That’s not me in the picture. It’s “some guy”. But tomorrow I’ll look like this … my body twisted, my fingers flying. His eyes look closed, mine will be focused on the sheet music. But we will be brothers.

I was having coffee with Dirk this morning. Just sitting there calmly. Then … BAM! My face dropped and the tsunami rolled over me. “Tomorrow I’ll play passionately!” Just that. No thoughts of intonation, vibrato and all that quality stuff. Just throwing myself into the cello, the Oudburg and my friends.

***

A sort of expected complication: the arthritis in my right thumb is making it hard to hold the bow. Changing to the higher strings is difficult. Ha! So what? I play tomorrow at 5:00 pm.

I decided: if the digital weakness accumulates, I will keep going! I will not put the bow down and just pluck the strings. Damn the notes and the squeals! I’m here to play.

One more thing: this is a concert, not some watered down re-newbie effort.

Okay, now I’m thinking of the Scottish/Canadian singer-songwriter David Francey. In the song All Lights Burning Bright he talked about a freighter ship navigating a storm on Lake Erie, one of the Great Lakes shared by Canada and the USA. Here we go:

We entered Lake Erie
It was late in the day
You could see that storm coming
From a mile away

We had all lights burning bright
All lights burning bright
We had all lights burning bright
All lights burning bright

That storm overtook us
And it fell like the night
And the Point and the Island
They passed out of sight

But we sailed on rock steady
Set course through the storm
As the sky fell upon us
And the wind drove us on

And I thought to myself
I’d be just like this ship
If I kept my light burning
On every trip

The watch it was ended
With the turn of the night
And I wrote in that log book
All lights burning bright

We had all lights burning bright
All lights burning bright
We had all lights burning bright
All lights burning bright

***

Tomorrow I’ll be just like the ship