One Step Closer

Well, I took a step toward that goal I mentioned in the previous post. I want to learn how to play guitar. I contacted a friend to ask if he'd be interested in an introductory lesson in order for me to see if I might have any aptitude for it, or if it's just something I should appreciate but not practice, and he was open to the prospect, at least initially. Today was supposed to be Day One but, alas, it was postponed due to illness and is being rescheduled for sometime later this week. I was very excited about beginning this new experiment (yesterday I nervously set foot into a guitar store I've always wanted to venture into, just to have a look around) and was very disappointed when the lesson was cancelled. As my wife reassured me, it will happen soon enough but for a little while after the phone call I was pretty down. I find that I try not to get excited about certain things because I know how easily it all might change, so it's best to keep the passions in check. Which I'm beginning to think is absurd. Irish, but absurd. There are certainly things I am rabidly enthusiastic about and will jabber incessantly about these obsessions to nearly anyone who will listen (my wife has had to endure a few months of me raving incessantly about The Frames, playing her this song and that, again and again ... thanks, love. Oh, and beware, all - pitchers and catchers report this week). But when I find myself wanting something that isn't simply attained, whether by purchase or my own will, that is reliant either on others or events beyond my control, and something gets in the way or the plans are derailed altogether, I always feel a great sense of gloom and defeat and, for a time, I’m inconsolable.

This is probably the point where I should remind myself that I'm trying to learn something new and have patience and all that positive reinforcement jibba-jab. This new fandango will require a great deal of time, patience and discipline. It's something I can throw myself into, work intensively at and occasionally beat myself up about because I'm not yet as accomplished as I think I should be. I need to step back. I want to learn something that for years I always talked about but never did anything more than talk, so I should relax a little bit and see what happens ...

Speaking of relaxing, we’ve rented a house in our future hometown for the weekends of March. It’s a house we’ve been sniffing around for a little while, so we - well, let’s give credit where credit is due: my wife - had the idea to rent the house to not only get a sense of the house but to get a feel for the town as well. I am very excited about this and I’m not going to get in the way of that excitement. We’ll be there on Saint Patrick’s Day. We’ve had a long-standing tradition here in the city of going out the night before St. Pat’s to all the Irish bars along 2nd and 3rd Avenues to avoid the crowds of Stage Irish and have a drink or three in calmer climes. Last year that tradition was broken because we were in Ireland for St. Pat’s, making it a tradition we can no longer go back to. Once we were There, in the county my family came from, sitting in the church that may have been the family parish ... you don’t go back to 2nd Avenue after that. You go where your heart is, where you belong. So, we’ll be in that little pub I’ve written about before, in the town that my wife thinks reminds me of Ireland, the town that has won us over and draws us ever closer, as we take another step to where we want to be in this continuing evolution of the next phase of our life.