When I was wading through visa issues to move from Canada to Belgium, Canadian friends would often say how brave I was. Once I got here, Belgian folks said the same thing. I didn’t feel that at all.

Yesterday I was brave.

I received a call a few months ago. It was inside my head. “Play the cello.” > “What!?” It had been 56 years since I played … but the voice stayed strong.

I rented a cello from Arpeggio Music. I started practicing. I dreamt of playing on a bench in the little park beside my street – the Oudburg. Anouk Turnock challenged me to pick a date. I did – yesterday at 5:00 pm.

There I sat. My cello glowed reddish-brown in the sun. Before me was a music stand with the sheet music for three songs, and a lower octave version for two of them.

Before me also were ten people, nine of whom I knew and cared about. I talked a bit but then it was time to play. I had never played solo cello for anyone. As a teenager, I was always in an orchestra.

My commitment was to play with passion … no matter what notes spilled out. You Can Close Your Eyes burst from the fingers, the bow and my soul. I held my head high as some notes were off-pitch.

I was playing the cello!

The audience applauded. I talked about my love for the lower strings of the cello: the C and G. Then I launched into the lower octave version of Eyes. The bowing was strong. I hit one note especially well. It involved a stretching of my little finger that had been difficult.

On into This Wandering Day – a glorious song from the Prime Video series Rings of Power, a earlier story than Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.

The song contains the immortal line “I trade all I’ve known for the unknown ahead.” Yes! Bring on the unknown that is the rest of my life.

I played. The audience applauded. I sweated. I kept my head high. I let my essence bubble up and explode into the world.

More wrong notes. Squeaking on the higher strings. “Keep going!”

Now I think of a Springsteen song – No Surrender. It wasn’t part of my mind yesterday but I was living these lines:

Well, now young faces grow sad and old
And hearts of fire grow cold
We swore blood brothers against the wind
Now I’m ready to grow young again

‘Cause we made a promise we swore we’d always remember
No retreat, baby, no surrender

By the time the last tune came out of me – Song for a Winter’s Night – the arthritis in my right thumb was yelling. I couldn’t twist the bow to play the upper strings (D and A) and the screeching was awful.

“So what? Play, damn it, play! Give these ten folks all you’ve got. Passion! F*** the notes. Get that head up!

Yes … the passion dropped a bit towards the end but I brought it back up. And I finished the concert with a long deep note full of vibrato. I nailed the tuning on that one!

***

As my friends and I sat for dinner at Maison Elza, I was wasted, with hardly the energy to speak. I was twisted inside … bad notes and grinding bow strokes sat with the fire in my eyes, and I couldn’t make sense of anything.

Friends said wonderfully supportive things but it was up to me to create meaning from the concert.

As I awoke this morning, a smile came easily. I did it! I kept going when times were tough. I gave ten people me!

It was most certainly courage. I wonder if I had played beautifully, whether that would have been a less explosive experience than what actually happened.

I exploded yesterday. I stayed big when I could have shrunken to small.

The park will welcome my cello and me again