Acquiring a New Skill.

"Validation comes from the late hour. We will say words not accepted in the daytime."

I think that childhood and the teenage years, for most people, are a bit like learning to play the guitar.

Stay with me, now. This is an analogy for life. If you know me, you will know that I realize these quite frequently.

We're figuring it out, learning which chords sound nice to us, learning which chords others like to hear.
And at first, we're so excited to play the guitar of life.
When we get a chord right, there's celebration.
We notice everything about what we play.

Then, as the years progress, not so much.
We get calluses on our fingers.
It becomes second nature.
We don't even feel the strings anymore.
We don't even hear the music anymore.
We just play the guitar of life, indifferently.

Dear reader, this is my plea, to God and anyone who will listen.

I never want to lose the wonder of playing the beautiful chords of life.
I never want to lose the tender pain of pressing the right strings, and producing a melody that makes others gasp and sends tingles up my spine.
I always want to crave the conscious sliding on the frets, the rhythmic strums of my fingers.
I never was to become desensitized to the melodic rhythm of life.
I always want to recognize on the faces of others the rapture of a penetrating chord, at just the right time and place.

I just never want to lose that soft majesty of strumming the chords of life.

vanessa ((