2 Minutes

Finally, after nearly 10 months of not playing, I felt strong enough to tune the beast a week and a half ago. No burning feeling in the back of my hands as I tuned. Miraculously, I got it rough tuned in less than an hour.

Woo hoo!!!  I was ecstatic!

Cautiously ecstatic.

I played for two minutes. Retrieved Little Red Haired Boy from memories in muscles and mind's ear. Then Swallow Tail Jig.

Later that night, another 2 minutes yielded Farewell to Whiskey and Irish Washerwoman.

Kept to about 2 to 4 minutes of playing at a clip over the next few days and was able to bring back another half dozen tunes or so.

Alas, mizzly weather and/or more work to do at work and/or the three-steps-forward-two-back nature of healing gave me a really bad hand weekend, so, no tuning. No playing.

As a result, the beast is not so very in tune this week. But at least I'm back to my rigorous regimen of playing for 2 to 4 minutes per day.

It's nice to be back. Even if only for 2 minutes.

Cooking versus Playing

I've long considered cooking to be an unpleasant prerequisite of eating, and eating something you do to power the more important activities of life. Like dulcimer playing.

It's not that I don't enjoy good meals. I just don't enjoy them enough to waste my discretionary time preparing them.

I especially loathe all the chopping--probably because I'm no good at it.

Oddly, I do kind of like playing with food. I get a kick out of turning food into something of a performance art. Especially if there's no chopping.

For instance, last month I did one of my themed breakfasts for the Friday breakfast club. Red, white, and blue deviled eggs. Red rice, white grits, & blue corn polenta arranged in the 9x13 glass dish to look like a flag. Red & blue berries & white pears. Played my vintage Red, White, & Blue (Grass) CD. Had appropriately themed paper goods.

But, that doesn't really count as cooking. The point is not eating. The point is the conceptual use of food as a medium, the challenge of manipulating edible matter into something that fits the theme.

So, now, in a last-ditch effort to bring health & healing to my hands in order to (hopefully) play again, I've gone to an integrative doc. My brother-in-law the pediatrician would probably call him a voodoo doctor. Among the "voodoo" recommendations: No microwaving. Cook and eat real food. No artificial sweeteners. No white sugar. No high fructose corn syrup. No nitrates & nitrites.

So, it's come full circle: I used to avoid cooking so I could play the dulcimer. Now, I'm cooking in the hopes that I can get back to playing the dulcimer.

4.5 Dulcimer-less Months

It's been about 4.5 months since I last played the dulcimer.

Over Thanksgiving & Christmas there were oh so many important and interesting things to do with my hands & arms, and I ended up with a temporary set back in my rather long history of RSIs.

So, now I'm doing physical therapy and learning what I need to learn from this experience.

And trying to be patient and optimistic.

But, I really do miss being me.