I’ve taken to the banjo on weeknights, after all the hustle of planning and writing and keeping things organized. I had my doubts when I first picked it up, it being a more expensive instrument than I anticipated, but I needed something. My time alone was weighing on me and I knew I couldn’t keep on with just the thoughts in my head. So I found a music shop up the street a ways and I looked at the banjos. They had four of them: one backless, three with wooden backs for resonance. “If you’ll be playing with a group,” said the kid at the store. His receding hairline was much higher than mine. “Nah,” I told him. “Just want something nice to play music with.” And I bought it. Early birthday and Christmas present to myself. Something rational.

When I bring it out I don’t play any particular thing. I’m still learning this tabs business. It’s just picking at the strings, tuning this way and that, trying to remember my lessons on notes and scales. Do re mi fa so la ti do, you know. “Moonlight Sonata” is my musical fantasy, resting in the recesses for as long as I can remember. I wasn’t ever a piano man. Didn’t think I could do on a piano what I always knew I’d do with a flute or a stringed instrument. So now I take that banjo and sit in that big padded rocking chair and try to forget for a bit, which is a funny thing because anytime I get to playing music or singing on my own, the real kind, it breaks me up. I don’t know what real musicians feel—or if the ones talking about soul and heartbreak and all are full of shit—but there’s something in that twang of a string and the steady dying of its sound that just really breaks me up. One of the thoughts I’ve had is that if I ever get good enough on the thing I might write songs for people I never get around to being real in touch with. No other words or anything, just instruction to sit down or click a link and please don’t mind if it’s just a bit rough. I’ve been learning something new and I thought I’d share.