Flute Music

Day 122: Flute Music
This flute music represents a significant investment of time (on my part) and money (on my parents' part). I can hardly make sense of it now. The music is so complex, so far beyond anything I can imagine doing or ever having done. Yet, this is really my music and I was once the master of it.

Those days are long gone. Early in our marriage, Rich had my flute adjusted as a birthday gift, extremely thoughtful of him, but the technician didn't replace the pads: the core maintenance work that makes the instrument playable, the equivalent of replacing strings on a guitar. The fact that I never pursued having the instrument made truly playable says volumes about my adult commitment to it. It has been decades since I've had sufficient abdominal strength and dexterity to play even the simplest tunes contained in these books.

Nevertheless, it was such an important part of who I was in middle school, high school and college, so I have been carting these books from abode to abode for the past 35 years. Even now, I can't get rid of all of them. I am keeping a few of my most favorite, my most familiar. Even this stack is hard to let go; I wish I could match them up with a girl who would treasure them. But every musician and every teacher has specific preferences. These are exactly tailored to mine. They wouldn't fit anyone else half so well.

I've tried to imagine getting rid of the flute itself. How would I bring myself to part with it? I keep hoping one of my nieces will become a flutist (not a flautist). I can imagine passing it into the hands of someone I know and love.

Beyond that, imagination fails me.