Tender Tuning.

Today my guitar left its case for the first time in years. I tuned her and tried to remember a few chords. My first one E minor. My favorite G. I strummed with my right hand, letting my thumb stroke downward, a pick feels too impersonal. I tried to fingerpick and felt the notes dead under my fingers and me scrambling for a fingernail clipper and in a furious gesture my long left hand nails were gone.

I've forgotten the chords I learned long ago in Dan Jacobson's class, but I still have the books and my flash cards. I remember the first few notes of Tesla's love song. I remember me and Tiffany and a roomful of boys who all knew how to play guitar already slowly playing Silent Night as part of a performance final. I remember when the light of awareness dawned and I finally understood what chords were and suddenly the root to 5th patterns were more important than anything I'd learned. And House of the Rising Sun never sounded so good.

In the midst of holidays and a knitting resurgence, with Christmas cards and crafts begging to be done, with little sleep and lots of exercise I doubt I will find much time in my coming days to really delve into my guitary past, but it was fun waking up that part of me today.