Remember.

I remember after I got my driver's license I would drive to the church during odd hours. My dad was the pastor, so I had a key on my key ring. I would go there when I knew the church would be empty--like a Saturday afternoon, or late at night. It was always a little creepy at night, but I didn't mind it because I felt like it was worth it. I would walk in the front door and almost run over to the light switch at the top of the stairs to get rid of the darkness as fast as possible. Then I'd turn and walk into that big empty sanctuary.
There was a big black grand piano waiting for me up on the stage.

I would play that thing for hours.

Sometimes I sang, sometimes I was quiet. Sometimes I turned on the sound system and belted into the microphone. Sometimes I would put a blank cassette tape in the recorder and press record.

I loved being alone in that sanctuary with the piano.

A few weeks ago I spent some time at my brother's house, and fell in love with their old, out of tune upright piano. I knew I could go home and play my digital piano and it would be perfectly in tune every time. But that just sounds like a bad idea to me. I really hate not having a real piano right now. I want to go back to that old sanctuary and play that great big piano and wonder at the possibilities of what I might play or write with all that space, just waiting to be filled.

But I don't have a key to that church anymore. The locks have been changed. We all moved. I haven't lived there since 2001.

Its strange to me how those moments slip away and then almost out of no where come back, just as clear as they were 6 years ago.