Left Hand

As he strolled down the long hallway of his railroad apartment on West 105 Street, Dennis glanced down at his hand, remembering the day he was diagnosed with focal dystonia, a neurological disorder affecting the movement of his hands, a devastating day that laid a struggle ahead and crushed his dreams of performance.

Dennis is young for 65, about six-feet tall with long legs, neat salt and pepper hair and slim rectangular glasses. He commutes to Scarsdale almost every day to teach piano at Crestwood Music, the school he founded with his friend in the late 90s, the school where I’ve been taking lessons with him since 2010.

He placed a folder filled with sheet music on the table next to the smoothie he’d just poured for himself. (It’s not vegan; he’s not that kind of Upper West Side guy.) He packed his leather shoulder bag with the folder of music, his glasses case, and his thin but somehow very heavy iPad, after picking it up from the charger on the counter. He quickly glanced at his cherished old Steinway that he’s lived with for years. It had just arrived home after a well-deserved yearlong restoration. (Pianos made in the late nineteenth century need a little extra care.) He’d saved up for years to rejuvenate it, and now it sat patiently, wrapped in the thin plastic protecting it from anything that might cross its path.

Picking up his bag, he remembered the days when that hand wore an arthritis glove to try to gain some control. He wore the glove to try to feel each finger individually so that he wouldn’t inadvertently miss notes, but it could only fix so much.

He headed toward his bedroom, with his bag on his shoulder and a carrier in his hand, ready to airlift Machu Picchu, his adopted chihuahua who lives up to his name. He had recently bought a new carrier, as the old one was worn, and Machu Picchu made it clear that he didn’t like the new one; it didn’t smell like home. The wooden floor of his apartment creaked with each step as he made his way toward the door with the familiar long but gentle strides that I’ve known for thirteen years.

Stepping into the hallway, he might have thought of the day my mom and I left his apartment the same way, venturing into the winds of tropical storm Ida as the gusts spiraled up the stairs. He’d offered us a place to stay amid the rattling windows and tornado winds, worrying about our safety on our journey home. Having been numbed by constantly exaggerated weather reporting, and not wanting to impose, we’d turned down the invitation.

As he stepped out into the brisk morning air, he waved to the people on the bench outside Silver Moon Bakery and thought about how the city felt kind. He glanced at his calendar on his phone on the way to the bus, noting that today was a more packed day of lessons than usual. It was the first day back from the music school’s spring break.

Arriving in his classroom, he glanced at the poster from his returning concert at Weill Hall. He looked down at his left hand and recalled how he’d opened the concert with Fred Hersch’s Nocturne for the Left Hand Alone as a symbol of recovery and strength. He thought of his teacher, Sophia, to whom the concert was dedicated and who gave him the love for music that he passed on to me. With that, he sat down to play, and music filled the silence.

Nocturne for the Left Hand Alone - Fred Hersch (performed by Dennis Malone)