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It just occurred to me...it's been a little over a year since I started playing the violin again.
For a number of years growing up I played the violin professionally and otherwise. Even after I moved to Chicago where my really good fiddle got ripped off, I still managed to scrape money together for another one and ended up playing back up fiddle at the Grand Ol' opry. Even when I was running around the cult I hung with, there were musicians from around the world in it with me and we had a fantastic orchestra. And then I was in a car wreck and my wrists got creamed.
After they were supposedly okay I would practice and it hurt and my hands fell asleep. I tried playng a friends wedding...but I made it through my set it was on one finger...which is not a good idea. So I figured I better face facts and give it up. Wasn't easy, but hey, stuff happens.
Last April I couldn't help it. I knew it would break my heart, but I wrote a story about a violin player.I titled it, Paint it Black, and it won an Editors Choice Award from the anthology, Coach's Midnight Diner, in which it appears. It's about a violin player, a dead brother...and aliens...hey it's the Diner. But after I wrote it, I did the one thing I swore I wouldn't do and got out my violin, just to try it. And my hands didn't fall asleep or hurt. So I started practicing.
At a church talent night last year, I got up and played Amazing Grace, it was hard and because I still couldn't play double stops to save my life, I used open strings for a 'drone' effect. It was ...okay...Tonight, I was practicing and tried that song and it really soared. I even double-stopped it in solid perfect thirds..it was...cool. I had a goal that perhaps I would audition for the symphony this year, but my hands might not be quite up to it. However, and to think of it blows my mind, I'm at least in the ball park. It's that big of a jump from a year ago.
I just became very thankful. After ten years of not playing...and then being laid off... a lot of my income came from doing what I wasn't supposed to be able to do anymore. If I had never written that story, I might not have picked up the fiddle again. Paint it Black aint Shakespeare, but I wonder how many times God give us stories that are for us as much as they are for others? Because if it had never made it to the Diner, if it still sat in the back of my computer, it still changed my life.
I don't know what else to say except I'm really, really thankful.
Amazing grace, baby, amazing grace.
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BLOGOSPHERE 
When I performed the pit solo for "Only the Beginning of the Adventure" (Musical Piece from the movie "Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe") I felt very overjoyed since I personally love that piece of beautifully written music.
By the way, who's the girl in the picture? Looks familiar but I'm not sure.