It’s a hard thing, it turns out, to get started again on a project you abandoned for good reason. Both ISOLATED and MAGIC are kicking my butt, but in different ways. A technique I’ve honed, for lack of a better word, over the years is to think about what I’m trying to do and then walk away and do something else.

This is why I keep a player sitting on my dining room table.

This month, it’s Joe, the violin you see above. Joe is a unique violin, one of a few crafted by an old pipefitter who made violins in his workshop for fun. He was a friend of a violinmaker I know over in PA. Mr. Joe Knight of Clarion, Pennsylvania, has since passed on.

I never met Mr. Knight, but I would have liked to have. I imagine his scarred old hands, battered by years in the mill, very carefully building the fiddle above, number 37 of a lifetime total of about fifty. BTW, it’s a great player. It easily matches my mediocre ability; I feel privileged to have had a chance to buy this wonderful instrument. It is made of local choice hardwoods, selected by Joe the Pipefitter.

It is a testament to a life after your chosen trade.

In his case, wrestling with monster machines deep in the guts of a steel mill. In my case, soldiering.

He built violins. I write. I do wonder if he had days when he threw up his hands and said, “This sucks.” I’d imagine so. Then, like me and others who feel as if they’re shouting into a hole dug in the forest, he returned the next day, picked up his tools, and began anew.

This is kind of where I’m at: Never quit, never surrender. This extends to all myriad hobbies and interests; keep chipping away because one day, you’ll succeed. The rock is there. It isn’t going away.

It might not be immediately obvious. Actually, it probably won’t be. Few things in life worth having fall into the category of “immediate gratification.” Whether that be my eternal struggle with those darn violins, building stuff for projects, or my prose.

Never quit, never surrender.

It’s a useful mantra for difficult things and situations—which, readers, I am in the midst of. As I sit here typing and enjoying my morning brew, I have a thousand things to do. All of them are somewhat important; each one screams for my attention. It’s a question of triage: which comes first? Some will be hard due to physical limitations, and others will be tough due to mental hangups.

But that’s OK. Nothing in life worth having is easy.

But you can’t always grind. Hence, Joe the Fiddle on my dining room table. I write or think, then pick him up and play for a minute or two. Sometimes it sounds good; other times, it sucks. Everything eventually frustrates: I take things in small doses. Then, I walk away and do something else.

Lately, my reward after a somewhat successful day has been to clean and decipher Roman coins, which I have purchased cut rate. I would also like to thank Doc Wetsman again for this most interesting diversion.

Observe.

Admittedly, they look like hell, but under the crust are some real gems. It’s a revelation for me to see the face of a long-dead Emporer emerge from the sludge; it’s addictive and mesmerizing. Of course, I can only mess with them for a bit; like so many things, I start to stiffen up after a few minutes, and then I need to do something else.

This is the price of a little combat years and years ago.

Amazing how a few moments of your life can color the rest of your days, for better or ill. Shrugs. It is, what it is.

The rock and the hill are there; they are not going away. You will get new content as soon as I get my stuff together and produce. The next chapter of whichever project represents a boulder. Sisyphus’s real problem wasn’t getting the rock over the crest. No. It was that as soon as one boulder tipped over the hill, a new one would appear. That’s my version.

But it’s OK. Oddly enough, collecting boulders is kind of fun. Is the glass half empty, or full?

It’s your call.

—J