New Physicist

I want to tell you about the moment I realised I had made a violin. Not the moment I finished it. Not the moment I strung the last string or put the bridge in place. I mean the moment — maybe three weeks after all of that — when I was sitting with it in my hands, just holding it, and it hit me properly. This thing... I made this. Every curve of it. Every joint. Every millimetre of wood I carved away and every millimetre I was careful not to. I bent these sides with heat. I cut these f-holes with a knife. I reached inside this tiny wooden box — through a gap barely big enough for my hand — and wedged a small piece of wood in exactly the right place so that when a bow touches the strings, the sound goes where it's supposed to go. I made this. From a piece of teak. And sitting there holding it, I felt something I haven't felt in a long time. Genuinely, quietly proud. Not the loud kind of proud where you want to show everyone. The quiet kind. The kind that just sits in your ch...