I used to keep an extra giant bobby pin in my violin case so that I could pin my hair back as I played.

Today I took it out. I put it in my hair. And then I opened my rosin and applied it onto bow hairs that I was honestly surprised to see still attached to both ends of my bow. And then I pulled out my violin and I tuned it. I pulled up a concert A I found via Google and tuned that damn thing.

I had thought that after three years of not touching it, it would be horrendously out of tune. I had thought that I would not remember what the proper intervals sounded like. I had thought that I would turn one peg and all of the strings would snap and whip me in the face and fly about the room as if to say, "This is what you get for leaving me. This is what you get for abandoning me for so long."

But it wasn't and I did and they didn't.

And so I tuned that damn thing and pulled out an old and yellowing Suzuki book and turned it to one of the last pieces I could remember playing well and playing joyfully. And I was rusty at first, I mean....come on. That was a given. But I wasn't nearly as bad as I had thought I would be. And for the first time in three years I felt my thoughts stopping and they started focusing on one thing. It wasn't the tv playing in the background. It wasn't the sound of the kitten playing in the other room. I didn't hear the AC switch on and off and I did not notice the planes flying over head. All that I could see, all that I focused on, were those damn black notes. And I didn't have to squint at them, I didn't have to struggle to read them, I just knew them. I could anticipate what movements my fingers needed to make and I found that instead of struggling for each note like I thought I would, my fingers found them relatively easily. It felt as if I had taken no more than a week off. It was like riding a damn bicycle.

And here's the crazy thing:

I knew that I missed it. I've been thinking constantly about all of the regrets that I have housed within my little body about quitting and not even taking the damn thing out of its case for so long. But I never realized how much.

I felt every single note in my body in a way that I never have--and probably never will-when I sing. I knew where I was going; I knew where I had been. It felt right.

There have always been two things that I felt I could do well; writing, and playing the violin. And hot damn, if I don't do those things well enough to make up for all of my other life-long blunders.

Holy hell guys, I think I am awesome. I think it might be explosive.