Laura-Jane with cello - A few years ago

I grew up in a musical household. My mother is a professional violinist who revels in playing music. She has played the violin since she was five years old, and it’s her thing. She loves to play. I think she would say that when she is playing her violin she “blisses out.”  I think I may have even heard her echo these words on more than one occasion:  “I love to practice my violin.”

If you’ve ever been an unwilling music student, you might be aware that it is not everyone who can say, “I love to practice my instrument.” But my mother has been playing professionally for decades, and playing the violin is still her thing.

As the daughter of a professional musician, I grew up playing the cello. I started playing at the age of four, and I even faked my way through a season with the Vancouver Island Symphony. I enjoyed playing the cello, but it was not my thing. Unlike my mother, I did not love to practice my cello–even though I tried to will the cello to be my thing. Intellectually I wanted to be a glamorous cellist, but I did not have the will for it. It didn’t flow. I couldn’t bliss out playing the cello the way my mom could bliss out playing her violin. Playing music wasn’t my thing.

As a kid I remember genuinely wondering what was wrong with me. Why could my mother play for hours but for me it felt so forced? Why wasn’t I like her? I didn’t understand why, but I realized that we weren’t the same. My mother is a kind, kindred, warm person and there was no ill-will over my lack of dedication or drive when it came to the cello. I think she realized that it wasn’t my thing, and by the age of fourteen I was a spent cellist.

I entered teenage-hood, and by the time that I emerged out the other side I had found my thing.

I never decided that blogging and writing and communicating with you would be my thing. It just happened. It was natural. Once I started in 2001 I just couldn’t stop. This is my thing.

This blank box in which I am typing allows me to read, write, share. To connect with you. I can tell you a thousand secrets. I can paint a picture with my fingers. I can create something out of nothing. All this from a keyboard and a blank box in which I can type.

In this blank box I can go in any direction. This is my creative outlet. This is where I feel that I am the most me.

One of the greatest rushes of joy in my life is when I have an idea that I want to write about or I receive an email or a comment in which someone divulges that my words have touched them.

Like any person with a thing that is creative, I don’t know where my ideas come from. Ideas just hit me. Of course, ideas don’t come as often as I like, but, sometimes, somewhere inside my brain an idea is born, and then I find myself writing inside this little white box. Once I’ve got an idea, I go into a state of what can best be described as flow. Once I’ve got that idea it’s all a blur. Everything just flows. There’s no push. There’s no friction. The words just pour out of me so easily. It is a pleasure.

I have finally found the equivalent to my mother playing her violin in the warm living room night after night after night. It’s me, writing to you, night after night. I’m happy that my mother has her thing and I have mine.

To anyone who is reading this, I hope you realize that you’re a big part of my thing. And I hope you’ve found your thing, too.