Summer Solstice 2023 Awakening, Accepting, and Changing

          About sixteen years ago, when I turned 49, I decided to learn a new musical instrument—the fiddle.  I wanted to keep my mind fresh and growing with new challenges, but I also was trying to adapt to a physiological change in my hands and musical ability.
            Early in my youth I spent countless hours working with my dad cutting and treating beatle killed pine trees on our 45 acres of land in the foothills above Boulder, Colorado. It seems that all those wonderful summers of working the Ponderosa pine forest, running a chainsaw, loading logs onto the carriage and receiving the sweet-scented fresh cut boards for stacking at our little sawmill, and hand splitting the tough sinewy pine logs full of incredibly tough knots set into motion a physical change in my hands and wrists that would not manifest itself until many years into my manhood.
            In addition, during my youth, teens, twenties, thirties and beyond I became an avid cyclist. I rode thousands of miles, even touring Europe.  I also raced, and yes, I crashed a few times.  One crash resulted in a ruptured bursa sac in my right elbow.  "It will heal in time," explained the orthopedist, "but you might feel it when carrying heavy buckets when you get older." He should have asked if I played a musical instrument, and perhaps I would have sought out physical therapy at the very least.
            This is because I had learned to fill out my active work and outdoor life with artistic balance, and I became a folk musician, first a guitarist, then a banjo player.  From the age of 20 to the age of 40 I enjoyed practicing into being a semi-professional performer, and the banjo rang from the rafters of smoky bars clear into the brilliant blue summer skies and canyons of the desert where I performed songs that echoed from the canyon walls.
            But the long years of hand labor and woodcutting, and the injuries from cycling and perhaps the strain from mountain biking and rowing rafts eventually took its toll, and at 45 I found that my right hand dexterity was changing.  I could not play the banjo with the precision, timing, accuracy, and strength required to maintain what I considered a performance level ability.  I could still play, mind you, and still do enjoy the sweet sound of the banjo, but the spark and quickness were gone.
            That's when I decided that learning to bow the fiddle with my right hand just might get me back up to the speed and accuracy that I so longed for when playing my favorite Irish and Scottish fiddle tunes, or for playing along with other musicians on any type of music.
            Now, sixteen long years later, I'm finally there, able to play most of my favorite songs just like I used to do on the banjo. So as I practice violin somewhere out in the yard in the warm summer weather nearing the longest day of the year, I ponder changing seasons, new awakenings, and most of all, acceptance of change. I only wish that I could change as easily and effortlessly as nature does with her revolving seasons!
            Today I think I'll play the lively fiddle tune June Apple. Happy Summer Solstice everyone!