This post came about from an interesting conversation in which when I said something like “as you get older you get more strings to your bow” the person hearing thought of the strings on the instrument not the bow. And interestingly when I did the search using “strings on a bow” I got lots of pictures of violins or guitars. But the bow is the thing you play the instrument with not those strings you run the bow across.
I wonder if we like it to be the instrument because that is unchanging whereas the bow can gain strings, can change how it plays, and also, if I remember from my long-ago violin playing days, the bow was the part that needed regularly waxing so it moved smoothly across the strings.
I do think it is true that as we get older we do gain strings to our bows, with experience, with learning, with exploring, and with healing. Confidence grows. We just know more stuff.
For instance I run writing groups for both adults and school children. I do them mainly with some basic notes but am continually pulling things from the depths of my brain, altering, changing, rehashing, being able to answer questions, etc. This isn’t because I am super intelligent but it is that I have been around a lot. I’ve read a lot. I’ve been to lots of other writing groups. I’ve listened to others. I’ve a love of learning. Things are just in my head. And I have gained confidence in myself that I can do this. They are the strings to my bow.
Interestingly I’ve been doing some emotional support work in a local school via an organisation using their tools but the whole time I was finding I was “playing a scratchy tune.” I wasn’t playing cleanly. It was not good. In the end I gave up on their tools and went back to having a rough plan and going with the flow – allowing my bow to flow smoothly over the strings.
I’m not saying I am better than the organisation but to play a tune that was harmonious for me and the lad I was working with I had to use my own bow, so to speak.
My husband has just gone for a new job and what he found at the interview as that as they asked him about certain things he was able to say “I’ve done that with X that I used to work with”. He has gain strings to his bow over the different jobs he’s had, the different things he’d been involved with, the different people he’s worked with. His bow has grown fuller.
Even now as I grapple with a new laptop [mine died on holiday. Thank goodness for ‘the cloud’ that stored all my writing] because of the experiences of setting up other laptops over the years I have skills and this time it didn’t take as long [apart from getting solitaire up but then maybe that is the gods of laptops telling me I don’t need that!!!]
So let us all enjoy our bows as they gain their strings and allow them to flow smoothly over the instruments that are placed in front of us.
Aspirational Adventures 