Private Passions It Can Ba A Sublime Pleasure To Rediscover The Pursuits Left Behind In Hectic Years

A friend of mine returned to playing the cello this summer after being 20 years away from it. Through the years she’d been meaning to get back to it, but you know how things get in the way.

Now, on mornings before it gets too hot, she sit downs in her living room with her cello. She plays barefoot. Only the cats are home to hear.

A cello can’t always be a priority. Not when you have three kids, a husband and a career. Even tiling the kitchen counter often comes before cello playing.

“I always told the kids one day I’d pick it up again. And then the time came. The house was empty.”

She plays the cello without watching the clock. Those low, purring tones put her in a soothing place.

She took the cello for three years in grade school and loved it. She gave it up when she started taking the school bus and got teased hauling it onboard.

On a whim, in her late 20s, she went to San Francisco and bought a cello for $400. Played it for a while and then life got in the way. Now, 20 years later, it’s liberated from the guest room closet and is back where she can get to it when the spirit calls.

For another friend, it was horseback riding, although her return to an old love didn’t have the same immediate thrill.

The first night she went riding at her local stable, after many years since riding English in college - “boots, hat, the whole bit” - she got back on a horse and it threw her off. Or maybe the horse bolted and my friend bounced off. Whatever, she said, “there was a misunderstanding.”

She was wearing a helmet and so saved her head, but she fractured her wrist. Her disapproving mother said something typically mother-like about her trying to break her neck. She’s decided to tell people she was thrown, rather than fell, and since she also received a mild concussion, it’s hard to reconstruct who did what to whom.

She went home with dirt in her hair and bruised in body and ego, but says she’ll probably ride again. “It’s very good for the thighs.”

Could it be there’s a trend here, to schedule room in our overbooked lives to do something we have passion for? To pursue something for the simple, private pleasure.

After years of dreaming about having her own boat, another friend has scored a small aluminum fishing boat with a motor and little rag top in which to roam the backwaters of a nearby lake.

Just about to launch, she’ll go looking for swimming holes away from the Jet Skis. She says she’s tired of swimming in chlorine. Knowing her, she’ll find pools remote enough for skinny-dipping.

She’ll get more, of course. Solitude and quiet. A different focus. Time out. By herself. Down time. Dream time.

Did I mention that these part-time hedonists are still paying their dues to career and family but feel just fine about seeking something that makes them singularly happy?

A guy I know suddenly joined a chorus, surprising members of his family who didn’t even know he could sing. Except for once a year the rare Christmas carol, in fractured French, after hot brandies.

Now he’ll be adding baritone to his life’s resume.

Experts say after age 40 people can start to clear away some of the clutter, go back to working on things they shelved or have secretly longed to do. It’s more a second adolescence than second childhood, in terms of experimenting.

A woman who became an actor following several decades of being behind the scenes was looking for a way to get unstuck.

“I needed to make a right-angle turn in my life.”

She’s not sure where the acting bug came from, but when she talks about how terrified she is to walk out on stage, her face lights up.

Then there’s the mom who is learning to be a stand-up comic. And the hairdresser-poet.

Lost and found pleasures. Think back to what’s on hold. Imagine the possibilities.