The joy of sharing music

Yesterday I played my flute. This may sound like a small comment, it's not, to play my flute is huge. It is more than 2 decades since I played to an adult audience. Yesterday was fun, uplifting, nurturing even. For those who don't know me, I was a shy child with a talent for music. I began flute lessons age 10, my fingers took to the instrument like a duck to water. I spent time learning to breath from the diaphragm, strengthening the muscle by raising heavy books while lying prone on the lounge floor. My fingers danced along the keys, music flowed. For a while I was happy. Then came expectation. I had to perform. My body reacted: I sweated, I panicked, most hideously, I shook from head to foot. I could not play. I remember now the feeling of fear and humiliation, "please ground, swallow me up". My pleas for it to end fell on deaf ears. I concocted various ways to prevent me from being able to leave the house on the big night: drinking glasses of strong, salty water before leaving home in the hope of making myself sick, stealing valium pills from the top shelf of the kitchen cupboard. Nothing worked, I was not heard, the ordeal continued.

Looking back now I suspect it was stage fright, all I needed was some hypnosis or counselling!

So to the present. Yesterday I played songs from movies for the residents of Symonds House in Hitchin. I shared my music with a welcoming group of appreciative adults, we laughed together, we sang together. I played my flute, they listened. They smiled, I smiled. It was good.