Save My Violin

I met my husband for coffee after working a three day, 32 hour stretch after a busy weekend at the Hospital. We always meet on a Monday morning and catch up with our friends, some of whom I have known over 30 years.

We talk Single Payer Healthcare reform, laugh at everyone's weekend adventures and eat vegetarian food.

Last Monday, I was not feeling in the groove. I felt mysteriously out of sorts. I told everyone I was going home, and felt great relief at making the break from what usually is--and actually was for everyone else--great comaraderie.

When I got home, smoke was billowing out out of the front door. My husband had left something on the stove with the burner on, and I was able to avert a fire and the potential lose of our 200 plus year old home.

The dogs were in the car with me so they were safe.

My two most precious possessions, my love machine (MacBook) and violin, as well as everything else including all the family pictures which I inherited upon the death of my parents, would have been destroyed.

I will always remember a gentleman, a Zen Buddhist Monk, who lost everything in a fire, near where my husband and I were married, in Milbridge Maine.

He was a prolific writer and composer and lost all of his original compositions, with nothing saved, nor copied or stored in another location.

All of the people in the community where he lived were amazed by the complete detachment that this man exuded regarding the loss of his creations, as well as everything else he owned.

Soon after the fire, this man played a five hour concert, which we attended.

He was totally in the moment, fully concentrated, thoroughly enjoying the music, which he played entirely from memory.

This was 25 years ago, and because of the extraordinary way that this man faced adversity, I will never forget this.