The light was good this morning. I left the house later than usual, so the sun was up. Also it was colder than yesterday and the sky was nearly clear, about a quarter full of cold-looking snow clouds, so rather than crappy grey drizzle (albeit the snow falling on the vineyards up the hills around Vienna was a pretty sight) we had great contrast today and good color saturation, with the color balance skewed a little towards the blue part of the scale. The woods weren’t woods, they were armies of individual naked black trees set apart by the snow on the ground and when the passenger train zoomed past it made no sound. That drew attention to the noises in the car: mostly just Anner Bylsma playing Bach on an old cello from the Smithsonian, along with an occasional grunt from the driver, the steady rumble purr of a small diesel motor; now and then interactions with other drivers such as “oi, oi, oi,” or “go for it, dude,” and a couple medium-length streams of filthy invective. Now and then a chortle, or even chuckle, over the ticker-tape of wisecracks running across the inside of my forehead.

The light was good this morning, and being cold the air didn’t stink around the animal cadaver processing plant. I suppose they process them into animal feed, a thought which really puts me off my steak, until I see it there on the plate in front of me and it looks so delicious… also we only buy organic beef, so that’s more ethical, right? Except for the killing animals part.

The light was good… that was a close one, I almost lost the narrative thread there for a second. Listening to Bylsma play Bach. My point is, a professor in college mentioned a person should read a novel twice, once when (s)he’s younger than the characters, and once when older. For the perspective thing. And I was thinking, listening to a good recording of a good musician playing good music on the instrument you’re learning is interesting in a similar way. How when I first heard this CD, I thought it was very nice. Then when I could play a bit, it blew me away and I thought (and still think) it was the pinnacle of human evolution – good musician playing good composition on good instrument, what a convergence of brilliance.

See, you hear more every time you listen to it. Now I hear his perfect intonation and rhythm. The beautiful, rich tone of the instrument. That twangy “wrwrwrrrrang” thing you sometimes get on the strings (my “A” string tends to do it most) that I always thought was a mistake, like too little pressure on the bow, but Bylsma doesn’t seem to mind. Maybe it’s in the nature of the instrument.

And I know, if I keep it up, I’ll hear more next year.

Skiing last week, I learned something about fear and how it wrecks anything you do. If I’m afraid while I ski, I fall down. If I’m not afraid, I don’t. This doesn’t mean that fear is never useful. It’s fine to be afraid beforehand, I think: this would keep me from attempting an expert-level slope I could never manage. But once you start, fear has outlived its usefulness.

It is the same with any process. I mentioned this to my musician daughter, but she didn’t seem impressed by the insight. Likewise my cello teacher, when I said once you’re in the music, you have to be in the music, playing it, not thinking about it. Fear is not the issue for Beta and my teacher that it is for me, I guess. For me this is a big epiphany: raised by an overprotective mother, fear has been the driving force in my life, the foundation of most of my decisions.

On the final day of our stay in the mountains, riding back down in the gondola with the kids, Gamma was enjoying the view and I mentioned how my acrophobia as a kid would have prevented me from enjoying a gondola ride, or from even getting on a chair-lift at all. I would have been terrified. She found that hard to believe. I used to have nightmares about freeway bridges (the Markham bridge in Portland, Oregon, especially). Walking up the stairs to our holiday apartment, I pointed out to her that I would have had to crawl up those stairs at her age (6) since you could see through them (they were horizontal steps of concrete, open at the back, bolted to a single beam up the middle). She found that interesting, in a pathological way. I didn’t mention that I wouldn’t have been able to go near the railings, or any of the other things that I won’t list here.

I didn’t really overcome my fear of heights until Beta needed someone to go parasailing with her a couple years ago and asked me. (It was fun.)

Fear was everywhere, and still is to be honest. Fear of insufficiency, fear of people that keeps me from making friends or being friendly to strangers. Like that Avril Lavigne-type girl ahead of me in line at the supermarket yesterday when I was buying water, fancy Italian bread, cheese and hazelnut waffles for lunch (shopping when you’re hungry is always a bad idea). Skinny, blonde, muddy jeans, buying milk, oatmeal and something else healthy. Hair in her face. She looked at me and I saw she was pretty, with strong eyes, and looked away until she looked at something else.

Inside any ongoing process there is no place for fear, not while skiing or playing music or living. You may already know this, I’m just starting to figure it out.