Procrastination seems to be the theme of late, and goodness knows I do my fair share. Kim’s musings on the “time between times” really rang a bell with me. I feel like those are the times that I do my most fulfilling work.
I’ve been known to give my friends the advice, “Go Nike!” aka, “Just do it!” This is advice I don’t always follow, but I try to. Just do it – take that leap into a new relationship, into a new job, into a new city, into that massive pile of laundry that has been building up in the corner due to a lack of quarters. But there’s been one thing for several years that I’ve been saying I would do and never have: enter a bluegrass competition.
I’m a fiddler at heart, and bluegrass has played (pun intended) a huge part in my life for as long as I can remember. I was an itty-bitty festival-goer with my parents in Tennessee and admired the local bluegrass stars on stage. Every summer I said I’d get up there and compete, and every summer I’d find an excuse and back out.
No longer! T-minus two weeks to the Smithville Fiddler’s Jamboree and I’m using my time in between times to muscle up some of my own arrangements of bluegrass favorites. I’m not quite ready yet, but dadgummit I’ll be up on that stage in two weeks even if I’m still not ready. If nothing else, Nashville has given me thick enough skin to take my own advice and “go Nike” for something I’ve backed out of every year for a good ten years.
Waltzes are a blast to arrange. Enjoy this clip of “Roxanna Waltz” (and excuse the sound quality). Here’s to going Nike.
