Rose, a violinist, first noticed the pain during a Mahler rehearsal. Small sharpness in her left foot, insignificant enough to ignore and yet impossible to forget once discovered. By the second movement it had become the center of the universe. The conductor was discussing phrasing. The brass section arguing balance. Meanwhile consciousness narrowed toward one rebellious joint inside a black shoe. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Musicians are experts at adaptation until they aren’t. She adjusted her stance. Tried ice, ibuprofen. Friends offered contradictory advice. One swore by turmeric. Another said get off dairy products. The pain remained. What unsettled her most was the betrayal. Nobody dreams of being psychologically dominated by a big toe during Bruckner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then one afternoon during rehearsal she noticed something odd. The pain intensified whenever she monitored it and receded slightly whenever her attention returned fully to the music itself. It did not disappear. It just stopped occupying the throne. This realization rearranged things. She spent months treating comfort as a prerequisite for presence. Once the body cooperated, she told herself, she would perform freely again. But perhaps freedom involved participating wholeheartedly despite imperfection. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Years later the toe still occasionally complained especially during long concerts, but she no longer interpreted discomfort as catastrophe. One evening during a performance of Beethoven she became aware of the ache. Then the second violins entered. Then the woodwinds answered. Suddenly the pain existed within a much larger field of experience. The orchestra continued. So did she. After the concert, a young violinist confessed terror about the possibility of injury ruining everything. Rose smiled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The body always joins the conversation eventually,” she said. “The trick is remembering it isn’t the only voice speaking.” Then she limped very slightly toward the reception, where there was an alarming quantity of excellent cheese cubes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rose, a violinist, first noticed the pain during a Mahler rehearsal. Small sharpness in her left foot, insignificant enough to ignore and yet impossible to forget once discovered. By the […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"Layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[],"class_list":["entry","author-rockbob","post-9571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-tales"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9571\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bobwiseman.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}