Running Barefoot

5. Virtuoso



The only church in Levan was built in 1904. It was a beautiful light colored brick with a tall graceful steeple and steps leading up to the double oak doors. Not everybody went to church services in Levan, but everybody went to church. That church had been the town gathering place for almost 100 years. It had provided walls for worship, seen the townsfolk marry in its hallowed halls, and absorbed the grief of many a funeral. The beautiful chapel had high arching windows that were two stories tall. The heavy oak pews possessed the patina of time and tender care.

Sonja taught me to play the organ in that lovely little chapel. On the day of my first lesson, I had shown up in blue jeans, only to have Sonja send me home to change into a dress.

“This is a place of reverence and worship,” she had said sternly. “We do not wear casual clothes when we enter the chapel!” .

Christmas was coming, and I was going to be performing ‘Oh Holy Night’ on the piano for the annual Christmas Eve service. Everyone in town came to the Christmas Eve service, whether they came regularly to church or not. It was the spiritual highlight of the Christmas season for townsfolk. The choir would perform sacred Christmas songs, Sonja would accompany them on the organ, and the bells would be rung. The story of the Christ Child would be read at the pulpit by Lawrence Mangelson, who possessed a rich, deep, orator’s voice. It was my favorite tradition, and my musician’s heart was overflowing with thoughts of debuting at such an event. I had taken piano lessons, Monday through Friday, for three years, and had yet to play for anyone but Doc, Sonja, and my family.

Originally, the church choir director, married to the aforementioned Lawrence Mangelson, had denied Sonja’s request to let me play in the special worship service. She was kind, but she worried that my ability at thirteen would not be worthy of the occasion. Sonja had taken me to Mrs. Mangelson’s home and insisted that she listen.

I played a powerfully moving and difficult rendition of ‘Oh Holy Night’ on the piano in her little sitting room, and when I finished, the sweet old lady humbly asked for my forgiveness, begging me to take part in the program. Mr. Mangelson said it would be the best Christmas Eve Service ever and suggested we keep my piano solo a secret.

Christmas Eve fell on a Sunday that year, and I attended the 9:00 a.m. church services without my family. Because the congregation would be returning that evening for the Christmas Eve service, the morning services were shortened. I had let my Aunt Louise and Tara in on my little secret, so later that afternoon, Aunt Louise came over and styled my hair, smoothing my natural curl into shining waves and applying light makeup on my eyes, cheeks, and lips. Sonja said musicians often perform in classic black but had thought white might be more age appropriate. She had driven to Provo, a city about an hour north of Levan, and found a simple yet elegant, long-sleeved, white, velvet dress. When I thumped down from my attic room, coiffed and wearing my new dress, my one foot in a heel and the other in a walking cast, thanks to my tumble down Tuckaway Hill, my dad’s weathered face softened and his lower lip trembled.

“You look like an angel, honey. I’d hug you but I don’t want to muss ya up.”

The night was cold and still, snow running in deep drifts along the edge of the poorly plowed roads. We made our way to the church which was lit up and welcoming in the moonlight. Sonja sat at the organ and played magnificent prelude music, softening hearts and moistening eyes before the program had even begun. We sat in our regular pew, with Rachel coming to join us to sit with Jacob. They were engaged to be married in the spring, and with Jared home from college for the holidays, we were all together. Everyone was scrubbed and solemn in their holiday best, hair slicked and ties tied.

The program began, and my stomach was in knots as it neared the moment of my solo. I was seated at the end of our bench to provide easy access to the aisle, which was a straight shot up to the stand where the piano was waiting, lid opened, choir members seated on the dais around it. Lawrence Mangelson’s voice soared with the spirit as he spoke of the angels that heralded the birth of the King. Suddenly, it was my turn to play, and I rose on shaking legs and walked to the piano. There was a murmur through the congregation. The service always stayed close to tradition with little variance in narration or music. This was a surprise, and again, no one really knew I played.

I sat down and closed my eyes in silent prayer, asking for the nerves to stay in my legs and not my hands. My knees could knock harmlessly without hurting my performance. Softly, I began to play, tuning into the beauty of the sound, the soaring reverence of the melody, the magnificence of the musical phrasing. The audience faded around me as I joyously submitted to the song, and when it was done I slowly descended back to earth. I rose from the piano on steady legs, having forgotten my nerves, and looked out over the silent congregation.

My dad’s face was streaked with tears, and my brothers’ faces shone with pride. Aunt Louise and Tara smiled broadly, and Tara even waved excitedly before her mother noticed and pulled her hand down. Sonja was dabbing her eyes with a lacy hanky, her horned rims in one hand.

