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Cello

Back from my cello lesson, I am energized. Every week I am in awe about my good luck to be able to take lessons with my superb teacher Bob Ng who is patient, but minutely observant, precisely spotting my subtle and or not so subtle bad old habits. It is amazing to practice this favorite instrument of mine again after keeping it locked in its case for more than 30 years. I was so scared of discovering that I’d be unable to produce even one good note. Of course my rediscovery is about much more than that. For example, I revisit the 11-year-old’s tenacious commitment once she set her mind on the cello. Every day after school she practices for an hour, using one of the school’s two cellos. The lessons are free. By now almost everyone has left the building. The old hallways, with rounded ceilings and wide-open stairs, are eerily quiet, all hers. At these hours, she senses her smallness enveloped by the mystery of life.

Soon a total admiration and love for my teacher is engulfing me. How could I have forgotten her name? I still see her vividly: rather short and round in stature with a shock of curly red hair, bright blue eyes, a limp, and a fierce love for music and teaching. Miraculously, I am convinced she loves me, too. Without it, life – in school, and at home – would be unbearable. In the lessons, which are turning from group into private sessions because the other girls flake out, I drink in her attention and encouragement. The cello has a body my size, I hug it close to me, the warm wood purrs, the bow gliding over the strings seems to elicit angel songs, animal growls, and music – life is vibrant and resonant. Playing at age 19 in one of my last lessons, a Beethoven cello sonata (with her on the piano) all the way through, is an unforgettable and ravishing memory.

The cello fades away in my early 20’s. Years after immigrating to America I bring it over the ocean to accompany me in my theatre work. Nowadays, after 30 years of absence, the cello teaches me about the thrilling and subtle processes of learning, unlearning, discovering, and about that mysterious love for life. 

Comments

  1. Alex KJuly 15, 2021 at 7:13 PM

    I am struck by the full heartedness of your memory. It evokes tenderness in me and prods me to recall my childhood with the same open and full heart.

    ReplyDelete

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