One thing about aging is that increasing losses are related to the lay of the land. Loss of agile limbs, progressive hearing loss, cataracts (of course). Loss of friends, family, famous icons we grew up with. It’s such a steady, relentless pace. This doesn’t remove the dance (yet), but it does change the steps, requiring the dancer to adjust the rhythm and mix.
I often tend to stay still, thinking that maybe in stillness the loss will slow down or even stop.
The idea of taking up the cello at age 75 was born in this calm. It seemed like it might be a timely distraction, a way to adjust to Slow, a way to connect the dots of a lifetime of casual musical engagement – piano, violin, choir. The melancholy reputation of the instrument is a complement to sorrows, even.
I used to play the violin as a hobby – mostly as a violin and rarely in public. But I broke my left wrist falling down a flight of concrete steps at age 70, and the violin became something of a loss. The hand surgeon was wonderful, offering options: the easy solution, which would leave the hand listless, or the aggressive solution which would require immobility followed by disciplined exercise for a year, but, if done correctly, I would allow almost full use to be regained. with my hand.
“If you were 90, we would take the easy route. If you were 40, we would insist the hard way. But you’re in between, so you have to choose, you have to want it,” he told me. His approach motivated me. I chose the hard way. I fought loss.
But even with all the repair and recovery work, my left hand could never relax to wrap properly around the violin neck, not long enough to get a jig started. My instrument became something I lent to younger friends, or kept in the living room on a stand, a sort of tombstone, honoring the grief I could barely admit.
Then last fall, I flew to Nashville to spend a weekend with friends from my early days, gathered to celebrate an 80th birthday. It was joyful, incredible and really difficult at the same time. A chance to sway to the sounds of a bluegrass birthday party in a field and a stark reminder of the accumulation of losses. So many people missing. Lots of new walkers and wheelchairs. Many of us are cognitively unraveling.
Interestingly, several old friends inquired about the violin. I shared the story of the broken hand to explain its absence. In this crowd, sympathy was easy to find. But one person, without missing a beat, responded, “What about the cello?” No twisting of the wrist, your hand simply moves up and down the fretboard, still four fretless strings, it’s easy!
I have a habit of overthinking decisions, writing pros and cons columns, consulting library books for a deep dive into history and context. But when I got home I called the place I used to take the violin to for repairs and within a day the cello, case, bow and rosin were in the house . And less than a day after all that, I found a teacher just a few doors down from my house.
For the past six months, I’ve walked down Vermont Avenue almost every Sunday afternoon to the Silverlake Conservatory of Music, my cello slung over my shoulder like a backpack. Learning is both harder and more alluring than I or my “easy” friend predicted.
I can barely do anything close to music. However, the cello is magical. All instruments surely are, each its own mathematical, physical and intuitive miracle. Finding the right note is more a matter of touching than seeing.
My accomplished teacher, Derek – the son of a cellist and himself a lifelong cellist – keeps saying: “To find the note you’re looking for on these fretless strings, learn your tendency and correct it. Trust your feelings.
So, all right, adjust for the losses. Just know that adding to what’s left seems to be a basic human motivation, one that’s hard to hinder. This is the cello that is in my living room now.
Margaret Ecker is a retired nurse and second soprano with the Ebell Chorale of Los Angeles.
