The only classical music I’ve ever truly liked features prominent violins. I’ve loved their sweet, melancholy souls for as long as I can remember. Can an instrument have a soul? It certainly sounds like it to me. But maybe more like a half-finished thing that can only be full and beautiful when merged with another. A player.
My dear husband presented me Christmas morning with a shockingly large package containing a precious, curvy chestnut violin. My dreams coming true. The first attempted sounds were scratchy and discordant and my heart sank as the fear of failure spread through my blood. What if my soul is not deserving of this beautiful instrument? What if I can never coax anything graceful or worthy from it? Shrugging off doubt again and again, I’ve kept practicing and today, for the very first time, in the absence of any squeals or dissonance, I felt something catch within me. Just a tiny little spark of a resonance but a resonance just the same and in that moment I felt the beauty of the thing jump into my heart and for a moment we were one and I could feel the future and I knew the grand potential of this love affair. All my self-consciousness and my fear of failure were temporarily wiped from my being and I knew it wasn’t about how good or skilled I could become. It’s about this feeling. It will feel like flying.
I’ve never worked very hard at anything. I’ve been smart enough (or lucky enough) to skim by at life. Everything done with minimal effort. Everything superficial. Jill of all trades, mistress of none. But this I will do. Not to become good. To fly.
Revelation In Thunder 