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New love
My church pre-recorded everything for Christmas Eve, so I was most oddly at home in my pajamas that night. I dropped in (online) on a couple of my past churches, and then a local church that I've been interested in... and in that last one, one of the musicians was playing a hammered dulcimer. I used to hear these occasionally as a teen and young adult, and loved the sound.
My birthday was two weeks later, and a slightly crazy friend gave me a very large check with instructions to do something special for myself. It was large enough to make a hammered dulcimer at least a possibility, but I didn't want to commit without trying one out. I reached out to a few contacts I have among the local folk music scene. After one dead end, I heard from someone willing to give me a demonstration and beginner lesson-- and he's the musician I heard on Christmas Eve! The next day I heard from another person, who had won a hammered dulcimer in a raffle and never learned to play it. She offered to loan it with possible option to buy.
Because of COVID safety, I turned down the intro lesson offer, and accepted the loaner. Within a couple of days I was in love, and offered what I couuld for her, and that was accepted. Her name is Val, short for Valery or valor or valium, depending on the day (and yes, she/her, though I'm not sure how binary she is).