Yesterday as I practiced I struggled to be in tune. It was so bad I stopped half way into the session to see if the instrument was out of tune. It was not, so I had nothing to pin it on save my own fingers. Some days are harder than others!
I experience the same thing while running. I’ve been running for maybe 13 years now, and it’s a true passion. I find it at once meditative and exhilarating. It’s also been about the only time for over a decade that I regularly listen to music – at least it was until I took up the violin again.
But though I consider running my “first art,” I still have days when I feel like I’m slugging it out, days when my legs feel heavy and my breathing is labored. That’s what playing the violin felt like yesterday.
When I come home from a run like that, I generally say to Michael something like, “That was a tough one – I really needed it!” To my mind, when the going gets tough that’s an indicator of growth, an indicator that I’m doing exactly what I’m supposed to be doing. I think I’ll start to apply the same logic to the violin.