Then, from the back of the room, someone began to clap. Mormons don’t clap in worship services. The chapel is a reverent place, and speakers end sermons with an ‘amen’, followed by an ‘amen’ from the congregation. When someone sings or plays, even ‘amens’ are not given. The choir or performer knows how well they have been received only by the level of silence and attention that is afforded them.

The clapping drew a little gasp from the churchgoers, and my eyes flew to see who was committing the faux pas. Towards the back of the church, standing next to the pew where his grandparents always sat, dressed in a white dress shirt and black pants, his hair pulled back off his face and secured in a low ponytail, was Samuel. He was clapping, his face serious and unashamed, and he kept clapping and clapping. His grandparents were seated beside him, their faces torn as to whether they should silence him or clap with him. Slowly, people began to join him, standing up around him as broad smiles broke out and the clapping became a roar.

I stood unmoving, not knowing quite what to do, until Sonja stole to my side and asked me to play Schubert’s ‘Ave Maria’. I knew ‘Ave Maria’ by heart only because I loved it. I had never intended to perform it, but the continued applause encouraged me, and I sat back down on the bench and began the unplanned encore, inviting my audience to be seated and listen. When I finished the intensely beautiful and sacred number, there was no clapping. The silence was total and complete, the room hushed, as the congregation wept openly.

Sonja told me later there wasn’t a dry eye in the place. I found my eyes returning to where Samuel had stood. His eyes met mine, and he nodded once, solemnly. I slightly bowed and walked back to my pew where my father waited for me with open arms.





“You never told me you could play the piano like that.”

Samuel and I were back on the bus again, the heat pouring out of the heaters under the seats, the smell of wet feet and rubber boots wafting up all around us. Christmas vacation was over, two weeks of freedom ended, and the kids were glum. I had not seen Samuel since the Christmas Eve service.

“When was I supposed to tell you?” I asked, stumped. “We’ve never discussed music. Do you play an instrument?”

“No. We have traditional songs – but I don’t really know anyone that plays an instrument.” Samuel looked at me in wonder. “But you.... you play like ....like no one I’ve ever heard.”

“Thank you.” Samuel’s words washed me in pleasure. “And thank you for clapping,” I said softly. “It was the most beautiful moment of my life.” I realized I sounded a little overdramatic, and I felt my cheeks turn pink. But it was true. I had never experienced anything like it. The music, the applause, the beauty of the church, and the people I loved looking at me and listening to me. I had never in my life been the center of attention, and I knew now why people performed. I had learned to play simply for the love of music and for the joy it gave me. But performing definitely had its perks. Just thinking of Samuel, of the expression on his face as he stood and clapped - for me! - I would never forget it for as long as I lived.

“It was for me, too.” Samuel’s voice was gruff, and I could see he was embarrassed by his admission. “I have never heard music like that.”

“Did you know you weren’t supposed to clap?” I asked shyly, smiling at him.

“Yes. But I couldn’t help myself.”

“Someday I’m going to travel the world, playing beautiful music, making people happy, hearing people clap,” I said dreamily, and for a moment we sat together in companionable silence, contemplating my future.

“Would you like to hear something?” I asked him suddenly, reaching for my cassette player and my headphones. Sonja and Doc had given them to me for Christmas, and I had spent the remainder of the holidays making tapes from my favorite music in Sonja’s collection.

I pulled out my Sony Walkman and popped it open, looking at the music inside. ‘Beethoven’ it read, in careful print. I pushed play and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony filled my ears. I rewound it to the beginning and placed the earphones on Samuel’s ears. I listened to music loudly - you can’t really appreciate classical music, the rises, the individual notes and trills, if you don’t turn it up and give it your complete attention. I pushed play and held my breath a little.

I don’t know why I cared so much. But I did. I felt like I was revealing something very private about myself, and his approval and appreciation of this music was paramount to me. I had come to care deeply about his opinion, and I wasn’t quite sure how I would react if he rejected my music. It might feel like a rejection of me. If he said, “It’s okay” or “Hmmm, interesting” it might also affect the way I felt about him. Realizing this, I regretted my spontaneous gesture, and tried to remove the headphones from his head - I suddenly didn’t want to know what he thought.

His hands flew up and covered mine, and his eyes met mine fiercely as he pulled his head away. My hands fell to my lap, and I looked out the window dejectedly, waiting until he was finished. Every once in a while I sneaked looks at him. His eyes were cast downward, and his hands were locked over the earphones where he’d left them after my attempt to take them. There was a rigidity to his posture that I couldn’t decipher. The music was loud enough that I could faintly hear when ‘Ode to Joy’ ended. I clicked the stop button, and Samuel slowly pulled the earphones from his head.

“What is it called?” He asked, and there was reverence in his voice.

