“THE HEART PRINCIPLE” by Helen Hoang

“Clearing my mind and taking a series of deep breaths, I set my bow to the strings and let the opening notes of Vaughan Williams’ “The Lark Ascending” string.
This is my dad’s favorite song. He requests I play it on his birthday and whenever we have family events or his friends are over, so the notes are deeply ingrained in my muscle memory.
I’m not sure which pleases him more–the music itself or showing me off to people. It doesn’t really matter to me. I just like making him happy.

The music slowly pours from my violin, fluttering erratically upward on changing currents of air. It transports me, so sweetly passionate that for a moment I get caught up in it. I forget time, I forget me. There’s only this beautiful feeling of soaring over vast fields of open green. And I realize I’m playing, truly playing.
This is the reason I breathe.

I hear it then. My timing is just a hair off. It’s been so long since I’ve played this song that my bow work is a bit sloppy. I can do better.
So I start over.
It’s such a signature piece that if it isn’t just so, critics can be vicious. I won’t give them an opening. I can outmanoeuvre them. I can be more vicious to myself than they are, and in doing so, I will win.
Art is war.
It’s still not quite right, so I start over just one more time. I try harder to get the timing exact. And I hit it. The notes trill and climb like small wings beating on updrafts of wind. Only to snag. Not enough emphasis in that part.
I start over.
And I start over.
And I start over.
Until the alarm on my phone pulls me out, and I turn it off and stare blankly about the room. I’m back where I started. At the beginning. My throat aches, but I swallow the tightness away.

There was that brief moment when the music sang to me and I forgot to listen to the voices in my head. That’s something.

I’m so close to beating this. I can feel it. The solution is right there. I can see it. If I can just wrap my fingers around it, I will unlock my mind, and everything will go back to how it used to be.”

Kindle, 2021