the love i play with

The story of this album wouldn’t be complete without telling you a little bit about my mom. It feels lucky, and more than a little fitting, that this part of the story happens to fall on Mother’s Day

Song: Blue Water, Composed, and Written by Reese Harper.

Reese Harper

The story of this album wouldn’t be complete without telling you a little bit about my mom.

It feels lucky, and more than a little fitting, that this part of the story happens to fall on Mother’s Day.

Before I understood music as something I could make, I understood it as something that filled our house.

My mom sang, danced, taught dance, and even directed some theater in our community. I was born into a home where music and movement were already in the air.

I was drawn to the piano from an early age. I liked the way sound came out of a wooden box. I loved feeling the vibrations, touching the frame, and looking inside to watch the hammers strike the strings. The piano felt very alive to me.

But learning piano before online lessons required a lot of driving. Especially when you lived in rural southeastern Idaho.

I still remember the route.

From a dirt road in Paul, Idaho, down Overland toward the outskirts of Burley. Left on Almo, then left again at the canal bank. Don’s trailer house was the last one on the left.

One trailer was full of sheet music. The other somehow held a grand piano and two uprights, which still seems impossible to me now. It was small, well kept, and completely devoted to the piano.

But when I think back on those lessons, I mostly remember the drive.

My mom never made it feel like a burden. She was upbeat. She asked about my day. She made the whole thing feel normal, even though now I can see how much time it took.

On the way home, I would try to convince her to take me to Dairy Queen. It was on the left side of the road. There was a shade tree there that felt good in the summer, the kind of shade you notice when the pavement is hot.

Mom was doing something distinct for me.

She noticed I was drawn to music, and she responded to it. She didn’t make it dramatic. She didn’t turn it into a lecture. She put it in the schedule. She made the drive. She asked about my day. She made it feel normal to care about something beautiful.

That matters to me now, because kids don’t always know which parts of themselves are going to stay with them. Sometimes an adult keeps making room for something before the child knows what it is.

Week after week, my mom made music part of the family calendar.

That sounds small until you realize how much of a life is built that way.

Looking back, I can see that she was helping me find a language.

A place to feel things.

A place to listen and be inspired.

A place to be alone without being lonely.

A place to tell the truth without having to explain it.

I think that is part of why this album feels connected to her.

When I started recording these songs, I wasn’t trying to make something impressive. I was trying to find something honest. I was trying to return to the part of me that could still feel beauty, even after life had become complicated.

The sunshine.

The wind.

The trees.

The water.

The feeling of being alive enough to notice any of it.

That feeling runs through this album. And when I trace it backward, I can see my mom there.

Not in a loud way. More like warmth under the music. A kind of steadiness. A confidence that music, movement, and feeling belong in the middle of a normal life.

That may be one of the greatest gifts she gave me.

A way of being in the world that still feels open. Still relational. Still patient. Still playful. Still willing to notice trees and water and sound and friendship and beauty.

I can hear that in the songs now.

Tenderness, yes. But not only sadness. Something familiar. Something shared. The same warmth that lived in our home made its way into me, and somehow found its way back through the piano.

So today, on Mother’s Day, I want to say thank you.

Thank you, Mom, for driving me to piano. For singing. For dancing. For noticing. For making music feel like a normal part of life.

This album came from a season of change. A need for honesty. A return to my musical identity. The mountains, the trees, the water, and the long quiet moments when music was the only thing that could say what I meant.

But it also came from you.

And I hope, when you hear it, you recognize something of yourself in the songs.

Happy Mother’s Day.