Today my son decided to leave the violin after one year and a half of disciplined playing

 He is small and determined and me I was once a small determined kids like him that really enjoyed my dad playing the violin.

This is not the only connection I have to the violin. My son's first violin was sold very cheap by my friend who I end up cutting relations with because of an argument over women rights.

Ironically my friend sold me her daughter's violin because her daughter had outgrown the violin. The violin is branded , which I would not afford back then if I was to buy it new and when she offered to sell me the violin for a tenner citing to only charge me for postage I really rejoiced.

This was my friend for this and for more, and was truly sad how people go their own ways or how friends of someone can change someone so much as to make her a stranger to others. 

I sometimes look back at my mobile texts, my Facebook, my skype , email, my Whatsapp and my friend is gone but she was gone before that, I  just could not see it.

When we met she was this lovely lady, beautiful brunette with blue eyes who had transitioned from male to female years ago but as years went by she became LGBT activist and my feminism from a woman's point of view collided with hers when a Bristolian mixed race transgender took the place in a female prison solitary cell from a vulnerable white  female teenager.

I , mixed race took the side of the white girl because she was suicidal and needed the cell but my friend took the side of the mixed race because was a transgender who would kill herself if in a male prison or in female general population .

The bottom line is that there is no race divide in life , there is something different , which is when people are put against each other because of limited resources or views which are imposed by the media.

I should never have thought nor said that no matter what transgenders are privileged as they are born male and the world belongs to men, as I met her as a woman and I should never have thought that friends are not like resources and sometimes you just have to fight for your friends!

Maybe I need LGBT training but that violin was given by a friend which I pictured as I looked at straight  woman , yet  and I have a lot to learn about excluding others experiences and understanding of what is to be a man or a woman or the struggles they face . Saying I accept you is not enough- one day maybe I will be the good person I think I am.

Best wishes,

Ariane