Me and My Cello

"Who would be interested in the cello?" The teacher, with her great spiky grey hair, looked around at us.

So many of us were crowded into that room. I was wearing a yellow dress, with flowers near the hem. My sister wears it now, in the summer.

Four of us raised our hands . I was the only girl. All my friends had chosen the smaller instruments. Violin and Viola. But I knew I wanted the cello. The teacher played the cello, and it was elegant. Beautiful. True.

The teacher measured the other potential cellist's hands. When she came to mine she remarked that I was going to need a very small cello. My fourth grader hands, next to her wonderfully spindly and knowledgeable hands made me feel insignificant. Those were musician hands. Those hands were magic...

"Hey girli." She snapped her gum and smiled. I closed the door behind her. She took off her shoes and I marveled how any one's toes could fit into those pointy things. My teacher sat down in the green chair in our living room. I sat down next to her and put Suzuki book two on the wire stand. She tucked a strand of her long blond behind her ear and wrote the date down in my notebook.
"OK. Play me allegretto."
I loved Allegretto. This song was my song. My cello, whom I'd named Peasblossom, was an old beater cello from the school district. I loved that cello. The song sounded good. My teacher put a star next to it...


I held my cello next to me and glanced at Mum. She smiled and my new private teacher's previous student walked out of the music room and untightened her bow. My new teacher followed. We were are introduced. My mum thanked her and I followed my teacher into the music room. I set up and she asked me about myself and then explained the curriculum. I played with nervous fingers, not wanting to disappoint her or myself. We tried out new music and she found a book at my level. As I played I decided I liked it there. It was organized and calm. And she wore slippers. I loved her slippers. And the fact that she wore them.
The songs were friendly and the cover of the book was that wonderful combination of blue and brown. Its weird how things like that stick in your mind. She played perfectly, without making me feel horrible about myself.
She's my hero.



I glanced back at DemiDawn (http://www.minavstand.blogspot.com/) and she smiled and gave me a thumbs up. I looked at my brother, who was, quite literally turning blue from holding back laughter because Dad was doing something funny with his hands and he couldn't make a sound, due the cellist performing in front of us. My hands were shaking, and I'm not even near the stage yet. My Mum took one of the books my sister was reading and opened to one of the blank pages near the back. She wrote in black pen, which has faded now, to brown. Her handwriting was unsteady suggesting that she was as nervous, if not more so, than I was. I read the inscription, and my pride hummed. I took her hand and squeezed. I waited.
Then, in what felt like mere seconds, I was up. Ready to meet my impending doom. Suddenly my cello was anchoured on the rockstop, my book in it's place and I was ready. So exciting. So fufilling. My fingers were shaking, and my tone was scared, but I did it. I beamed as I finished. I did it.


The curtains went up via a holister jacket-clad stagehand. Someone might have vomited on my cumerbund because there was a nasty tan stain on it. My orchestra teacher raised her baton and the whole Orchestra knew what was coming. This was what we had been waiting for. This made listening to the whole concert behind sweltering velvet fabric worthwhile. I felt my body moving with my instrument even before the intro was over. I laughed inside. Comrarderie swelled in us all, and for now no one could complain.


Different stage. Tuxedo shirt. New cello. A book of music now. Adrenaline thrums through my body. The conductor of the youth symphony raises her baton and the violins start. She cues us in. I've been waiting for this. We strike a high note. Our first in the song. My cello sings. And it is beautiful. It is shameless. My face is warm with the light that shines down. It is like a floodgate being opened. Beautiful. Free.

Notes from 11:56 AM Wednesday

I think, optimism is both good and bad. If an optimist goes for a picnic and gets lost on their way to the park and then realizes they packed a can of beets instead of some nice fresh scones with jam, and then it starts raining......an optimist can drop everything and go dance in the rain.



And then you can say you had a wonderful day playing in the rain, instead of saying you had a horrible day during which your picnic was ruined completely.



It's nice to be around an optimistic person. Though they might not be particularly down-to- earth, they have a bounciness that emanates from them like the sun. No one wants to be the only mourner at the party, so optimism is contagious.

Optimists have a nice balance with pessimists. Together they find what is really true. That half the water has been drunk, but you still have the water to enjoy.



The bad thing about optimism?



The occasional vast ocean of false, unreal hope.



Optimists set themselves up for it. Hoping. Feeling that they know that something good is going to happen is almost like a trusting the enemy. If everything is going to work out in the end, what happens when the end is devastating? Then what do they do? What if the events the optimists are given to work with are so sad that they can't find anything good? They give themselves more false hope, and while a lot of the time it makes them better to be around, sometimes, all it does is delay the realization that they were mistaken.

Tales from the Kitty-Catkin Tent

The transparent flap that was the door let the light filter through. I wished for snow. Read some book that my sister had left in her little world. As I turned to the back page, I read a inscription from my mother, encouraging me before a performance. I remembered a solo cello recital. My first....
I heard my North calling me. I ignored my brother, asking me to watch him play the xbox. I ignored him. But I needed that moment. Waiting for the normal week's ritual to set in. For the breath-stealing speed of busied life, the anticipation of seeing, and the heavy that I knew would soon take my mind. No more clay under my fingernails for awhile. No more raiding thrift stores until it all calms down. More meanlingless tasks that mean nothing to their master's.
Good-bye Winter. Please snow..
I crawled out of the tent. Moment shattered.

Year in review

Yes, I know New Years was awhile ago, but that doesn't mean that I can't post resolutions still right? This year privately, I came up with this.

• I will try finally, to stop biting my nails.
• I will practice cello more religiously.
• I will get Lorielye to level 30!
• I will start putting out material creativity, instead of just keeping it bottled up inside my head, waiting to have something done about it.

If I need to add on later I will. I'm dreading the interview and related paper I have to do. Why would you ever give students homework over winter break. Doesn't that send you straight to hell? I mean that is a wonderful example of bad karma right there.

My sister got a video camera for her birthday, (The third birthday in December in my household, which makes for makes for a stressful holiday season..) While trying to set it up, my Mum found movie maker and proceeded to make a movie. Here it is, it's basically our year in review. I'm really quite proud of her.