Zen and the Art of Pumpkin Bread

I don't know where this entry will go.

I don't have any kind of plan.

But, I was thinking a bit recently about selling one of my electric guitars, you know, since I don't really play in a band now and it's senseless to have two guitars.

Then I even went further and thought about selling both my electrics.

But I can't.

Follow me here for a second, I am not going to say that I am SO good and fate, or whatever you call it, has shown me I should play guitar.

But that is kinda what I am going to say.

See, there are many things that I have tried in my life and few I can say I have loved.

Guitar playing is one. Making coffee is another. So is photography.

"Bob the graphic designer" doesn't sound right. Neither does "Bob the housekeeping guy"

Or the "cookie guy". Or the "trombonist" (although now that I think about it, I regret putting it down...the trombone, not the cookie)

I really cannot imagine my life without a guitar playing some part in it. I am not a guitar god, nor am I good enough to be a working musician. I just like what I play and I have been fortunate enough to have had some really great experiences in bands.

I think of some of my friends/musicians and I can say that THEY are x (x meaning the master of the instrument they play).

I have a friend who was a talented drummer and he sold his drum set and walked away from drumming. That was a sad day because he was a really talented drummer. And I played with him in a band.

I dunno what it is. Maybe my playing guitar is a metaphor for my clutching at my youth, not wanting to let go of it. I have been tinkering with the thing for 18 years, why give up now?...

Maybe I don't want to grow up. Or: I don't want to grow up that much.

I buy into the Buddhist idea that we should be like children in life and look at everything as new and wonderful as I child does. I agree that we try to constantly compartmentalize everything we experience into one thing or another...good/bad/funny/serious/etc. To be a child at heart always. Always young. I like that.

This reminds me of the pumpkin bread I made today. I gave some to Ivana and she told me right away that it is like "somethinginherlanguageIcouldn'tremember" but it tasted totally different and it was shaped different. And I thought that this was funny. She was struggling (not really struggling) to identify with what I had made—something new to her—and she was trying to put it into a box that she knows. Something comfortable.

We all do this. I think it's human to do, but I also think it robs us of genuinely experiencing something truly wonderful.

Like my pumpkin bread.

But I digress.

I guess it's like this: is my giving up guitar surrendering my youth? Or is keeping my guitar denial of my mortality?

Did any of this make sense?