The wind blows cold against my back as cars swoosh by on the highway. Sometimes discarded trash like a paper cup or frayed piece of twine swirl around and tickle as they glance off my side. A deer, or fox, or bird join as brief companions. Yet I find myself living mostly in the past as that is where I felt comfortable and assured of purpose.

           I recall the days of tiny fingers practicing scales and pieces in the red book called Teaching Little Fingers to Play. I can still hear the steady tick of the metronome, the only true heartbeat I have ever known. I focus my mind on family gatherings where hymns or Christmas carols were sung joyfully and without self-conscious calculations.

           But sometimes all I want to think about is John—his touch, his attention. During our visits twice a year, John would sit on the bench in front of me cradling his bag of tools. He was part shaman and part physical therapist. He would repeatedly strike C4, what lay people call Middle C, and use his wrench to adjust the tuning peg tighter or looser. There was such reassurance in the repeated striking of a note in pursuit of perfect harmony, of reclaiming order and consonance. I loved the methodical nature of the tuning process. Moving on to D, and repeating the motions, then John’s hand touching E. But it was not as simple as that. It was not so linear as starting on the lowest note and moving higher until the keys ran out. It required revisiting notes already adjusted to fine tune them even more as string tensions and the organic wood wrestled and settled in search of a truce.

           But all of that is in the past now. I somehow became unwanted over time when no more fingers itched for tunes. Three strong men hoisted me into the bed of a red pickup truck. Thinking that my weight would be sufficient, they failed to secure me with ties. A highway curve taken at 70 miles per hour shifted me, and I fell overboard, tumbling with a great cacophony of crashing hammers onto a grassy area at the edge of the road. A brief and eerie silence fell as I came to rest on my side, only to be interrupted by the crunch of gravel as the truck accelerated in reverse down the road’s shoulder. Standing over me, they paid no attention to the few groans that escaped from my innards. They were caught up in a jumble of conversations and gesticulations, suggestions and recriminations. The men finally concluded that getting me back onto the truck would be too much trouble especially since I was bound for the dump anyway. And so, I started a new life here, feeling the breeze and partnering with the discordant sounds of traffic and the music of the spheres.