My beautiful viola is still over in China.

I play viola, I used to play a lot in high school, and I still play just for fun now. But I was dumb, and I left my instrument in China, because I thought I'd be going back. So my beautiful viola is still over in China, so that's been one of my big creative outlets, and I can't play it here, which has been really hard. 

My parents had a piano that I still played occasionally, and so, that was kind of like a nice creative outlet. [...]  In 20 minutes in a day, what is something active that you can do or creative that you can do that makes you just feel good? And piano was one of those things that I kind of reconnected to a little bit, pulled out a couple of pieces that I hadn't played before and worked on those.

Recently, I've been getting back into... Okay, well, this is a secret, so hopefully my friend is not watching this yet, but I made a barn quilt for her. A barn quilt is like... It's not an actual fabric quit, but it uses the patterns that are in a quilt pattern, and instead you paint them on a big wooden board. My mom does a lot of them, and so, I thought it'd be fun to try one for my friend's birthday, so I made her a barn quilt. So that was kind of a fun creative outlet. It was something new, and I knew my mom had a passion for it. And it was fun to put it together, and I see all the work that goes into it. 

I've recently gotten back into knitting, that's kind of it for my creative outlets. [Laughter] It's been kind of reconnecting with some of the things that I like to do, things that are okay to do when you're being really sedentary, but still bring you joy. So I think that's been kind of nice. And also, it makes me feel a little more productive. 

Lani Dalbacka

 

 

 


 

 

 

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