“It’s Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. It’s also known as ’Ode to Joy.” Samuel looked at me as if he wanted to hear more.

“Beethoven first heard the poem called “To Joy” more than 30 years before he set it to music with his Ninth Symphony. The ninth symphony was his last. By the time it was completed, Beethoven was deaf and sick. It had taken him ten years to complete it - he changed the “Joy” theme over 200 different times until he was satisfied with it.” I stopped, not certain whether he wanted to hear more.

“He was deaf?” Samuel’s voice lifted in astonishment.

“Yes. Sonja told me that he couldn’t hear the audience applauding behind him when he conducted it for the first time in Vienna. A singer turned him around so that he could see the people cheering and clapping throughout the concert hall. He would lie on the floor during rehearsals so that he could feel the vibrations of the music.”

“How did he know what it sounded like? I mean, in order to write music, don’t you need to be able to hear it?” Samuel replied in wonder.

“It was inside him, I guess.” I pursed my lips in contemplation. “It was in his head and in his heart. I guess he felt the music, so he didn’t have to hear it with his physical ears.” I paused. “Sonja told me once that many of the great composers, including Beethoven, have said that the music they compose is in the air, that’s it’s already there, you just have to be able to hear it. Most of us can’t…we can only appreciate that people like Beethoven seem to be able to, and then write down what they hear.”

“Do you hear it?” Samuel asked, his eyes penetrating.

“I don’t hear it…but I know it’s there.” I struggled to express something that I’d never put into words. “Sometimes I think if I could just see without my eyes, the way I feel without my hands, I would be able to hear the music. I don’t use my hands to feel love or joy or heartache - but I still feel them all the same. My eyes let me see incredibly beautiful things, but sometimes I think that what I see gets in the way of what’s…what’s just beyond the beauty. Almost like the beauty I can see is just a very lovely curtain, distracting me from what’s on the other side…and if I just knew how to push that curtain aside, there the music would be.” I threw up my hands in frustration. “I can’t really explain it.”

Samuel nodded his head slowly. “I found myself closing my eyes while you were playing that night in the church. Others did the same. Maybe that’s why. Our ears were trying to hear what our eyes keep hidden.”

He understood. I felt a luminosity fill my soul and a sudden urge to hug him.

“It’s in the air,” Samuel mused softly. His eyes were unfocused and his brow creased in reflection. “Like ni ch’i.”

“What?” I didn’t understand.

“It’s like ni ch’i. Ni ch’i is the Navajo for air or the wind ... but it is more than that. It is holy and it has power. My Grandmother says ni ch’i means the Holy Wind Spirit. Everything in the living world communicates through ni ch’i. Because of this, the Holy Wind Spirit, ni ch’i, sits at the ears of the Dineh, or the people, and whispers instructions tells them right from wrong. People who constantly ignore the ni ch’i are abandoned, the ni’ch’i will not remain with them.” Samuel’s eyes became focused again, drawing down on mine. “My grandmother believes that the ni ch’i is breathed into a newborn baby as they take their first breath. The child then has the companionship of the ni ch’i at all times. Ni ch’i guides him as he grows.

“It sounds like the Holy Ghost. I learned about the Holy Ghost in church. It helps you to do what’s right, guards you, warns you, leads you, but only if you are worthy of His company. It only speaks the truth. My Sunday School teacher says it is the way God talks to us.”

“Maybe what Beethoven hears is ni ch’i singing God’s music.

“I think you might be right.”

I rewound the cassette and extended the earphones to fit a head the size of Goliath’s. Then I leaned close to Samuel and fit the whole thing over both of our heads, one earphone on my left ear, one earphone on his right and we listened to God’s music, with our heads pressed close together, for the rest of bus ride.





Samuel never complained about my taste in music, in fact he seemed to enjoy it immensely. He rigged my earphones so that we could turn the fuzzy ear pads outward, so that our heads weren’t pressed together when we listened. I hadn’t minded a bit…but I wasn’t going to admit it. He seemed concerned that someone might misconstrue the intimate proximity of our heads. We each held one side of the headphones pressed to our ear. After about a week of non-stop Beethoven, I brought my tape of Rachmaninoff. We were listening intently to Prelude in C Sharp Minor, and Samuel’s black eyes were wide and shining. He turned towards me as the movement came to a stunning finish.

His voice was awed. “This music makes me feel so powerful, like I could do anything . . . like nothing could stop me as long as I kept the music pounding into my head. And there’s just that one small part where the music becomes triumphant, like the intensity is climbing and climbing and pushing and reaching and then those three chords play and it says ‘I did it!!!’ - kind of like Rocky raising his hands at the top of all those stairs. You know what I mean?” His voice was soft and sincere, and he looked at me then, smiling a little sheepishly at his enthusiastic review. “It’s so powerful .... I almost believe if I kept on listening I would become ‘Super Sam!’”

