Wednesday Night

A few weeks ago my BN Chaplain asked me to play violin at gospel concert originally scheduled for 01 July.  I had no clue what to play and when I told my friend Rob about it he suggested a doing a medley of a few songs and offered some suggestions for the pieces.  I practiced the medley a little, but wasn’t sure about the order and flow, so I was glad when the concert got pushed back to 08 July because it gave me more time to practice. The concert has been pushed back again to the 21^st  since there’s now a memorial service on the 8^th for a soldier from 1-66 AR who was killed on Sunday.

 

On Monday I mentioned to Rob that I was wasn’t sure about the songs in the medley. He offered to help me with it so the next day I left him a note telling him that I’d be at the Chapel practicing on Wednesday and if he could stop by it’d be a big help, but I understood if he couldn’t make it. Everyone’s schedule can change at a moments notice.  When I arrived at the Chapel on Wednesday I found my friend Derrick there leading a gospel choir practice.  After the gospel choir rehearsal finished Derrick stayed around.  He wanted to accompany me by singing while I played violin, which is usually what we do, but I told him that I wanted to play alone that night.  It had been a long day and I wasn’t in a very talkative mood, which I think he took as me not wanting him to be there at all (which wasn’t the case) and so he left a short time later. I wasn’t sure if Rob was going to show and had realized that what I really wanted to do that evening was play hymns on my violin as a way to worship a bit that way without having to worry about the key or if I was in time with the other person. 

 

A little after 10 pm I decided play one more song before I packing up for the evening.  As with each song I had played the words of the hymns repeated in my mind and I became solely focused on worshiping God during the song.  When the hymn ended I turned around and was startled to see Rob sitting there looking like he had been enjoying the music.  I had no idea how long he’d been there and when I asked him all he would say was “long enough,” although I did manage to get it out of him that he’d been there before I started the last song, which is weird because I didn’t hear him come in or sit down.  We worked on my medley for a bit and then called it a night.   

 

When Rob and I were leaving the CH on duty noticed that I didn’t have my bike and told Rob, who did have a bike, to ensure that I made it back to my room safely since women aren’t supposed to walk alone at night.  Usually I ride my bike, but a strange thing happened that evening.  I’ve been more careful about locking up my bike ever since I had one stolen and on Sunday I bought a new bike lock.  The bike lock comes with a pair of identical keys and I hadn’t had any trouble with key until Wednesday evening when I went to unlock my bike to ride it to the chapel. Neither key would budge in the lock.  Eventually I gave up trying and walked to the chapel.  By the time Rob and I left it was late and it was a bit of an imposition for him to escort me back to my room since he lives in the opposite direction, but he was nice enough not to complain. I told him the story about the lock and when we reached my room I got the keys to the lock to show him how it didn’t work.  The first key didn’t budge in the lock, but the second key worked without any trouble.  Since then I haven’t had any trouble with the lock.