re: words and emotions

Hot Cross Buns

It was soccer first, then it was tap dancing.

At age six you were content with sitting in the back of a station wagon for hours and then days. Maybe it was because you could fit on the seats lying down then because your legs were short. You were used to sleeping outside in the dirt and not showering properly and you climbed red rocks that burned your hands even though heights of any kind made you cry. When people asked you if you’d really been to Montana and Utah and New Mexico you could smile and brag and boast and you always did. You’ve been places no one else has and that’s something isn’t it? But it was soccer first for three years, and then tap dancing for three more. You were a girl scout because it was easy to be nice and you weren’t ever alone in what you were doing and what you were doing required minimal effort and skill; Christmas carols are second nature to anyone and you could talk to other grandparents in the nursing home downtown because you liked spending time with your grandparents. It was soccer and then dance and then you gave up on your violin. Maybe it was the pressure of solitude?

You think about it a lot now, your violin. You don’t like to, but you do. It’s so small when you look at it. When you were seven years old you thought it would be fun to make music and you said yes to the offer. Besides, everyone played some sort of instrument and you didn’t have a piano and no one knew what a viola was. Pick it up and get familiar with it, she says in the basement of the building from the other side of a cold, black music stand. You see that the kids alongside you touched their violins with familiarity, like friends eager to spend an afternoon together in the backyard. They must’ve had play dates with their violins already and parents who knew how to hold instruments correctly and could identify notes on a sheet of paper and decorated their homes with a piano that the Mrs used to play when she was a young girl but oh how she’d blush and wave her hands if you suggested she play now. You look up at your instructor and then at your beginners music workbook and then down at your lap. The chair is cool on your legs and your palms start to feel clammy firmly wrapped around the neck of the tiny stringed musical tool and the thin piece of wood you play it with. The horse hairs of the bow are soft, though, and you like that a lot; before class, you ran your fingers along the long strings of it and then when no one was looking you rubbed them on your cheek and smiled; you’re not that embarrassed anymore but it was silly. Again, you scan the room with wide eyes. The girl beside you is plucking the strings with her fingers and you wonder why. The boy to your left is pushing the tips of his fingers down hard against the neck of his violin in strange formations. You begin to wish you knew more about anything.

After weeks of practice and discomfort you understand the shapely piece of dark varnished oak a little bit better. When you hit a note correctly, you feel really good; when you hit a note incorrectly, you feel really bad; when you don’t hit any notes and ride the bus home, you don’t feel anything. You don’t think much about the violin because it makes you nervous. It’s been a handful of months now and you’re stuck. You’re stuck on playing smoothly; you’re stuck on playing at all. It hurts when you press down the strings and you forget all the time to put rosin on your bow and the noises that vibrate out of your tiny violin hurt your ears more often than not. Stop, please let me stop playing it doesn’t sound good at all. You’re only eight and you want to cry. You just don’t see how Emily and Jeff and James can all play just fine and you can’t even stop your fingers from hurting when you push down even one stupid string for thirty seconds. You realize, of course, that it’s not stupid at all and you were being rash about the whole thing. But you’re only eight and you want to cry. The only thing you know how to do is play hot cross buns and you can’t even read music; you know it from memory, from a hasty hour upstairs trying to get through it because why shouldn’t it come easy to you?

Trying scared you. It still scares you.

When you were nine you put your violin back in its case and never looked at it. Sometimes you talk about how you used to play but you feel guilty because that’s kind of a lie isn’t it?

You used to play hot cross buns, at least. That’s something.

But you gave up on it because it was too hard and then there’s regret. Regret because you realize now nothing ever comes easy and everyone stuck with their instrument and can now sing and play piano and record guitar riffs and read notes and you just sit with your iPod and try to figure out harmonies to your favorite songs to feel like you can add something maybe. You feel sad that you gave up on it.

You’re cleaning the guest bedroom now and there’s the small dusty case under the bed. Go ahead, open it up. It’s a lot smaller now that you’re not under five feet tall. You don’t even remember how to tune it and you spent two weeks learning that. Now, when you think about trying you think about failing. You can’t really help it. You remember why you hate cleaning.

The violin is a lot smaller now, but you know it’s because you never let it grow; you never let it blossom. At first it was soccer, and then tap dancing. Now it’s the memories of everything you might have carried with you to this moment in this room. It’s every “what if” that kept you awake for hours in bed that even breakfast would not shake. It’s every I’m sorry you’ve sung to yourself in the presence of old photographs capturing the days before you said enough and it’s every hesitation you’ve smothered yourself with. Maybe it’s just the dust, but your eyes feel heavier now. You pick up your violin for the first time in years. At least the bow is still soft.

Hold it up to your cheek.

(edited version 4/24/2012)