Strumming on my Day

As I learn to strum and pick at my guitar strings, letters and notes that sound on or off depending on me, not their tension, I am struck by how acquard my arm feels stretched over the fat body. I cut my nails and forget my pick and then half hold it, as I give into my fears of sounding bad. Occassionally it will all feel easy and I sing out a few lines, but mostly it feels like I go slow fast, stop, figure out where I am, begin again. Playing with my teacher, he listens, looks and makes motions, suggests I tap my toe, and even attempts to add in base chords and sing the harmony, "so as give a sense for what is possible," he says.

This week I tried to change my strings and broke the lowest two E and A, snapped the little plastic peg, with the bottom half wedged in the hole. I tried for half a day to dig it out, taking some wood with me before I got my fist in and pushed from within. After all that snapping, I tried to tune the thing and couldn't remember which notes went with which string. After that, I headed to another lesson without practicing, like I used to as a kid for violin (and which I do every Saturday when I show up to run, without having run any days since last Saturday).

The thing is that I can't keep away, despite my shortcomings. I must play on. Last week I went in to Oz Music, all keyed up from leading music at kids camp and running around trying to make myself fit, and after 30 minutes of fumbling with chords and words, I walked out rejuvenated. All my heavy breathing and tensed up shoulders were forgotten. 

This is true of my entire life. I love to play music, and I'm bad at tapping my toe to get a rythme, but I want to try, want to get into a groove, so that I can be where ever I am. It is the drum beat of waking up with an understanding about the day. A sip of Roos coffee, children eating, a playing out of the knowns, so I don't wander through a maze of indecisions.

What do I do every day?
Wonder what to do until it is sprung upon me by some crisis or request?
YES, sigh.

So I am hoping to change this. I  am so glad for moments when I arrive somewhere, like a camp site, a guitar lesson, my writing desk and the plan is clear, the survival items are taken care of, and I can just be in the space.

I suppose for some this means a plan for cleaning and cooking and managing the corners of closets, which sounds defeating to me. I imagine the kids having their clothes set up for them to find. A bowl of fruit they can access, the five meals that we rotate through. Somehow I am not there yet. I do the massive clean my house and then let it go for months, until a wave of guilt or an influx of guests convince me to take action.

I keep thinking all the efforts of living in society are somehow labeled as "adult," and I am still a child waiting to be told my schedule. This is why I tend to be swayed by the people who knock at my door. I need to develop the parental sense to look for what is enduring over my gravitation towards quick reactions.