I Miss You When I Blink: Essays(38)

The first time I lifted it out of the green felt lining of its case, I knew I’d done something slightly insane. I did not know how to play this instrument. I did not know how to tune or clean or even hold it. I hoisted it into my lap with my left hand, uncertain where to place my fingertips, resting my right arm along the smooth mahogany of its body. Was I supposed to cross my legs or leave my thighs flat? I inhaled and smelled vanilla, confused. Had I accidentally bought a scented guitar? I later learned that it’s common for new guitar cases to be held together with vanilla-scented glue. At the time, I thought its strange sweetness smelled like a rum drink or old pipe tobacco. It didn’t make sense, but it gave the whole experience an additional exotic allure.



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After picking it up, smelling it, and putting it down for a few days, I finally packed the guitar into my car and drove to the music store where I had gotten it. I walked in, set my case on the floor, and pointed to it. “I need a teacher,” I said, “and I don’t even know how to hold this thing.” That’s how I found Robert.



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Robert sported sandy stubble and a permanent case of bedhead, and his wardrobe comprised of jeans that looked like he’d worn them to dig a trench and a rotating array of Hawaiian-print shirts. To this day, I couldn’t tell you his age. He might have been anywhere between forty and seventy, depending on how much of his facial creasing was due to age and how much to windburn and sun damage. When Robert wasn’t working in the guitar store, he was driving his restored Trans Am—which I knew, because he often made reference to it and pointed out where it was parked outside. I suspect he fixed up that old sports car for some of the same reasons I bought my guitar.

We spent each thirty-minute lesson together in a sound-proofed practice room about the size of a large refrigerator. The first lesson was boring, a guitar anatomy lecture. I learned the names of all the parts—neck, bridge, frets—and how a written chord looked like dots on paper. At the second lesson, Robert handed me a page of music. This was the first song he wanted me to learn: “Rock You Like a Hurricane.”

I laughed.

I don’t rock anything like a hurricane. I can’t wrangle a supersize roll of paper towels without hurting myself. In fact, one reason I chose a guitar is that deep down, I really wanted to learn the cello, but I was afraid if the cello fell over, it would crush me and I’d die. This is what “irony” means, kids: wimpy me, a mild tropical depression at most, Rocking You Like a Hurricane.

But that was my assignment, and I applied myself to it. As I clamped the fingers of my left hand awkwardly on the strings and thumbed the chords with my right, the sound started to come together. This was no Brandi Carlile folk ballad—it was an ’80s metal anthem by a hair band called Scorpions—but still. I was playing guitar!

Suddenly there was so much I wanted to know: Where could I get a book of more guitar music? What was the next song I’d learn? How long until I’d be able to play the guitar while also playing a harmonica strapped to my face like orthodontic headgear?

Robert said it just depended on how much I practiced.

So I practiced. Sitting out on the front steps of our house, I kept my feet supported at exactly the right angle. The sound, instead of bouncing off our kitchen walls, drifted away under the hum of Atlanta traffic. I whispered the lyrics along as I played, like I was in an old-school MTV video:

HERE I AM [strum strum, strum strum strum strum strum] ROCK YOU LIKE A HUR-RI-CANE

I can only imagine what this looked and sounded like to passersby.

At the next lesson, I sat down to show Robert my progress. When I finished playing, he said: “Now do it again, but sit up straight and look up and out. You gotta stop looking down at your hands all the time.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because if you look down, all anyone will see when you’re onstage is the top of your head,” he said.

I loved how he bought into my daydream.



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And I loved having a new hobby to pour my energy into. Maybe playing guitar could be what I needed to settle my anxious brain. Maybe if I had a skill to practice every day I wouldn’t wake up wondering, What now? At the very least, if you only get to live once, you might as well acquire some new skills as you go. Learn an instrument. Add some grapes to the chicken salad, one might say. Try on a new persona. I’ve always loved doing that.



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When I was eight, I begged my mother for one of those premade, all-in-one clown costumes you step into and zip up. This cheap-ass polyester number was garish, shiny, and came complete with a jaunty little hat and a palette of face paint from the seasonal aisle of the drugstore. I honestly can’t believe my mom bought it, because typically when I begged for some flimsy store-bought thing she didn’t go for it. But this time, my dreams came true.

At trick-or-treat time—that most holy of occasions when candy is allowed in massive quantities—I ran from house to house like a maniac. As is my way when I am on foot for any period of time, I tripped. But because it was dark, I didn’t notice that my costume had ripped open at the knees when I fell. And because I was high on mini Snickers, I didn’t realize there was blood streaming from both my kneecaps and splattering all over my shoes. I did sense that something on my legs felt funny, which is why I must have reached down to touch them a few times, which is how I managed to cover myself in bloody handprints.