My Grandfather's Fiddle

The computer's doing something weird.
I am reading a book by Charles de Lint called Tapping the Dream Tree. Nick has really gotten into him lately, so, in an effort to have things to discuss with my children, I'm getting in to him, too, and boy is it worth it. The first story in the collection had me hooked--it's about a fiddler whose fiddle can open doors to other worlds (calling on music), and the devil's in it, and a scarecrow with the beginning's of a psyche, and all the things in it that I find in myself, and Robert Johnson, still playing, hiding in dives, ducking the devil. He's got his finger on the pulse of something--this amalgamation of celtic myth and Indian lore--everything. Even Baba Yaga is in it.
I feel that way about my fiddle. I feel like it has a life of its own. I feel like it calls things on.
Have I told you about it?
My great-great-great-something or other grandfather made him. His name was Robert Thompson. He was a Scottish immigrant and he ran a travelling dance troupe.
One day, so the story goes, during rehearsal, he danced off the stage into the orchestra pit. The accident left him a paraplegic.
Can you imagine? A paraplegic in the 1840's? This was before ramps and vans with special hand driving accomodations (although I bet horses worked pretty well with paraplegics). And he had something like 10 children to support.
So he taught himself to make fiddles. He was already a fiddler, so he knew what he wanted. Then he started making mandolins. He made a lot of mandolins, apparently, but he only made 27 fiddles. I have the 23rd. It's the only one we can find anywhere. He signed the inside with a pencil with the date and his name. Robert Thompson, 1854. #23.
My Nana had the fiddle for a long time. It had never been played. I'm the only one in the family who can play the violin, but she wouldn't give it to me. After she died, though, it came to me. She didn't will it to me specifically, but the whole family agreed that I was the one who should have the fiddle. I took it to my friend, Tom Verdot to get it refurbished, and now I play it.
He told me "it's like a brand new, 150 year old fiddle. It's like a time machine."
The funny thing is, it has some of the problems newer violins have--it isn't really seasoned, you know?
But playing problems I've had my whole life have disappeared--intonation problems, double stops. That thing is made for my hands. Our hands, my grandfather's and mine, are probably somewhat alike. It just fits.
From his hands to mine. I swear I can feel him in it--just in the musical ideas I get--they're so much different than the ones I get on my other violin. Much more dance-y. He's been in the attic all these years, unstrung, unloved, unplayed. He wants to dance. So I do my best to let him.
Oh....today is going to be a good day. I'm going to put away the laundry and make the house good. I'm going to cook and drink my carrot juice.
And later, I'm going to play my fiddle.
That's my 1/2 hour.