Aches

My fingertips are on fire. I blame wedding season. My cousin played the flute beautifully in my wedding and says I now owe her for hers. I am picking up my violin after a 6-year hiatus. It's amazing to me that I played that sucker for 15 years and didn't think twice about my rock hard fingertips. I must have been walking around with little pebbles on my left hand. How did I ever sense temperature or feel texture?

I discovered on opening my violin case that my bow had exploded. When I took it to the fix-it man, he told me I had mites in my case. Tiny creatures living in my violin case snacking on the horsehair in the dark for half a decade. "Just vacuum your case and leave the whole thing open in the sunlight," he told me. You better believe I vacuumed that case. Now the whole getup sits on the floor beneath my office window. I am never closing it ever again.

I never thought I would want to play the violin again. I assumed I would begrudgingly practice for Meredith's wedding and then close it all up tight. It's amazing, though, how comforting it feels. Perhaps because I'm a rugby masochist now the finger pains give me joy? Something happens where I feel the music coursing through me and I just want to go, go, go until I am out of rosin. And then I notice that the strings are in fact causing my fingers to crack and bleed so I have to stop.

While Corey was in a wedding this weekend, I spent some time schmoozing with his friend's dad, who is a violist. We talked about my finger pains. He gave me advice, like don't practice more than 20 minutes at a time until I get my callouses back. He had nothing to offer about the mites, though.

At the reception later, I danced with all of Corey's friends (because he does not dance) and one of them had baby-smooth hands. A bike rider! Where were his rhino hide hands? As my pebbles sprout to the surface of my left hand, the palms of both hands are starting to get a bit course from my commute. It seems I am destined to enjoy only those activities which make my hands and feet feel as if they have been soaked in battery acid. Maybe passionate people weren't meant to have soft skin.