The Music Between Us
By Anne-Marie Mascaro
“Don’t be afraid to be terrible at something new.”
It was a simple thing to say, but somehow it was exactly what I needed to hear. I let my defenses down and decided, at least for a moment, to surrender to the unknown.
The man on the other end of the phone was a prospective cello teacher I had contacted after randomly picking up his business card at my gym. Its location was just odd enough to catch my attention among the Nautilus machines, workout schedules, and predictable promises of stronger abs. I thought maybe it was just odd enough for me too.
I had recently moved and was trying to figure out how to begin practicing again, somewhere new. Moving has a way of giving you permission to reinvent things. New scenery makes room for new routines, new goals, new possibilities. I decided that if I was going to start over, I might as well lean into it and finally learn something I had always been curious about.
Something about this teacher made me willing to take the chance. He was artsy without being intimidating, encouraging without being overly earnest. And so, I booked my first lesson.
Yet as the day approached, I began to panic.
I brushed the dust off my cello and carried it into an industrial-looking suite that housed his private studio. There I was, a woman in midlife, standing in front of an instrument that suddenly seemed far more mysterious than I had remembered.
Would he think I was too old? Too uninformed? Too much of a beginner to even begin?
That last question stayed with me.
I had to quiet all the ideas I had accumulated about who plays the cello and who doesn’t. In my mind, cello players had started at age five, attended conservatories, understood music instinctively and probably knew exactly what they were doing with a bow. I, on the other hand, was still trying to figure out which end of the bow went where.
Then I opened the case.
And that was the first thing I got wrong.
“Here,” he said. “Just treat it like a little kid you’re putting a jacket on. Stand it upright and take it in and out of its case this way, not from the floor.”
Apparently, I had been treating my cello more like a piece of furniture than a delicate instrument, plucking it horizontally from the floor like I was retrieving a log from the woods.
I felt a little like Tarzan swinging out of the jungle and landing headfirst in an etiquette lesson.
But I was determined.
And maybe that was enough to begin.
Thankfully, I had a patient and kind teacher, someone I could immediately sense would be one part life guru and one part music teacher. I needed this. A routine. Novelty. A pursuit.
Because what I hadn’t told anyone was why I was truly drawn to the cello. I wanted a time capsule, a passageway to communicate with my father now that he was no longer walking on earth. Music would be the bridge. With every lesson, every small improvement, I would somehow be moving closer to him. The healing vibrations of this beautiful piece of wood would cradle me as I reached for my goal.
Music had always been part of our home, from classical to polka. When I was little, my father would bring out a metronome and have me listen and tap my foot to the beat while standing on his shoes. He taught me to have a goal, and this one felt just difficult enough to be worthy of pursuing.
As I produced what could only be described as whale-like sounds that slowly began to morph into something smoother, I was reminded of how this all began. A vision. A yearning. A lofty, almost unearthly goal.
“Don’t be afraid to be terrible at something new.”
And so I kept going, one imperfect note at a time. Perhaps that is how the people we love continue to accompany us: not by staying behind, but by quietly becoming part of where we are going.
Anne-Marie Mascaro is a freelance writer drawn to stories about people, places, ideas, and the unexpected connections between them. A lifelong traveler, she enjoys exploring new perspectives and finding stories worth telling. She is also the founder of Monkeyfriendly.com, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit connecting scientists and non-scientists to collaborate on wildlife projects.