After years of reading about all the Zen and arrow crap, it wasn't until a buddy was showing me how to shoot a bow and arrow that I Got It. That pregnant moment of balance and potential, of quiet, of power, string taut, arrow back, future ahead. At that point, Zen really became Zen.

First time I fired a .45 caliber automatic, I knew; the weight, the angle, the sensible, predictable recoil. The fit was instantaneous and perfect. The hand had found its gun.

First time I drove a Macintosh, it was like four clicks and, wow, did I ever get it -- so much so that I found the potential overwhelming. That elusive feeling of fit is much like Potter Stewart's description of pornography. It's hard to explain, but its generally recognized in a flash. It's the fit. Nothing else need be said.

And so it came to be that after years of running around with my crazy fiddle-playing friend, a friend who has a violin way too valuable to even touch let alone play, well she got a new -- and cheap -- fiddle. Something I could actually ask to try one afternoon.

So I slipped it under my chin.

And it fit.

   ***

The first clue was the stance. With no hands and no conscious effort at all, the fiddle balanced perfectly under the chin while I was carrying on the conversation about the bow. It was like it had always been there. My fiddle playing friend seemed stunned at the sheer ease of it all. The bow winds up riding like a feather. I'm thinking it's a pretty good interface.

"Just because I look like John Hartford doesn't mean I can play," I say weakly before launching into a prodigy-level Paganini. Okay, I'm making that part up. Actually, I'm sawing on the G and E strings, tweaking pitch and trimmng the bow. And very odd how a fiddle is damned loud when you're listening in a small room, and how when your ear is right next to it, it's more of a hum. All the power but not the volume.

My theory on the fit is that it all stems from years of being a reporter and having a telephone crooked between my ear and shoulder. Considering the arthritic damage left behind by doing that for two decades, well, the fiddle is the last thing I should be playing. Except for one thing. It fits.

"What happens if I drool on it?" I ask with fiddle playing friends. "Do you dust it with Lemon Pledge?" These are questions asked by the great ones, you know.

Now truthfully, my friend the fiddle player is such a force of nature, she'll get her own column someday.

But for now, all she gets is my thanks.

   ***