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Thursday, June 15, 2017
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
OPINION
W
hen I was six years
old, my eager parents
signed
me
up
for
private violin lessons to my
absolute
dismay.
Under
their
pressure, I would trudge through
my early musical career for the
next four years or so – tears and
tantrums included – until one day
in the fifth grade, it wasn’t my
parents pushing me anymore.
That
day
was
instrument-
sampling day for elementary band
and orchestra, and my whole class
had heard me play a piece from
private lessons. They fell silent
and
turned
their
10-year-old
heads to me in awe, upon which
I uncovered a pleasant surprise:
I was actually good! I was the
best in the room and the center of
attention. That day, I tasted power
and I bathed in pride. And I clung
to it — though I could’ve spared
myself by letting go.
For the years to come, this pride
became my devil disguised as
innocent passion. I thrived in my
modest middle school orchestra
program, steadily inflating my
ego as I embraced my reputation
as a musical superior. Without
knowing it, I fell in love with the
idea of being good at something,
the meaningless glory of sitting
at the front of the orchestra, the
dangerous reputation of being
unbeatable and untouchable — the
best.
Thus, by the time I entered my
high school orchestra program,
one of the most awarded and
competitive in the nation, I put
my self-worth up for grabs, along
with the title I’d been taking for
granted. To my surprise, there
were students who had been
taking lessons for even longer
than I had. They had more
expensive teachers and even
more expensive instruments, and
they had their eye on the same
fame that I didn’t know I would
have to fight for.
But all of this only made me
hungrier to remain at the top.
After all those years of being the
best, I wasn’t ready to be anyone
else, and I didn’t know that I
could. When I came up second,
I lost my self-worth, but not my
pride. I practiced harder and
harder, all the while claiming
that I did so out of passion.
But I walked to orchestra with
dread each day, secretly making
enemies with my competitor and
not-so-secretly, with myself.
Deep down, I knew that I did
not enjoy what I did, because
when I did come up first – when
I finally regained my reputation
and worthiness – I stopped
practicing. Needing no more
than a title to feed my ego, I
was happiest when completing
the bare minimum: sitting in
my precious first-row seat and
creating a mere impression of
fine musicianship.
In this way, I hovered around
the top of the ridiculous orchestral
hierarchy
for
four
years,
wondering how someone could
simultaneously be so egotistic and
so, so insecure. When I graduated
high school, I was relieved to
leave behind the competition
anxiety that had steadily crept to
each area of my life.
But I could not graduate my
pride.
Following months of severe
lack of practice, I was placed at
the rear of the Campus Symphony
Orchestra at Michigan. Ashamed
of the “downgrade” and even
more so of still caring, I quit and
casted my violin aside.
Since then, I’d touched my
instrument less than a handful
of times, often forgetting, even
refusing, to play in fear of the
unfulfilling
memories
we’ve
shared. It seems strange to
me that this hollow wooden
specimen and the even hollower
reputation it brought me had
defined me for so long, when it
took only a year for me to find
stability otherwise.
And perhaps that’s why it took
me so long to realize how much
I’ve missed being a violinist.
So today, sitting alone in the
lethargic heat of my summer
apartment, I did something I
almost swore I’d never do again
— I played it. The act felt faraway
and foreign, and there was no use
in denying it: I was no longer the
best, if I ever was. But I’d become
so tired of demanding this of
myself and so glad I’d been freed
from it, that at last, I was no
longer bothered. Instead, I was
my new fingers – rough calluses
gone, rejuvenated, raw.
Yet, it shocked me just how
NISA KHAN
EDITOR IN CHIEF
SARAH KHAN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
DAYTON HARE
MANAGING EDITOR
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
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Edited and managed by students at
the University of Michigan since 1890.
Work hard, play harder
familiar
each
movement
felt.
While my skills had undoubtedly
rusted, there remained a certain
authority with which my fingers
commanded the strings, and a
striking ease with which they
danced about them – albeit only
a fraction of their former speed.
