her able hands

Tyler and Chris started taking guitar lessons every Tuesday night—Tyler on his cobalt blue Fender Squire, a starter electric we, and the grandparents got for him this past Christmas, and Chris on an acoustic he borrowed from Greg. Meanwhile Greg, a master guitar builder is slumming in our musically impaired neighborhood to fix the broken neck on the questionable $1 yard sale special Chris bought a few years ago. I love having friends in high places who don’t mind visiting us in our shitty basement apartment in the crack house next to the water treatment plant.

It’s so wild hearing live music in the house. Ty’s friend Eli already taught him how to play the Standard First Song for Electric Guitar, “Smoke on the Water.” Lila now walks around the house humming, unh unh unh, un un, unh uuunh, unh unh uuunh, un uuuuunhh, and I get to relive my second concert ever: Deep Purple with the opening act one pint of Cinnamon Schnapps. I consumed that in the parking lot with some chicks I worked with at the Bickford’s Pancake House, and closed the night by barfing hot pink all over my own feet. Fire in the sky, indeed.

I always hoped Tyler would want to play an instrument because not learning to play any is one of my bigger regrets. I know there’s still time, and I may add acoustic guitar lessons or piano, or even both into my crazy routine next year. Don’t worry; I’m not trying to relive my youth vicariously through my poor put-upon teenager. He wanted the lessons. He also wanted to play trumpet in 4th grade, which didn’t turn out so well. It’s not an easy instrument, and he found it hard to blow. Good thing I put the kibosh on the tuba he begged to play.

I tried violin, but never moved past the Do-Re-Me-Fa-So-La-Ti-Do plucking stage, and as with many of the things I tried and gave up in my grade school years, I blamed it entirely on the teacher. It had nothing to do with the fact that I hated practicing after the novelty and excitement of the first few days wore off. Or with how nervous I got whenever I had to do anything in front of other people, so much so that I would walk around with sweaty ass cheeks stuffed into knit tights any time I got called on in class. No, it was always the teacher’s fault. Of course, now I can’t even remember his name, much less his teaching method, which might have clashed with my learning style. But it’s more likely that I was afraid to learn anything new because: What if I sucked at it?

It’s good to see Tyler stretching his mind and his fingers to play. He’s not practicing as much now that he’s taking lessons, which cracks me up. He’s certainly the fruit of my loins in that regard. But I’m not going to push him this time; I’ll just trick him by asking him to play for me. It’s best to go in by the back door with a teenager.

I think Chris is having a harder time learning a new language this late in life, with fingers that have spent most waking hours doing hard manual labor. I hear a lot more mumbled expletives coming from his corner of the room when he’s practicing. I hope he sticks with it though, no matter how hard it is. I want his dream to come true as much as he does. I want him to play “Some Kind of Wonderful” for me while we sit out by the fire pit this summer. As long as he doesn’t sing. Nobody needs to hear that kind of caterwauling.