work on the U1. He was aghast…aghast, I tell you, that we had a Yamaha U1 sitting in that sunroom. “The sunlight!” he cried. “The temperature variation,” he moaned. “This is far too nice a piano to be treated this way!” We shuffled our feet like scolded children and tried to explain that it was the only place to put it. “What about the dining room,” he retorted, “where this other piano is? I’ll help you move it, right now…no charge.” His love for our U1 was undeniable and he had been so honest with me about the cost vs. benefit of restoring the old piano that I trusted his judgment. We agreed.

Our first stumbling block came when we realized, after much measuring and grumbling, that the old piano could not make the turn through the kitchen to the sunroom. We’d have to take it out the front door, down the steps, and around to the backdoor. The tech was not feeling THAT generous. Our plan of swapping the pianos died instantly.

It was decided that we would simply push the old piano to the side and find a new home for it. It was high time some other family member took a turn at keeping this hefty piece of nostalgia. The tech, as good as his word, hefted the U1 through our house. He flipped it on its side and slid it safely through our kitchen and into the dining room as if he had done it a thousand times. And who knows…maybe he has. At any rate, he was amazing. Anyone in the St Louis area looking for a good piano tuner…I got the guy.

I then set about the next step in the plan…finding a new home for the extra piano. Suddenly, however, no one in the family was particularly concerned about the fate of the heirloom. “Toss it,” they all said. “We don’t have room for it,” the spoke in unison. I was disheartened. I now had two pianos in my dining room, one of which overflowed into the hallway in a very un-regal manner, and no good way to get rid of it. Furthermore, being far more sentimental than the rest of my family (obviously), I hated to see it just thrown away. Hoping to find it a loving home, I wasted at least a month posting and reposting it on Freecycle. “Please, someone take this thing…it’s free!!!” I said in only slightly less pleading prose. But alas…no takers.

Finally, last week. I gave in and called movers to haul it away to the dump. They showed up, collected far too much money, and scratched deep gouges into my hardwood floors as they dragged it out. It’s fixable…but we’d have to refinish the entire main floor. So the scratches will stay where they are for now. I should have called the tech back. I have no doubt he could have single-handedly heaved it to the sidewalk without any damage to our home. Then the movers could have been as sloppy as they wanted while pushing it into their truck. Ah, hindsight.

So, every day I walk in my front door, I am confronted with the piano’s final parting shot, a daily reminder that I should try to keep my packrat nature under control. The piano never really had any business in my dining room. There is no need for a half-ton memory. Keepsakes should be small…and portable. They should sit on shelves or hang on walls. And if they are any bigger, you should keep them only because they are useful to you and because you need them for their function. They should never dominate an entire room, cost you a rental truck, three moving fees, and force you to refinish your flooring. So, from here on, if I want to have a little keepsake of my great-grandma around the house, I’ll stick with pictures.

Well, those and the piano bench that I just couldn’t bare to part with.