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Whole-Body StrumMarch 27, 2006 Guitar class ended tonight. Boo-hoo -- but wow! Progress has been made. I can't believe how far I've come in 10 weeks. Teacher Steve's wife Joyce is an accomplished fiddler with a very fine soprano voice. For graduation we played rhythm guitar to a fiddle medley with Joyce playing fiddle and Steve playing lead guitar. The chords and changes weren't all that difficult -- A, E, and D -- but what a blast to be making music with a bunch of other people, some of whom are very accomplished. Steve says he'll offer an advanced course next winter, with admission by audition only. He laid out his expectations and gave us a written-down summary. Don't know if I'll get in, or even if I'll aim for it, but the expectations are good. Class or no class, I expect to keep working, practicing changes, learning new chords, learning more songs. Maybe hitting up the guitar players I know for tips. Coincidence (or maybe not?): my period came back late this morning. The last one arrived so long after its predecessor, about two months, that I started keeping track of dates. Sure enough: that was January 15. Two and a half months. Even for me, the regularly irregular, this has to be a sign that the periods are no longer periodic and perhaps it's time to stop stockpiling tampons? This winter (OK, it's officially spring, and yesterday sure felt like it!) I've been fascinated by bodily changes, which is to say my bodily changes. Learning guitar has visibly changed my left hand -- it's now got serious calluses on three fingertips and the tip of my pinky (which didn't start working till we learned the four-finger C chord) feels hard though it doesn't look different. Other changes aren't visible: greater strength and dexterity in both hands, and more "stretch" in my left. Physically I couldn't make these configurations two months ago: mind said "Get over there!" and matter whined "Can't" and occasionally "Gonna make me?" I can even make a few bar chords that produce the appropriate sounds when I strum -- not clean, exactly, and nowhere near fast, but they're coming. The old bod really is learning new tricks. There's plenty of strength in the old bod yet; so I learned, as if I had any doubt, when I fell out of the hayloft three weeks ago. (All right, I didn't exactly fall out of the hayloft, like I didn't exactly fall off the ladder: the ladder slipped out from under me when I was waist-high to the hayloft floor and then I fell on top of the ladder. Who's gonna stand still for an explanation that long? The short version is that I fell about 10 feet in a downward direction. If you hear me telling some gullible tourist this summer that I fell off the barn roof, I'm lying through my teeth.) That caused a few changes too, and unlike the increasing skill of left and right hands they happened pretty fast: huge bruise and scrape around left knee, huger bruise and great big lump on outside of left thigh. The healing comes slower, but -- unlike coaxing my fingers into C chord and G chord and B7 chord -- I don't have to do anything to make it happen. I just watch. The bruises have evolved from deep purple to mottled purple to jaundice yellow; now they're mostly gone. The big lump has shrunk considerably, but it's still there. I rub it occasionally, testing for progress. Progress happens whether I rub it or not. Maybe the rubbing does help the lump shrink faster? Sorry, my scientific curiosity doesn't extend to falling off the ladder and starting the whole process again, this time without rubbing. My body is amazingly sturdy and resilient, but I don't want to push my luck.
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