When I got home from a morning full of errands, a violin in my hand after over ten years of going without, a brief e-mail was waiting. Listen and love, it read, and so I did. More than anything else, though, I watched his hands.

You never had a strong vibrato, I told myself.

I held the bow in my hand and tightened it, running rosin up and down the hairs. I spent what felt like hours just tuning, trying to remember the sound of a crisp A, my ear doubting the pitch pipe’s approximation of a D (and rightfully so). I had never owned a pitch pipe before then, but I knew that I couldn’t rely on my ear any longer — any semblance of its training had left me during my decade-long hiatus. Powder-white tufts curled up and settled on the edges of the fingerboard as I tried to approximate notes, my fingers reacclimating. Nick sat by, watching. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I felt uncomfortable; I hated practicing in front of others when I was young, but now with my confidence completely shaken, I felt more vulnerable than ever.

As soon as he left the house, I began playing scales, two notes at a time slurred together (not unlike my own words the night before). Major, minor, chromatic, fingertips developing that familiar groove from the strings, ears cringing from off notes. I played what I remembered of Bach’s Double Violin Concerto, and while it was terrible and shameful and just no, there was still a part of me that was very yes.

Earlier that day, I spent two hours on the phone with a friend. The phone rang right as I took the violin out of its case and tucked it under my chin. I told him about the violin and how just having it in the same house made me feel at ease and how afraid I was to see how much I’d already lost.

Move to [REDACTED], he said, come with me. You play your instruments and I can play mine, and we can make music together and start down a new path, a mid-life change of sorts.

I laughed it off at the time, citing a lack of skill and forward momentum as my excuses, but throughout the day his words haunted me.

Move. Music.
Change.

When I first started playing the violin, I remember feeling right about it, like it was something I was meant to do. I took to playing by ear rather quickly, sussing out basic melodies like “Kumbayah” and other spirituals on my own before quickly learning how to sight-read. It became a comfort thing, where I would sit in my room, plucking out small snippets in order to keep my parents from listening. (No matter how much of a joyful trance I got from playing onstage with an ensemble, I could never bring myself to practice alone in front of others, and solos were out of the question.)

I found my second love during the eighth grade, when we were short a cellist and so I decided to challenge myself once more. I would hug that worn cello when I got home from school, finding its low, almost mournful tones a perfect fit for my perpetually-depressed self. Bored with the idea of dredging through freshman orchestra, I signed up for advanced classes when I got into high school and spent two years and change learning through trial and error, spending hour upon hour learning tenor clef and thumb position so I wouldn’t drag down the rest of the section. To keep up my violin studies, I would borrow sheet music from classmates and copy it, practicing their parts on my own so I knew I could keep up with them. By the time I switched back to violin in the middle of my junior year, I knew I was one of the stronger violinists in the class, even though I had to bide my time in the second violin section.

During my senior year of high school, I would spend about two hours of every day in the orchestra room. Hour one was filled with standard advanced orchestra practice, but the second hour was spent with the freshman orchestra, learning the basics about conducting and teaching music. I taught myself to play the viola and the doublebass, sometimes sitting in the viola section during concerts. While I was never the best instrumentalist, I had an innate understanding of music and how it worked. I’d forced myself to take up conducting for my graduation project/senior thesis, for I knew if I were to do something in the field of writing or journalism, I would take the easiest, most solitary route. I think it may have broken my orchestra teacher’s heart when he realized that I wasn’t going to study music in college, but at the time I felt like I could make a difference as a writer. I didn’t realize that the day I graduated would be the last time I would even touch a string instrument for more than five years.

I looked back at how unhappy I’ve been over the years, and after just a few moments of playing, I realized that a lot of that came from stifling that part of myself. I’d been so eager to frame myself as a writer and a writer alone that I’ve neglected my musical desires. Even putting aside the obvious relationship between music and prose poetry, I needed this, to be able to create in a way that wasn’t in my comfort zone. Music has always been and will always be my greatest challenge, and in some ways, it will always give me a sense of fulfillment that no other art form can.

I picked up the violin again today and just played. I pulled out the sheet music and tried to bluff my way into third and fifth position. My third finger placement is really off — could it be that I’m still slightly out of tune? — and I tend to lapse a bit in remembering what key I’m supposed to be in, but the foundation is still there.

Could I move to [REDACTED] and start anew as a session musician? Probably not. I didn’t have the raw showmanship that so many I’ve met have, but it would be fun to jam with friends every now and then. I wouldn’t mind volunteering at the local elementary schools, though, just helping kids with their form and such. Who knows? Most of them will probably end up having a much better vibrato than I ever will, and I’m perfectly okay with that. At least I have one again, and that’s all that matters right now.