taking it easy

the travel chaos commences tomorrow! Ulrich and i will take a train to Frankfurt, spend the night there and then fly out on Saturday morning. unfortunately our flight is not direct, so we’ll arrive first at JFK and then continue onwards to pittsburgh, landing just a few hours before the onset of european summer time once again flips the time difference between the U.S. and germany from 5 hours back to 6.

i have a feeling that it will be hard for me to keep up with writing while we’re away, so i think I’ll take it easy on myself over the next few days. to me that means 1) shorter posts, and 2) zooming in very closely on individual things and not necessarily embellishing my observations with any interpretation; perhaps describing a single, isolated moment from my day, or a feeling/taste/idea from a very narrow point of view. perhaps you will read something i’ve wrote (or perhaps this has already happened!) and wonder: what was the point of the last 2 minutes of my life? if you do have this thought, and regret ever subscribing to my rough drafts, i do apologize in advance!

today was hectic and full of activity but the single moment which stands out to me was in the morning, as i practiced trio sheet music with my friends Inga (cello) and Sigrid (violin). All three of us were in a particularly good mood today; maybe it was the idea that Spring had arrived, or maybe it felt extra cozy to be sitting indoors in each other’s company while the rain pattered sideways against the windows in Inga’s apartment. in any case, it was the perfect set-up for a phenomenon which in my experience is pretty rare: the moment in which your fingers loosen their grip on the instrument, your shoulders roll backwards, and a sensation of effortless flowing appears. it is a turning point between “practicing” as a struggle against the deadweight of your own fingers and practicing in the sense of allowing the music to express itself in spite of all your effort. in that moment, the instrument is no longer your violin but rather your arms, flesh, skin and bones. in my own solo practice this phenomenon only occurs once I’ve reached a certain level of proficiency with a piece, and it is even more rare when playing together with others, where synchrony typically only occurs after each player has mastered their part separately. but today, somehow, the flow happened to us so easily, despite each of us making bumbling mistakes in a particularly difficult Dvorak piece we’ve been practicing. in one fragile moment i felt my heart tremble during a vibrato-y high note i played, although slightly out-of-tune, and i saw Sigrid laugh out of the corner of my eye as she botched a note or two of her own, and the sound of laughter mixed with pitch was so beautiful and full of joy and i knew everything would be just fine.