Today Is A Gift

A few days ago I was in the car passing by cacti for several hours. Beautiful and statuesque they were – I’m talking about the great Saguaros.

All of a sudden, quite out of the blue, a billboard flashed across my field of vision. It read, ‘Today is a gift. That’s why it’s called the Present.’

What a thing to see, in the middle of the desert, at 80 miles an hour.

Now I’ve been carrying it around for the past few days taking it out and admiring from time to time.

This morning it found its way into my practice session.

You know, playing the violin has a lot to do with telling YOUR story at this moment in time. Maybe everything to do with it.

Stories usually answer questions. And depending on the kind of question you ask – you get a different kind of story. For instance, ‘what am I feeling?’ will to a very different tale than, ‘where would I like to go?’

Yet, in the end it does not matter much which question(s) you address in your practice. What really matters is how completely you bring yourself to the task.

All the best,
Clayton Haslop

P.S. ‘course, it is nice to get a little help with the knotty violin-playing ones that come up now and again.