I moved a piano downstairs this morning all by myself.

Well, not really a piano. It’s a Yamaha keyboard I received as a gift last Christmas.

My parents had a small piano, a real one, when I was a kid. I played around with it from time to time, and made a few concerted efforts to learn from the pile of old instruction books stored in the seat, but that eventually faded in lieu of the guitar. I took a few years of guitar lessons but never got better than adequate - although I still have two guitars…

But a couple of years ago, I told my husband that I’d like to learn piano. And so he got me a nice Yamaha keyboard on a tall stand. I set it up in a corner of the dining room we rarely use, went to the music store, got a few books and a CD and started the lessons.

That lasted (the first time) for about three weeks.

Parallax was just starting to become full-time busy at that point. So I dropped it, reasoning that my efforts should go toward building my business. And assured the keyboard that I hadn’t forgotten it.

A few weeks ago, in the middle of the first of several snowstorms, we put up our Christmas tree in the same corner occupied by the keyboard. I took it upstairs to my office - but the odd thing was, it had been sitting in the corner for so long that it had become invisible. I hadn’t noticed it in months. The act of moving the piano made me notice it again.

Did I feel guilty? Somewhat. It is in fact a really nice keyboard for a beginner (or pre-beginner). It sounds great. The instruction book I bought is fantastic. But I just haven’t been willing to carve out time to get started again.

This morning I moved the piano back downstairs to its corner in the dining room after vacuuming up all the fir needles. Will it become invisible again? It’s likely. My theory is that things that aren’t in motion get ignored - that’s true of just about anything now that I think about that. Be still, become invisible. A good thing to remember when it comes to Parallax too.