Th Performance of a Lifetime (my college essay)
"Play 'Wonderful Tonight', Daddy! 'Wonderful Tonight!'"
Looking at me through the wide opening between the piano room and the entrance hallway, my father subtly sinks his shoulders.
"All right Lisa, but soon we're going to have to learn a new song. I'm pretty tired of playing this one." As if by rote, or possibly magic, Dad heaves a sigh as his fingers caress our sleek black Yamaha, and he begins to manipulate the keys into miraculous sound. His poise radiates from the piano through his every sway, nod, and dip.
I, however, do not notice his brilliance. At the puerile age of eight, I innocently take my father's talents for granted. Besides, I am too busy watching my own face belt the lyrics of "Wonderful Tonight" by Eric Clapton in our full-sized hallway mirror for the millionth wonderful time.
After the song's opening, I begin to twirl, and Dad's brief turn to sing begins: "She puts on her makeup, and brushes her long brown hair!" Interpreting these lyrics, I comb my fingers through my shoulder-length chestnut hair while my father watches. I am glamorous.
Dad's turn to sing ends abruptly when I interrupt him for my personal rendition of the remainder of "Wonderful Tonight." Now I can barely control myself, spinning and leaping and singing before my reflection. During the musical interlude, I dance over to my father, plant one on his cheek, and frolic back to my image for the grand finale, my microphone in hand.
"Oh my darling, you were wonderful tonight!" The bittersweet ending of Eric Clapton's masterpiece arrives. I lower my arms from their prominent place in the air. I pant with joyful exhaustion. Dad looks at me.
"What's next?" he asks.
I don't care that Eric Clapton has written many a better song than "Wonderful Tonight." It doesn't matter that the actual lyrics include a girl with "long blonde hair," and my dad just changed them to suit me. I'm okay with the fact that I never had a real microphone, and my performance didn't make me famous. Because through these moments I was able to understand the concept of a lifetime. Over time, my father would further expose me to the necessity of expressing myself and my right to be an individual. I would learn how to put others before myself while maintaining a sense of dignity. I would be taught how to achieve self-worth and ambition in a world that doesn't always seem to have room or patience for such virtues.
Unfortunately, the animated duets and valuable lessons came to an abrupt end three years later, when my father passed away from pancreatic cancer. But if I could go back and sing beside my father and before a mirror just one more time; if I could feel as free, as uninhibited, as innocent as I did, an eight-year-old in my entrance hallway, I would not change a single detail of the moment. For (with a little help from Eric Clapton) it was that piano, that mirror, and my father who made me proud to be who I am today.
Looking at me through the wide opening between the piano room and the entrance hallway, my father subtly sinks his shoulders.
"All right Lisa, but soon we're going to have to learn a new song. I'm pretty tired of playing this one." As if by rote, or possibly magic, Dad heaves a sigh as his fingers caress our sleek black Yamaha, and he begins to manipulate the keys into miraculous sound. His poise radiates from the piano through his every sway, nod, and dip.
I, however, do not notice his brilliance. At the puerile age of eight, I innocently take my father's talents for granted. Besides, I am too busy watching my own face belt the lyrics of "Wonderful Tonight" by Eric Clapton in our full-sized hallway mirror for the millionth wonderful time.
After the song's opening, I begin to twirl, and Dad's brief turn to sing begins: "She puts on her makeup, and brushes her long brown hair!" Interpreting these lyrics, I comb my fingers through my shoulder-length chestnut hair while my father watches. I am glamorous.
Dad's turn to sing ends abruptly when I interrupt him for my personal rendition of the remainder of "Wonderful Tonight." Now I can barely control myself, spinning and leaping and singing before my reflection. During the musical interlude, I dance over to my father, plant one on his cheek, and frolic back to my image for the grand finale, my microphone in hand.
"Oh my darling, you were wonderful tonight!" The bittersweet ending of Eric Clapton's masterpiece arrives. I lower my arms from their prominent place in the air. I pant with joyful exhaustion. Dad looks at me.
"What's next?" he asks.
I don't care that Eric Clapton has written many a better song than "Wonderful Tonight." It doesn't matter that the actual lyrics include a girl with "long blonde hair," and my dad just changed them to suit me. I'm okay with the fact that I never had a real microphone, and my performance didn't make me famous. Because through these moments I was able to understand the concept of a lifetime. Over time, my father would further expose me to the necessity of expressing myself and my right to be an individual. I would learn how to put others before myself while maintaining a sense of dignity. I would be taught how to achieve self-worth and ambition in a world that doesn't always seem to have room or patience for such virtues.
Unfortunately, the animated duets and valuable lessons came to an abrupt end three years later, when my father passed away from pancreatic cancer. But if I could go back and sing beside my father and before a mirror just one more time; if I could feel as free, as uninhibited, as innocent as I did, an eight-year-old in my entrance hallway, I would not change a single detail of the moment. For (with a little help from Eric Clapton) it was that piano, that mirror, and my father who made me proud to be who I am today.