Lost and Found

A few years ago I sold my guitar; my rosewood Alvarez, my beloved, resonant, androgynous instrument, its woman-shape touching like a man. Arthritis had finally ended my ability to embrace or stroke it properly. 

When I was 21 years old I heard a Julian Bream recording of Rodrigo's "Concerto d'Aranjuez." I had studied piano as a teenager but had not been in love. This music smoked of passion. Even the composers' names were transporting: Albinoni, Carulli, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, and my favorite, Villa-Lobos (vee-yah low-bus, pronounced with a long caress on the first syllable).

The Alvarez was not my first. I learned on a Martinez student guitar. Like the piano, it created melody from strings pulled taut and pressed with precision. But the Martinez vibrated with more emotion, begged for greater sensitivity. Held properly against my chest there was no distance between hand and chord. No keys, no hammer, only the immediate and sensuous rapport between fingers, strings, heart. I was an avid lover.

My first husband and I moved from Boston to Indianapolis to San Francisco and finally to Cincinnati over the six years of his medical internship and residency. In each city I found a teacher and a companion with whom I could play duets. Other relationships were incidental to these musical rendezvous. I was very good for a beginner.

By the time our daughter was a year old, however, I was expected to be socially gracious, to cook gourmet dinners for guests, to go to teas with other doctors' wives and chat about potty training, to volunteer for community service. I had no time for these activities, which bored me. Grateful that my daughter took substantial naps, I practiced two hours a day, first exercises to limber up my fingers, then pieces like Carcassi's "Andantino in G," even some flamenco riffs.

I wanted so much to excel. I'd heard all the masters, knew what was possible, yet lacked the spontaneity to improvise; my fingers would not fly. My fervor was admirable, my capability serviceable, my dedication commendable, but I was not a talented musician.

For more, see shaking like a mountain