From Pianomomsicle – a local blog that I wish were a lot more prolific – I loved this bit:

So tonight i was looking for my old “Adoration” part, and found it and the piano part. i thought it might be fun to revisit it on violin, so i pulled my dear violin out again. And i opened it, and it wasn’t something hateful at all. It was my beloved Merrick (yes I named it) and it was looking back at me like “Why have you forsaken me?” And i played Adoration on it, and despite my very rusty technique, especially my horrible vibrato, IT still played as pure and true as it could. And i apologized to it afterwards. And will continue to play it, so i can get back up to feeling like my vibrato doesn’t sound like a beginner and my shifting doesn’t sound like sliding again. And i feel like a more complete person. The piano part is so pretty, and i was able to play it without much pausing, and that will be great. But the real victor was my relationship with my violin. i think the reason i hated it was because maybe i thought it was taking away from my piano playing, but now that i am known as a piano player, playing violin again has brought back memories and made me realize it’s wonderful. Maybe being with something 20+ hours/week makes you forget about its good qualities or something. You could probably relate that to marriage, too. Well, after coming back to it, i definitely don’t want to let it go.

I point it out partly because of the story at the top – how she became a violinist in the first place – and largely because re-discovering things you used to love had been a big theme for me lately…

…no, not quite.  I should have said “rediscovering things with which I used to have deeply-dysfunctional, codependent relationships, and trying to do it right this time” has been a big theme for me lately. 

My old cello needs a ton of work – so I don’t get to play much lately.  But a few weeks ago I went into a store, and sat down and tried a cello.  A nice one.  I started playing a few old things I’d memorized maybe 25 years ago – some little Küffner etude that I used to do as a warmup exercise – and it felt like the sound was shaking something way deep in my brain.  I kept on going, playing more old stuff, feeling deliriously comfortable, like the vibration of the instrument was a drug.

Damn.  Fun.  Gotta do that again sometime.

Anyway.  Talk radio?  Biking?  I’ve been doing that kind of thing a lot lately.