It appears that I have fallen in love with the mandolin. This was no overnight love affair, however. It kind of sneaked up on me.<\/p>\n
As a longtime fan of the music of Antonio Vivaldi, I had heard my share of mandolins and associated the instrument with music from the past.<\/p>\n
That all began to change when I attended a performance of Prairie Home Companion<\/i><\/a> and heard the amazing Peter Ostroushko<\/a> play. Nevertheless, I wasn\u2019t ready to commit.<\/p>\n Then it happened. Several weeks ago, while listening to the weekly broadcast of PHC, Ostroushko performed the most glorious piece, something he\u2019d written to celebrate a friend\u2019s wedding. I didn\u2019t remember the name of it, but when I saw he had a new CD, I decided to take a chance.<\/p>\n Sure enough, The A and A Waltz <\/i>was included. It\u2019s been the soundtrack in my car ever since.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been thinking about this slow love affair quite a bit because I suspect when folks hear about passion, they have a vision of being gob-smacked by something that grabs them by the shoulders and won\u2019t put them down. Love at first sight, perhaps.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t think it works that way. In fact, other than the births of my daughter and my grandchildren, I can\u2019t recall any other times when passion was present from the first moment.<\/p>\n More often, it creeps up, like the mandolin, but it doesn\u2019t come at all unless we expose ourselves to new experiences and possibilities. Passion isn\u2019t passive; we have to get involved.<\/p>\n One way of doing that, of course, is to pay attention to the passions of others. People we love dearly and admire genuinely may very well have passions that leave us cold.<\/p>\n On the other hand, passionate people may get our attention simply because of their contagious enthusiasm.\u00a0I\u2019m not particularly interested in cars, but listening to Car Talk<\/i><\/a> is a frequent pleasure on my weekends at home.<\/p>\n Opening ourselves to things that delight others may deliver lovely surprises we hadn\u2019t anticipated. At the very least, we\u2019ll benefit from the power of enthusiasm that raises our own positive attitude.<\/p>\n At the same time, we need to notice when a passion has passed its sell-by date. It\u2019s extremely easy to spend time doing things out of habit because we failed to notice that passion has fled.<\/p>\n Sometimes when you partake in a long-time activity and find it no longer amuses or informs or entertains, you\u2019ll begin to feel a bit of disappointment, as if you\u2019d been jilted.<\/p>\n Some passions simply have a longer run than others. Just as closets need to be weeded from time to time, so do the activities that are worth our time and attention.<\/p>\n Thinking about collectors and collecting has had me contemplating the role of passion in a slightly different way. How do collectors decide what to gather? What\u2019s the difference between those who build thoughtful and valuable collections and those who are simply packrats?<\/p>\n As I was musing about all this, I stumbled upon a delightful book called Merry Hall<\/i><\/b> by Beverley Nichols, a British journalist and fanatic gardener.<\/p>\n The book\u00a0 begins with a bit of a confession: \u201cSome fall in love with women; some fall in love with art; some fall in love with death. I fall in love with gardens, which is much the same as falling in love with all three at once.\u201d<\/p>\n Nichols goes on to tell his story of finding a wreck of a place in rural England that required years of diligent labor to transform it into the garden of his dreams. Thus began a perpetual hunt for interesting specimens to add to his collection.<\/p>\n It\u2019s obvious that his passion for plants continued to increase even as the challenges involved expanded as well.<\/p>\n But, of course, passion is like that. It often has us doing things we never imagined we could do\u2014or would do.<\/p>\n Whether that passion is for music, art, cars, food, gardens, social justice or any one of a thousand other things, ultimately passion invites us to become more, to do more, to be more. Eventually those enthusiasms infiltrate other areas of our lives.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have to participate relentlessly in the manifestation of your own blessings,\u201d Elizabeth Gilbert<\/a> reminds us.<\/p>\n Passion is a pointer to where those blessing can be found.<\/p>\n When the mandolin plays or the antique doll at the flea market catches your eye, pay closer attention and see where it leads. Give it time and see if it grows into something spectacular.<\/p>\n And if that doesn\u2019t happen, keep looking. Just don\u2019t insist on love at first sight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It appears that I have fallen in love with the mandolin. This was no overnight love affair, however. It kind of sneaked up on me. As a longtime fan of the music of Antonio Vivaldi, I had heard my share of mandolins and associated the instrument with music from the past. That all began to…<\/p>\n