The Violin

My oldest child is 17 and an amazing violinist. She started at age 3 . . . every day for a YEAR, she pestered me for a violin and lessons. At 4, she started at a university in a young strings program and took to it like a duck to water. From there . . . she just skyrocketed. Until now, at 17, she is auditioning for conservatories and playing professionally in a quartet. And we are getting ready to upgrade her violin.

For anyone who doesn't know--and believe me, the last 14 years have been an education--your instrument is important. Audition on a piece of crap, and no matter how good you are, you may not be able to get your foot in the door. A bow costs as much as a car. Her violin upgrade, even trading in TWO violins, will cost about $10,000. And that doesn't include the bow. Or reconfiguring the strings so she has a GOLD E-string.

As I explained to my parents last night, arts in this country (because no actual public school programs offered what she wanted to take as a child) are way down on everyone's priority list, I think to the detriment of all children. And certain arts--like the violin--are out of reach of the middle class, let alone the poor. I have four kids, and I can tell you the sacrifices for the violin have included driving only one car between us all, giving up haircuts for my significant other, and countless other things, big and small. And HAD I KNOWN what a long, expensive road we were embarking on, I might have said, when she was 3, "Hey kid, why not take up SOCCER?"

But really? I wouldn't have. Because this is what makes my child's heart sing. And I couldn't do that to her or anyone.

So bringing it back to writing . . . is there something I know now that I wished I knew then? I don't know. If the joy is in the journey, then no. I guess not. I needed each experience--good and bad--along the way. There are little things I might have wanted to know. Like I might have taken a pen name all the way through my career. I wished I had known about that pesky passive voice in high school rather than later. I might have warned my young self how hard it would be to succeed in this brutal biz. Or that I would meet people who are less than nice or less than honest. As well as find some writer pals who would mean everything to me. But I don't think so. I think my journey was as it was meant to be.

So how about you? Is there something you know now that you wished you knew then? Would you rather have taken up needlepoint than writing? Or the violin?

Peace,
E