Violeeeeeeeeee!

My cheap violin leaned in its black case against the hutch in my living room, chastising my neglect, like neighborhood dogs coming out to bark a while at my passing. The mental rocks I threw at their voices defended my position--I play horribly, like the neophyte I am at age 65 with all of 6 violin lessons under my belt, and I abhor inflicting auditory pain on my condo co-dwellers. I am a singer and can recognize fine notes.

So I carried my violin outside and walked in late evening to the valley below my condo along the path to the creek to whom I am grateful for singing me cheery ditties on my mandatory health walks, forgetting for the moment that it might be possible to torture a creek as well.

Later I thought better of that and sat to play on the grassy knoll by the freeway away from the creek so the traffic noise would drown out the strident A's and G's, the not quite on the note notes, the grating squawks and crashes against the ear drum.

Later I played at my brother's country house because he has a big field with no other houses in sight and he promised he and my sister-in-law wouldn't listen.

Later I played with no caution at my friends' farm and stayed too long in their pasture of gold and pink and purple blossom-topped grasses, lost in each slide of note to note, senses awakening moment by moment under puffy clouds in a vast sky the deep blue color of a shirt I stole from my daughter 20 years ago.

Later I played boldly on my own hillside so that my violin, now coming to live, tail wagging, as a being in my world, would have a view.

I think it may have been on that hillside that I played one fine note.

Most of this is not true. Most of it is a combination of fact and fiction I stumbled upon whilst thinking of my violin and letting my creative juices simmer a while. To embellish what’s real with what could be—now that is super dreaming! I slide from taupe to gold and red on theoretical strings of imagination that may be connected to….who knows what?! Yehudi Menuhin or a violin on a dump heap.