Sweet Dreams in G

A couple years ago, when I was kinda struggling, a friend offered to teach me to play bass guitar.  As this meant I got to spend more time with him, I was on board.  I am painfully transparent most of the time, but choose not to look through and see what's going on inside if what I will see there means that I can't do something I want to do.  In this case I wanted to spend time with this friend who just happened to be an ex-bf.  So I ignored the part that told me why I really wanted that.  


Shhhhh.....don't tell anyone but I was hoping we might get back together.  Delusional thought that, since we had already failed twice at the dating thing because his lexicon did not include words like fidelity and truth but did include things like humiliation and separation.  And did I mention he was dating someone half my age?  Still is actually.  


We put up the proper front, said all the right things, that we were going to proceed as friends, knowing that this couldn't lead anywhere but heartache.  But we went anyway.  Sigh.........  Honestly, I know why I did it, but I have no idea why he did.  And just this once, I'm not going down the rabbit hole of possibilities for that.  It's a trap.  I have been down there before.  Anything I find down there would be a theory, albeit a good one.  


I only took about 4-5 lessons, then I took a break to have surgery.  After surgery and loads of oxy I saw things a lot more clearly (ironic huh?).  I saw why I was there.  Saw how it wasn't gonna work and decided to let him go.  I packed the bass back in its case and put it away.  


The thing is though, that I fell in love during those evenings filled with laughter and easy camaraderie (We would have made lovely friends if we had not fucked it up so royally with dating).  I fell in love with a  beautiful blue Fender bass.  My goal for this year is to get it back out and start over with a new teacher. 


What follows is a poem I wrote about getting lost in a specific note while learning to play scales.  How I would play, get distracted and when I came back find myself just playing a single note over and over and over because it felt so good.  It felt like home. 

Sweet Dreams in G

Up the scale

And down

Retracing steps

Refingering

Reaching G

 

One note held

One spot

Neither inhaling

Nor exhaling 

Blissfully between

Heart unscrewed

On an open G

Plodding off 

Away again

Coming home 

To G

Concentric circles

Where I dove 

Deeply downward

Reaching for G

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