Ever since I finished the testing for my doctorate (starting with the summer of woes and progressing through late last semester) I realized that I had completely stopped playing music. One of the things I probably haven’t shared on here is that I play a musical instrument. My parents were not fond of a grade school music instructor so I never did music in grade school. It wasn’t until I turned sixteen that I remarked “I want to play guitar.” It turned out to be a great thing. I took six months of classical guitar lessons from a really nice guy who not only taught me a lot about guitar but also, apparently, experimented with brewing his own beer in his basement (my lessons were 80% guitar and 20% meanderings about the thickness of the foam on his most recent batch). At any rate, I practiced about six hours a day and got relatively proficient in a very short amount of time. Guitar, ever since, has been a personal joy for me.
So when I tell you that I forgot about guitar for about a year due to my studies it should be somewhat shocking. I asked my son to help me restring my instruments and I tuned them with our keyboard (I also fiddle with piano). They sounded amazing. For the next couple of weeks I was happily playing tunes I’d completely forgotten that I knew how to play. I started writing new tunes. I started doing covers of my favorite children’s artist for our son (who danced away happily). My favorite band (the band that made me want to play guitar when I was sixteen) released a new album and I started playing some of that. Life was good! Things were going great! And then I gave my son a crayon.
Okay — the crayon isn’t the important thing — it’s what he did with the crayon. I come home one day to pick up my guitar and pursue the joy of music I’d lost during my studies only to find out that a string is broken. Colored wax (blue) was all over the broken string. When I shook the guitar I could hear something inside of it — you guessed it — a blue crayon. Now who, I wonder, could have done that?