I can play cello again.

I can play cello again. I can play cello again. I can play cello again. I can play cello again!!!!!

Get out of my WAY!  
Why must you dawdle RIGHT THERE in between me and my cello when...

I can play cello again. I can play cello again. I can play cello again. I can play cello again!!!!!!

Ohhh....hello my dear friend.  I have missed you.

I know I talked to the piano while I wasn't able to converse with you.  Don't get jealous.  It meant NOTHING to me.  I was just filling in time until we could be together again. It's been so long...

My, what beautiful wood you have and such deliciously undulating curves...and those strings...I just want to...well...you know what I want to do.  I want to take that bow and draw it ever so gently across those synthetic core strings and make you whisper things I have missed hearing.  I want to raise your voice to a  shout so we can both be expressing the same thing that is in my mind...Can you guess what it is?  I'll give you a hint...just a small one...

I can play cello again. I can play cello again. 
I can play cello again. I can play cello again!!!!!!

Now where's that bow...

Held together and holding on...

I appear to be held together with Gaffa tape. <sigh>

After a Doctor's appointment and physiotherapy, I have been strapped up and warned off playing for another week to allow everything to heal.  The good thing about talking to the physiotherapist was that the exercises and stretches will be tailored towards developing strength and endurance in the arm so I can get back to playing as soon as possible.  Every time I am tempted to take my arm out of the sling, I hear my doctor's voice saying, "Well if you would LIKE to dislocate your arm again and go to surgery and spend LONGER in recovery, feel free to walk around without it." <doublesigh> <slips arm back in uncomfortable and irritating sling>

I had a lesson on Saturday where I had to explain what I had done to myself, then sit in and listen to my daughter playing her exam pieces for an hour. We discuss a lot of technique and such for both violin and cello while the lesson goes ahead, so I get a lot of advice.  However, my fingers itch to pick up my bow and draw it across a string.  I find myself standing next to the cello and plucking the open strings with my good hand just to hear it whisper to me.

ENOUGH brooding.  I'm terrible at both patience and sitting around doing nothing, So what CAN I do?  Well I am so glad you asked...I can strengthen my bow hand.  I have been googling this as I am still fiddling around with my bow hold trying to find something both comfortable and practical.  My bow hand often gets tired after I have been playing for awhile and I know that part of this is because I am still tensing up a lot.  Some of it is because I am not holding the bow properly.  A lot of it is probably because hand and arm muscles are physically UNFIT for the task.

So, with my focus drawn towards the more physical aspects of playing at the moment, this momentary pause in my musical conversation has become an exploration of holding on...

There is some GREAT advice and tips in this forum post over at the Internet Cello Society forums...
http://cellofun.yuku.com/topic/7458/Itty-Bitty-Hands-A-bowing-problem#.UiPxcjZmjeg

LOTS of exercises here on all sorts of things at the Cello Professor
http://www.celloprofessor.com/Action-Studies.html

AND some informative videos here at Erik Friedlander
http://erik-friedlander.squarespace.com/cello-stuff/