The Piano Lesson: Memory is the Thing

Last month, I gave in and bought The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. I hesitated at first, because I didn’t want to go through the process and not have it work. I also didn’t want to go through the process and find that I was the same as thousands of other people who found the book helpful for their art practices. I wanted to be special. 

But I’m not special. At least not in this sense. No, I am blissfully and completely just like everyone else. The book is working. Funnily enough, too,  the book led me to the Netflix-produced film The Piano Lesson. 

One of the weekly exercises in the book is to take yourself out on an Artist Date. This is a time just for yourself, to do something you enjoy and/or could bring some amusement in your life. It can be anything, and it can be as big or as small as you want it to be. You can spend money, it could be free. I decided to spend money and take myself to the Art Theater in Long Beach. I got on their website and saw that I didn’t recognize any of the films playing, except for the Piano Lesson. I only recognized that title because the Long Beach Playhouse is doing auditions for it in January 2025, and I’ve been mulling over taking a shot at it. Past that, I didn’t know what I was in for. Gotta say - I’m glad I didn’t, because it blew my mind.

Synopsis (pulled from the Art Theater of Long Beach):

Set in 1936 Pittsburgh after the Great Depression, the Charles family grapples with the fate of their heirloom piano, a powerful symbol of their history, with carvings made by an enslaved ancestor. As a brewing battle between brother (John David Washington), who wants to sell the piano, and sister (Danielle Deadwyler), who refuses to part with it, escalates, the family is forced to confront deeply buried truths about legacy, memory, and who defines their past. Based on August Wilson's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, this gripping drama explores the emotional and generational impact of family history. 

The Piano is the Thing.

I’m not going to give any spoilers past saying that the piano is the most important character in this film. That piano documents history in a way more tangible than any family history written down could. It is the connection to ancestors, it is the connection to the future, and it is a symbol of community, heartache, and painful histories. The memory of the past is seen through the piano and held in the minds and hearts of everyone in the Charles family. 

Actually, Memory is the Thing.

Technically, the piano is not something that you can call intangible heritage. As mentioned, it is actually VERY tangible. What isn’t tangible and is hard to pin down, especially from black folks whose most recent ancestors were enslaved people in America, is a sense of connection to those who came before us. It’s not that records don’t exist; these family members, these humans, were bought and sold like mules, and even mules have sales records. It’s that the records are hard, if not impossible, to find and decipher. DNA tests that are uniquely suited to Black Americans are expensive. Ancestry.com and other companies like it aren’t going to account for all the intricacies of the Middle Passage and chattel slavery. A lot of the history we hold is oral. A lot of the traditions we hold are oral. A lot of our skills and knowledge are passed down through the centuries. 

We don’t have a lot of recorded resources (not as much as white Americans, anyway), and we have traditionally not had as many opportunities to build our communities as we see fit. It’s a pretty serious issue in historic preservation. The current field prioritizes policies that put architectural significance above cultural significance - thus making it harder to get an important building designated if it’s plain or if the ones in charge of designating don’t understand the culture. Material comes first.

So, what do you do when preserving your culture, maintaining information about your lineage, and/or celebrating your community is a call and response instead of a thesis? What happens when it’s carved into a piano instead of documented on paper, held in our bones, and told via rhythm? In a world where our places of importance don’t always meet the designation requirements of the city or state they’re in, you have to depend on memory. You have to depend on community. And you always have to expect change. 

There’s no stopping change. You can only move out of the way and follow where it leads. Following change, however, doesn’t mean that we abandon memory. We don’t abandon our ancestors. We don’t abandon the piano. If we keep our memories, both direct and indirect, close, then we maintain an anchor as we move forward in an ever-changing world. 

So About the Movie…

It was great. It almost made me cry, and then I decided to follow my emotions, and I did cry. It was a reminder to keep close my ancestors, to maintain belief in a power beyond mine, created through memory and feminine wisdom. It also reminded me that this is why film is powerful. Hollywood is changing. It’s getting harder to get things made, harder to live in Los Angeles, and harder to find jobs. But we need this. We try, we keep creating, we do our damndest because we need these stories, these reminders, these new visual frameworks and memories. The first person who ever hired me on a set was Adelina Anthony, and more than once, I’ve heard them say about their films that they were medicine for the community. Making money, making them sustainable is what we want, of course, but either way, it is medicine, a gift, a convening of community. 

And back to the damn book.

In The Artist’s Way, Cameron notes that once we start following creativity, we will be led. Once we state what we want, the universe will work in a way to bring you that exact thing. You just have to trust and believe and do the work of examining yourself and the world around you. With the exercises, I’ve been worried about how little I have been writing about following a path toward filmmaking. As I said, Hollywood is changing, and it’s a scary time to pursue film. 

The Piano Lesson was the reminder I needed that the work is worth it. Even if just to hit me over the head to remember how far memory had to travel to get to me. Even if it’s just a reminder to thank my ancestors for creating the life that I now inhabit. Even if it just reminds me to take care of any heirlooms and remember the love and struggle woven through them. 

Remember. Just keep remembering.

---

some other digital goodies: