Music Memory

My grandmother used to tell me how, when she arrived for her violin lessons as a child, her teacher would demand her left hand and clip her fingernails himself.

My favorite teacher loved sampling different brands of rosin [the substance that string players rub on the hair of their bows to help them grip the strings]; her favorite was Pirastro Olive. I bought a cake of it because I wanted to be like her. I will never use it up.

At the annual solo competitions throughout my youth, I scored the highest possible score every year except one. In seventh grade, I was too confident. I flew through the piece and lost points for careless mistakes. Excellent, not Outstanding. Devastation. Life went on.

Every year, my dad drove me to the solo competition, even after I had my license. He listened to me warm up, then listened outside the door during my performance for the judge. The year I auditioned for the All-State orchestra, he could see through a little window that my back broke out in hives as I played. When I came out, he told me that I had nailed it. He was right; I made it in.

When I went to my teacher's house for lessons the summer before she died, I would kick off my shoes and play barefoot. I practiced for her like I have never practiced for any other teacher in my life before or since. She pushed me toward boldness. I realize now that she wasn't just talking about music.

This is not a post about how lovely and noteworthy it was to pick up my violin this afternoon and how I wish I had time to do so more often. These things are true, but so what? This is about the flood of memories that rushed back before I had even wrestled the tuning pegs, sticky from neglect, into place. And about how there are more reasons than guilt over relinquishing skills that it took years of training to learn to pick it up and play again. And again. And again.