For almost two years of college, I stayed far away from classical music. I didn’t listen to the symphonies and sonatas on my iTunes, and I never opened the cover of my piano at home. Dust fell on my sheet music until I packed it up at the end of each year.
I think I was unconsciously trying to avoid things that reminded me of what I had given up here. Piano had been a part of my life since I was 6, but I let it slip away, especially after my time on campus became defined by my work for this newspaper.
I only have one recording of myself playing. It’s a concert performance of Mendelssohn’s Rondo Capriccioso, and I flinch every time I hear my mistakes during the rapid arpeggios. The track remained at the same play count throughout my sophomore and junior years. I shut it out the same way I left my mom’s letters on my desk for weeks, unread, because I was afraid of confronting the emptiness that I left with her, and because I was ashamed that it took me longer each time to read them. With each letter, the number of unfamiliar Chinese characters grew and my mom added more phonetic pronunciations for me above them.
Instead, I gave my entire self to the paper. I learned to put together a vision of what I believed it could become, and more than three years later, I left it knowing that it was stronger than before. I learned to be patient and stand my ground when I felt abandoned by people I trusted, to take in the words from others that upset me and hurt my pride and to close my door when all I wanted to do was scream.
Last November, I attended a friend’s piano recital at the Hop. I knew that my housemate was going, but I chose a seat by myself in the back, wanting to lose myself in the crowd and the music. I felt myself begin to shake the moment she walked on to the stage, before she started to play. When the first notes of the concerto rang through the hall, the tears fell quickly, and then they wouldn’t stop. I tried to subtly wipe them off and kept looking straight ahead even as my nose clogged up and I had to breathe through my mouth.
It wasn’t the music itself that moved me; it was the reminder of the hours I had spent practicing technical passages, the marks in my music book where I noted down the themes of a fugue and the elation I felt when I stood up to bow in front of the audience. I can no longer play as I used to; my fingers struggle to strike keys, and I can’t even produce a basic scale.
When the concert ended, an excited, bustling crowd surged out of the doors, and I was silent. I felt none of their wonder at the performance. All I wanted to do was to be on my own. I stepped outside and relished in the stinging cold air that dried my tears, leaving behind a salty stiffness on my cheeks.
I didn’t want to go home, where I would run into my housemates. I contemplated turning toward the voices and comforting arms that I knew, but none of those people were what I needed in that moment.
As I crossed the parking lot behind a bank, I felt the weight of everything I had tried to push away come falling back on to me. The sound of piano keys singing, the Chinese characters that I struggled to understand, the selfish words I had thrown at my mom to pain her — everything caught up to me and hit me with such force that I stood still, trying to calm myself down and catch my breath.
I needed to walk. I needed to move. I convinced myself that the act of going somewhere and having a destination would let me leave behind the guilt that overwhelmed me. But I felt blocked in every direction. North were the loud, thumping basements that I no longer enjoyed; south would take me out of town. I turned down Maple Street toward the river, but I hadn’t taken more than a dozen steps before I ran into a friend walking out of her house.
“I’m going out,” she said. “You want to come?”
I didn’t.
Snow had begun to fall lightly. It touched my eyelids and felt cool against my face. Standing on the street in the dark, I felt clearly, for the first time, that I was ready to leave campus.
I spent my winter break in Paris, where my mom and I went to a performance of Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony, which I had never heard before. We sat in a high balcony to the right, and my neck strained from trying to catch a glimpse of the orchestra. The swelling music of the chorus in the finale enveloped me, leading me back to something I knew. I felt myself crying, and this time I didn’t wipe away the tears. It felt like a release of the things I had been holding on to too tightly.
I was by myself for most of the break, free to go to almost 30 museums in those six weeks. I spent hours in front of Géricault paintings, isolated from the swarms of visitors around me. I wandered along the river at night and felt giddy when I caught the Eiffel Tower glittering on the hour. I began taking the bus, always pressing my nose against the window, so I could see the city in front of me and learn the names of streets.
Once, in an impressive spurt of energy, I woke up at 5:30 to bike to the pool in the 15th arrondissement. When I couldn’t find a bike, and without a map of nearby bikesharing stations, I walked for nearly two miles from Opera to Alma-Marceau as the sky lightened above me, finally stumbling upon a full bike rack. By the time I got to the pool, I had missed the morning lap session.
I was sweaty and my hands prickled from holding on to the handlebars as they shook against the cobblestone streets, but I decided to bike home anyway. I took the path along the right bank of the Seine and watched as the pale dawn brightened into a clear blue sky. The breeze from the water made me awake for the first time that day, and I felt the thrill of biking faster as cars rushed by on my left in the early morning traffic. I grinned to myself as I decided that before I left, I would walk over every bridge and visit every landmark I passed.
I was as excited to be in Paris as I had been during my first years at college, when every weekend brought the surprise of discovery — a new mutual friend, a new restaurant, a new trail to hike. But now I’ve been to all the mountain peaks and diners that I need, and I know who will remain in my life long after graduation. This week I climbed Moosilauke for the sixth time. I had dinner at the Lodge, whose wooden walls remain the same as they did when I had my first dinner there as a freshman.
In January, when I stepped off the coach, I had never been less excited to be back on campus. I felt as though I were shutting myself in, knowing how much more was beyond Hanover and how little I had left to find here.
Four years ago, I fell behind my trip as we headed toward the summit of Moosilauke. It was the first time I had gone hiking, and I was panting heavily when my trip leader looked back to check on me. When I got to the top, I was met by an expanse of endless peaks diminishing out of sight. It was much too windy for the shorts I was wearing, and my hair would not stay tucked behind my ears as we wrapped ourselves in front of the orange signpost for our photo. In that moment, I loved the promise of what the next four years would bring.
I’m not looking out to the same view now, but the sense of vast opportunity is familiar.
Che is the former editor-in-chief of The Dartmouth.
