Restoring Former Glory

Last November, I started playing the piano again, after a gap of several years. Not surprisingly, my poor piano had fallen out of tune in the interim, and so I asked my piano teacher whether the piano tuner I used to use was still in business. He was, but could only make an appointment at the end of January - yesterday.

It was nice to see him again, but when he walked in to the lounge, I made some throwaway comment about it having been "a while" since the piano was tuned, and to my slight embarrassment, he whipped a record card out of his pocket, looked at it, then grinned across at me and said: "Yes, May 2007." 

Oops.

For the next two hours I sat and stitched, while he did whatever it is piano tuners do, and restored it to its former in-tune glory. I love to watch skilled people at work - whether they are knitters, crocheters, artists, or in this case, piano tuners. It reminds me that we all need each other - I couldn't tune a piano if I lived to be a hundred. Nor cut hair, nor a million other tasks which others do so skilfully for me.

We are all inter-connected in a very fundamental way, by the services we render to one another. And I am most grateful, for my privileged life - a life in which such services are available, and easily accessible.