I laughed, delighted with his rare humor. Samuel didn’t joke around a lot, and he was definitely not verbose.

“I know exactly what you mean. Remember when I fractured my ankle?” I confessed sheepishly. “I got a little carried away with the music in my head and for a minute I was convinced I could fly.”

Samuel stared at me with a half smile on his face, shaking his head.

“Maybe I will have to make us matching capes and this can be our theme music.” I struck a pose. “Super Sam and Bionic Josie here to save the day!” I sung out.

Samuel actually laughed out loud. The sound was even better than the music, and I smiled at him, happier than I could ever remember being.

Samuel sat silently for a moment, not putting the earphone back up to his ear. I pushed the stop button on my player.

“Do you think you could make me a copy of that tape?” Samuel said stiffly. I wondered why it was so hard for him to ask such a simple thing when I was so obviously his friend.

“Sure. Definitely,” I said brightly.

Samuel looked at me, his eyes troubled, and the joy of the music fading to a new concern. “I told you I wanted to go into the Marine’s, right?”

I nodded my head, waiting for him to continue.

“I’m scared to death.” He held my gaze fiercely, daring me to speak. I stayed silent.

“A Marine has to know how to swim....and I have been in a pool exactly twice in my life. I grew up on an Indian Reservation, Josie, herding sheep all summer long, not swimming. I can dog paddle sort of…” His voice trailed off.

“Why do you want to be a Marine, Samuel?” I was curious as to why, if he didn’t know how to swim, he wanted to try in the first place.

Samuel was quiet for a minute. When he answered I wasn’t sure he’d understood my question.

“My Shima, my Navajo grandmother, said when I was born she hung my umbilical cord on her gun rack because she knew I was going to be a warrior. It is a Navajo tradition,” he smiled briefly as my eyes widened.

“It’s a tradition to hang the umbilical cord on the gun rack?” I blurted incredulously.

“It’s tradition to save the umbilical cord and put it in a special place that will be important to the newborn child when they are grown. It can be buried in the corral if it is believed the child will have an affinity for horses. It can be buried in the cornfield if the child will make his living from the land or under the loom if the child is thought to have the gift of weaving. My grandmother said she knew I would have to struggle to find my way in two worlds, and I would need a warrior’s spirit. Originally, she buried it in her hogan so that I would always know where my home was. But she says it felt wrong and she prayed many days to decide where to place my umbilical cord. She said the hogan would not always be my home, and she dug it up and put it on the gun rack.”

I met his gaze, intrigued. He continued, “She believed I would follow in my grandfather’s footsteps.”

“Who was your grandfather?”

“My Navajo grandfather was a Marine.”

“I see ... so you’ve always thought you would be a Marine because your grandmother believed that was your destiny?

“I believe it is, too. I’ve dreamed about seeing other places... about belonging, being a part of something that had nothing to do with being Navajo or being white, or any other culture. If you make it through 12 weeks of Marine training, you’re a Marine - one of the ’few and the proud.” Samuel’s mouth twisted humorlessly as he quoted the slogan. “I don’t have any siblings - my mom remarried to a man who already had five children, so I have three step-sisters and two step-brothers, all older than me. I don’t know them very well, and I don’t especially like them - they call me ‘the white boy’ when my mother isn’t around. I want out, Josie. I don’t want to go back home to the reservation. I’m proud of my heritage, but I don’t want to go back...I do not want to herd sheep my whole life.”

“So....this swimming thing. Is that the only problem?” I said tentatively.

He looked at me sharply. “I’d say it’s a pretty major problem.”

“The school has a pool, Samuel. Can’t you learn? Isn’t there someone who would teach you?”

“Who?” Samuel gazed at me angrily, “Who Josie? When? You are such a child! I ride this bus for 40 minutes every morning and 40 minutes every afternoon. I have no way of getting to school early or staying late. I have no driver’s license, so even if Don would let me take the truck, I’m useless.”

“I’m not a child, Samuel!” He had turned on me so suddenly, and his anger made me angry, too. “Maybe you need to ask for a little help. Don’t be so stubborn! I’m sure someone at the school would be willing to teach you, especially if they knew why you needed to learn.”

“Nobody wants to help me, and I’d rather drown than ask anyone.” Samuel’s face was grim and his fists were clenched. “I’m sorry I called you a child. Just…forget it okay?”

We sat in silence the rest of the way into the school. I wondered why the music had made him think about being a Marine - maybe because Rachmaninoff made him feel powerful when he felt so powerless.