My older sister, Melissa, and I took violin lessons when we were elementary school age. Our younger sister, Shirlena, who had the toughest childhood of the three of us, was at least spared that much.
I suppose it’s a lucky coincidence that violins and violence sound alike.
Once, when I was ten and Melissa was twelve, we had a recital in a theater with a balcony. We perched there with the other students, waiting our turn to show how we’d learned to play Shinichi Suzuki’s “Perpetual Motion” and “Lightly Row” by ear. Our parents sat below, snapping photos, wearing proud faces, earplugs secretly in place.
We got bored.
We used to wrap sponges under our chin rests, those yellow foam sponges normally used for washing cars. We used them as foam shoulder pads, to keep the violins’ figured maple from rubbing against our clavicles. Several of us ripped pieces of sponge off of our shoulder pads and sent them floating, like snow, over the balcony.