The bow hair that finally sang

Spent three hours today with a bow whose hair had gone flat, brittle—like old wire. I’d been avoiding it, but something in the light this morning made me try again. Re-haired it myself, not perfectly, but close enough. When I played the first note, it wasn’t clean or loud—it was thin, trembling, like a voice trying to remember how to speak. And then it found its breath. Not mastery. Not control. Just… presence. The kind of sound that only comes when you stop pretending you’re in charge.