Reciting old pieces by memory
from the safety of my new
bedroom, I felt unexpectedly at
peace, and it dawned on me.
For years, my long hours of
practice had been so clouded by
the critique and competition that
I’d been blinded to the essence of
it all. While my toil and title alike
are long gone, there is greater
glory in what is preserved – how
much I’ve learned about music
and how its every motion and
emotion has forever shaped me
into a musician.
This time, I was not practicing
for an audition or a concert, not
priming myself for scrutiny or
judgment. This time, I was playing
for none other than myself,
because there would be no one
there to listen.
And with that, I felt awakened,
like everything I’ve ever done for
the wrong reason came crashing
down on my door. Wondering how
I’d been ready to leave behind so
innate and permanent a part of
me for an image so transient and
trivial, I realized that for the first
time, I was playing violin for fun.
But it wouldn’t be the last.
— Angela Chen can be reached
at angchen@umich.edu.
Carolyn Ayaub
Megan Burns
Samantha Goldstein
Caitlin Heenan
Jeremy Kaplan
Sarah Khan
Anurima Kumar
Ibrahim Ijaz
Max Lubell
Lucas Maiman
Alexis Megdanoff
Madeline Nowicki
Anna Polumbo-Levy
Jason Rowland
Ali Safawi
Sarah Salman
Kevin Sweitzer
Rebecca Tarnopol
Stephanie Trierweiler
Anna Polumbo-Levy
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s Editorial Board.
All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.
ANGELA CHEN | COLUMN
T
here is a story I often tell
people which I believe
captures
the
absolutely
cliché
nature
of
my
“all-
American childhood” — and also
demonstrates why I grew up a little
more mature than other kids.
It’s a story about my dead dog.
Way back in time when my
imagination flourished and my
sense of society was confined to
the people in my Catholic school,
my parents decided that a puppy
would make an excellent addition
to the white picket fence, big
backyard and two-screaming-
kids family they had created.
And after a trip to the local
humane society, they brought
home what they called a puppy,
but it was obvious that this
“puppy” was something others
did not want. With a grotesque
underbite
and
over-muscled
body — this pug, Pomeranian and
Chihuahua mix sat unwanted in
the pound for weeks before my
parents adopted him on the spot.
My overjoyed younger sister and
I named him Cosmo, after a goofy
character in the Nickelodeon
show “The Fairly OddParents.”
And Cosmo was odd — he
proceeded
to
terrorize
our
neighborhood by jumping fences,
eating bees, fighting German
Shepherds, eating more bees,
literally attacking mailmen and
eating so many bees.
Yet he also fulfilled all the other
cliché obligations that only these
brilliantly stupid and loyal animals
can do. He ran alongside us down
grassy trails in the summer and
chased us in our sleds down
Michigan hills in the winter. He
slept at the foot of our beds every
night. And he barked and jumped
in joy when we came back home,
whether we were gone for three
minutes or three days.
And as a ten-year-old boy
growing up in the suburban
Midwest, my life was complete
with
my
small,
moronic
companion
who
would
run
alongside my bike as I rode
around my neighborhood. All I
needed was a paper route and
the theme music from “The
Andy
Griffith
Show.”
There
exists a dynamic between a kid
and a dog that I can only hope
everyone has the opportunity to
experience. The fierce, undying
loyalty of a canine mixed with
the innocent and loving qualities
of childhood creates something
that is impossible to replicate.
I spent every day with that dog
and loved nearly every second.
So, when he died suddenly
after only two years, my fragile,
pathetic 11-year-old psyche was
permanently damaged.
It was cold and windy day in
early February — my parents
picked my sister and I up from
school and drove us home to the
shallow grave my father dug in
our backyard. Cradling our pet for
the last time, my dad placed him
inside as the wind whipped the
unearthed dirt and snow around
us.
—Michael Mordarski can be
reached at mmordars@umich.edu.
Accepting loss
MICHAEL MORDARSKI| COLUMN
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