A pound of Flesch

Clarity of tone is lacking, firm control and pressure but with a gentle glide. The timing is not right, the details. My pinky won't curve - it resists, pops in and out of locked position never quite supple enough. My thumb is static, the middle finger doesn't lead properly, the index won't lean. At least there aren't mites, and the seams all seem to be glued. The full tones wriggle out of half- and quarter-mistakes; I try not to grimace and hope the neighbors can't hear. Precision lacks. I start off with scales, arpeggios, sixths, finger exercises to work on the bow which has always been my weakness and to find the right pitches again. The metronome blinks and clocks at me unrelentingly - I had forgotten the way the numbers don't quite line up with the dial around 132 - and even still I have lost my counting. I switch over to Mazas to have the excuse of difficulty, but I know I flee the harshness in the easy places where there is no excuse. I need the cats and Ruth on the sofa and my mother reading at the table, the windchimes on the porch and the dogs barking between the houses. I forgot the way my back hurts when I'm done, how I can't play with shoes on anymore, even the shoulder rest feels wrong, but I know visually that's how I've worn it for years. I did remember that I have to play alone and that I have to not think too much to start or I'll get so frustrated I won't keep going. The intonation will come most quickly; the fingers start to remember; by the end I can shift without thinking (almost the right pitches) despite my fatigue. The bow will take work, as I know and have always known, but I have my book from Ruth with exercises and pictures from my last lesson, five and a half years ago. I could do this once, passably, with the best examples surrounding me. The stand is down but open, feet splayed around my running shoes, waiting.