Alessandra, Un Po di Passione!

I've been playing a piece called Baal Shem in lessons this semester. It's honestly not going as fast as I would like, partly because Simone and I spend half the lesson trying to figure out what the other is saying, and partly because it's actually really damn hard. But the other problem is one that reoccurs every year, with pretty much every teacher I've had. They try so, so hard to get me to be expressive, and I just can't do it.

Yesterday I was playing the end of the Nigun (Contrition, so you get the picture of what it sounds like) movement, and when I was done, Simone just looked at me and said, "Alessandra, un po di passione!" He asked me how old I was, and was like, you should have so many emotions! Sing! Play as if you are singing! Don't you have passions?

And I realized:

Maybe I don't.

Well, it's not that I don't have passions. But I'm not really a passionate person. I love people, and I love books, and I love music. But when it comes down to it, I have no idea how to channel that kind of feeling into my violin. Maybe it's because nothing passion-inducing has ever happened to me. I hate to think that the way I play is the way I will live the rest of my life, being technically proficient but completely soulless. I often think I'm playing with emotion, but no one else seems to agree. It's so frustrating, because I know it's the only thing holding me back from actually being good. I don't Joshua Bell good, but a good amateur violinist.

Ah well, maybe it's something that will come with age? With life experience (of which I admit I have very, very little)? Maybe this summer?

Because I've decided, in order to keep my sanity and to stop hurting the feelings of the people I love, I've decided to treat this summer as a Coming of Age summer, a la a Noah Baumbach movie. So, expect awkward hijinks and emotional growth! Maybe by the end of the summer I'll be able to write my own quirky memoirs, tinged with sadness, but at the end satisfying and heartwarmingly bittersweet.

And let me say something. I've apparently hurt a few people with things I've written, or not written on my blog. I've been treating it too much like a livejournal, spilling out what I'm really feeling without thinking about the fact that oh, hey, people are going to read it. So I've deleted any entries that are too mean spirited or self-indulgent, and I'm not going to write about the way I'm feeling again. That's best left inside my head, because it's usually written in the heat of the moment, and whatever I'm feeling passes fairly quickly, leaving very little of the original sentiments behind. And please, please, please, a lot of what I've written was intended to be sarcastic and funny. I don't really intend to develop a cocaine habit this summer, or begin cutting myself, or off myself in the beach booth or the park office. I don't really hate myself. Please never take me seriously.

And I actually am not as sad to come home as I might seem from everything I've written. I love my parents, and I love spending time with my mother. I'm looking forward to cooking and going to yoga with her, and going to the Rhinebeck craftfair, and working in the garden. I'm glad some of my friends will be home, because I miss them so, so much and they are the people that keep me sane. I know the people will be enough to keep me entertained this summer, and they are worth coming home for. So, home I go! I'm not going to be too sorry to leave Italy. It's beautiful, but a semester was just enough for me. I'm no ex-pat candidate (except maybe if I can learn French - I'll move to Paris in a heartbeat). I'm excited to speak to shopkeepers in english, to understand conversations going on around me, and to eat enough Vietnamese food and sushi to make me want to vomit. And get soft serve at Joe's with my friends, and have a picnic at the Vanderbilt mansion. I'm not far from the city, so I can go in and visit Maddy and Sonia and my friends here and maybe stay over sometimes (Jen has already told me I have full claim to her pull-out couch), and if people have time they can come visit me in Fishkill and we can, I don't know, frolic in a field or go to the mall or hang out in a parking lot or some shit. The summer is not going to be terrible.