THE SAGA OF MY SELF-ESTEEM

When I was in 5th grade, I was really arrogant. Or maybe it was well-adjusted. My parents might have an opinion on which it was. But anyway, I though I could do just about anything. I played tackle football with the boys on the playground after school, I wrote a partial novel about a girl and this horse she found in an old abandoned house, I did charcoal drawings (mostly of horses), I played George the dragon in the school play (though I was a bit offended at playing a male character, it really was the best part), I sang in church with my mom and sister, I rode horses. I was a miracle preteen! I had no fear! And no doubts that I was as talented as anyone on the planet! It was great.

In high school, I ran track, I had boyfriends and a wide range of friends. I still sang a bit now and then, worked on a dude ranch with my friend Joie, drove wrecklessly and made good grades. Still pretty hot stuff, though I definitely experienced more down days, and of course the uncertainty as to whether my pink cargo pants looked hot with that yellow checked shirt with the collar up.

In college, I got a bit of a rude awakening. I still thought my drawing was pretty good, even though I didn’t care much about it anymore, and I got cast in a play within my first month at school. But calculus and chemistry were really hard and I made my first Cs, including one in the relatively easy Spanish class because I spent all my time trying to understand calculus. I started to wonder if maybe I wasn’t such a genius after all.

The doubting trend and increased trepidation about new experiences followed me into adulthood. I had moved—alone—to Texas for an internship and then again—alone again—to Seattle to do theatre. So, some courage there. Then I did theatre and had office day jobs and took few risks. When buildergrrl introduced me to climbing, I felt like I was conquering the world again—but mostly because I had the courage to try something new after so long without doing so. That and getting really strong and feeling capable.

More recently—within the last six years—I took up Appalachian old-time fiddle. Flying Fish, a serious violinist at one time, came with me to judge tone and quality, and helped me choose an instrument. He also gave me some starting exercises to do to. I took lessons, did okay, but always felt like an incredibly slow learner and never got to the point of being able to jam with other folks. I broke my left hand and quit for several months, then never got back to the lessons. I still practice very occasionally, and consider starting again more seriously. The problem is, I think I’ve got no talent for music. I’ve always been able to carry a tune, I can harmonize if I can see the notes to give me some clues, and I can hear and find a note on the fiddle. But I don’t pick up new tunes quickly, I don’t recognize song structure when hearing a tune, I just don’t seem to get it.

When I was in Cardiff, I saw a BBC show about how music works. This particular episode was about rhythm. I’d never had anyone explain it to me. That pushing the tempo in this way makes it swing, that lagging a little makes it latin, and that piling up tempos is something you’ll notice in Cuban or African music. (I’m not remembering it correctly, perhaps, but the a-ha moment still happened for me.)

Unfortunately, I never saw another episode of this music show, but it did make me wonder if maybe music would make more sense to me, even come more intuitively, if I had the framework of music theory to put it in. So, when I’ve got some time on my hands, maybe I’ll give that a shot and take a class. Hey, it worked for lobbying – someone told me how you do it, they gave me the necessary background information, and suddenly it made sense and was no longer intimidating.

End of Ramble. Thanks for listening.