The Wizard at the Organ
Mischievous, I weathered the hard pinch of my mother in the front pew as my father preached. If I strayed far from boredom and wandered into imagination that seemed to unscrew my head from the wooden brace and make my spine like jelly such that I’d slide from the oiled seat onto the floor, then I would have to go with my mother to the small pit that housed a small organ on the side of the sanctuary, sit down in the foxhole near the lower foot pedals out of sight of all parishioners.
I liked it there, watching her kick off her shoes, going barefoot, knowing the play of her fingers on low keys and high, pulling stops, the large pipes rumbling and shaking the floor, the thin pipes which screeched under another player like the songs of birds, made perfected and quick by her hands.
I loved to watch the exotic movements of her feet, how she mastered four separate rhythms with four limbs when I could not master one that kept all my limbs in sync. She didn’t need threatening bombast or instant smoke or a thunderous voice to prove a wizard. Her feet did the work.