May 19, 2015

the guitar lesson

The boys know, by now, not to disturb on Mondays after school, when the man
with aging hippie hair comes to our living room to teach me, a perennial late bloomer,
how to play. There are the warm-up drills of open strings and tricky barre chords,
and my hands are as obedient as freshman. For a single half-hour, I am in the sweet thicket
of innocence, all eyes and ears, lungs careening each time Ande offers a morsel of praise,
and I am indelicate with an eagerness to please I’d thought long gone. When he leaves,
I return to the sheet music of a shopping list, a dining room table that needs clearing
before dinner. No matter. This porthole of a view is plenty, and underneath it, a wide sea
bobs and bounces, carrying a tune I don’t yet know the notes for,
but will.