One factor about getting older is that growing loss is the lay of all of the land. Lack of nimble limbs, incremental listening to loss, cataracts (in fact). Lack of associates, of household, of well-known icons we grew up alongside. It’s such a gradual, relentless beat. It doesn’t (but) take away the dance, however it modifications the steps, forcing the dancer to regulate the faucet and shuffle.
I’m usually inclined to only stand nonetheless, considering possibly within the stillness the loss will sluggish, and even cease.
The concept to take up the cello at 75 was born in that stillness. It appeared prefer it may very well be a well timed distraction, a solution to alter to Gradual, a method of connecting the dots of a lifetime of informal musical engagement — piano, violin, choir. The instrument’s repute as melancholic a complement to the sorrows, even.
I used to play violin as a passion — extra as a fiddle and barely in public. However I broke my left wrist falling down a flight of concrete steps at 70, and the violin turned its personal type of loss. The hand surgeon was terrific, providing choices: the simple repair, which would depart the hand listless, or the aggressive repair that will require immobility adopted by disciplined train for a yr, however, if carried out appropriately, would permit me to regain almost full use of my hand.
“In the event you had been 90, we’d take the simple method. In the event you had been 40, we’d insist on the onerous method. However you’re in between, so it’s good to select, you need to need that,” he instructed me. His strategy motivated me. I selected the onerous method. I fought the loss.
However even with all of the work of restore and restoration, my left hand might by no means loosen as much as twist correctly across the neck of the violin, not for lengthy sufficient to get a jig going. My instrument turned a factor I lent to youthful associates, or stored in the lounge on a stand, a tombstone of types, honoring the heartbreak I might barely admit.
Then final fall I flew to Nashville to spend a weekend with associates from my beginnings, gathered to have fun an eightieth birthday. It was jolly and wonderful and actually onerous, all on the identical time. An opportunity to sway to bluegrass birthday tunes out in a discipline and a stark reminder of the buildup of loss. So many individuals lacking. Plenty of new walkers and wheelchairs. Quite a lot of of us fraying cognitively.
Curiously, a number of outdated associates inquired in regards to the violin. I shared the damaged hand story to clarify its absence. On this crowd, sympathy was straightforward to come back by. However one particular person, with out lacking a beat, replied with “What in regards to the cello? No twisting of the wrist, your hand simply goes up and down the neck, nonetheless 4 fretless strings, straightforward peasy!”
I normally overthink selections, making columns of execs and cons, trying out library books for a deep dive into historical past and context. However upon returning dwelling, I referred to as the place the place I used to take the violin for repairs and inside a day, cello, case, bow and rosin had been in the home. And inside a day of all that, I discovered a trainer blocks away from me.
For the previous six months, I’ve walked down Vermont Avenue most Sunday afternoons to Silverlake Conservatory of Music, cello slung like a backpack. The training is each tougher and extra seductive than I or my “straightforward peasy” buddy had predicted.
I can barely do something that approaches music but. Nonetheless, the cello is magic. Absolutely all devices are, every its personal miracle of math and physics and instinct. Discovering the correct be aware is extra about contact than seeing.
My achieved trainer, Derek — son of a cellist and himself a cellist all his life — says, time and again: “To search out the be aware you search on these fretless strings, study your tendency, and proper for it. Belief your emotions.”
So, positive, alter to the losses. Simply know that including on to no matter is left appears to be a elementary human drive, onerous to hinder. It’s the cello that’s in my lounge now.
Margaret Ecker is a retired nurse and a second soprano within the Ebell Chorale in Los Angeles.
