Bluegrass Therapy

Lately I have been playing my banjo more often. Daily, in fact. I haven't done this in years, unless preparing for an upcoming performance at church or with my dad. But a couple of weeks ago our whole family went to the Pickin' In The Park up in North Georgia, and it reminded me of my childhood. All over this park, by a river, under giant oak and maple and pine trees, people were playing and singing and listening and tapping their toes and generally having a good time, and it made me nostalgic for a part of myself that has lain dormant for too long.

Ms. MMV has in the past quoted Joan Didion's passage about staying on "nodding terms" with our former selves. The full quote is (thank you MMV):

I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends.

I think this explains a little of my Banjo Fever.

I've also had a little hard-on-the-pride-but-ultimately-freeing realization about myself in the process of picking up an old interest. As a kid, growing up, I had the same burning desire to be "special" that every member of the human race feels - different in a good way, better than everyone else in some way, no matter how small. Some are blessed with natural beauty or unusual intelligence or physical ability and "special" status is theirs by default. Most of us, though, go through a process of seeking and discarding qualities that can be unique to us, that make us stand out in a crowd. We settle on an amalgamation of those things that fit best, or those things which pay us the biggest rewards, socially or emotionally.

So, as you might imagine, learning the banjo definitely made me "special." I was a 10-year-old girl in a class of old men (at least they all seemed old to me) when I started taking lessons. After a couple of years my dad started letting me practice with his bluegrass buddies, forcing me to learn to without stopping and restarting, to keep going in spite of mistakes. When I was thirteen, I played onstage at a bluegrass festival with my dad's band. Talk about attention! I definitely reaped rewards.

Yet I didn't really love bluegrass music, like my dad did. I gave up lessons when I was fourteen. Now I'm almost forty. But deep down in my DNA, I still believe that I'm "special" because I can play the banjo.

But picking up my old instrument, and listening to banjo teachers on the internet, I'm realizing something: I'm not that great on the banjo. I admit, I used to think I was the cheese. But I'm not. I'm a pretty good intermediate player who has a limited repertoire and has forgotten a lot of what she used to know. There are quite a few banjo virtuosos out there, and I ain't one of them.

Everyone you meet feels deeply in his heart that he is superior to you in some way - better looking, more organized, smarter, taller, faster, more compassionate, more hip, more environmentally-conscious, whatever. I used to think that I was a better picker than you. But the truth is, I'm not.

But here was the freeing part: after a few depressing seconds of realizing I'm only a mediocre banjo picker, I had a good laugh at myself. I don't have to play the banjo to be special! I don't even have to be "special." I yam what I yam. How that compares to anyone else is irrelevant in most ways that matter. I have a unique place in this world, in this life, in my generation, in my family, past present future. Ahhh, the freedom of truth-telling.

There's probably a bluegrass song hiding somewhere in that sentiment, isn't there?