A Chord (and A Chords)

“Dad, do you want to see me play this chord?”

My son Solomon came down to the basement where I was working on my laptop. It was July. Summer break lingered. I was downstairs seeking quiet. Writing. Always trying to say it right even though I never know how to say it right.

“Of course,” I told Solomon.

That morning, Solomon picked up the guitar we bought him for Christmas two years ago. By the afternoon, he’d taught himself three chords. Solomon was ten now. He had spent the last few months teaching himself to read music and play piano. My oldest son was good at teaching himself how to do things. My youngest son Samson was too. I have no idea where they get it from. I can barely say things the way I want to say them.

Solomon showed me an A chord. He stretched his fingers around the fret and tried to make the chord sound clean. I remembered showing my own father an A chord when I was Solomon’s age.

***

My father, like any good child of the sixties, played the guitar. He’d often drag his electric guitar out. Sit in front of the fireplace in our living room and make it howl. Dad loved playing blues licks or jazz progressions. I wanted to play guitar because Dad played guitar. I didn’t pick it up nearly as fast as Solomon, and I never learned how to read music. It took me years to stretch my little fingers out enough so that my A chords sounded clean. Eventually, I could strum along to Neil Young’s Harvest Moon or, more impressively, wow Dad by fingerpicking Peter, Paul, and Mary’s A’Soalin’.

“Do you want to show Grandpa Clayt?” I asked Solomon that morning as he was showing me his A chord. That’s what my sons call my father. Grandpa Clayt.

“Sure,” Solomon said.

I Facetimed Dad. Most of Solomon and Samson’s interactions with Grandpa Clayt occur over Facetime. They’ve grown up a long way from my home.

“Hey,” I said as Dad’s face appeared.

“Hey,” he said.

“You want to see something?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said.

I turned the phone so Dad could see Solomon. Solomon strummed the guitar.

“Is that an A chord?” Dad asked.

“Yes!” Solomon said excitedly.

“Get out of here,” my dad said.

Next, Solomon played a G chord. Then a C chord. And then back to the A chord. My father was captivated. He told Solomon how proud of him he was.

Then Dad was gone and Solomon was back upstairs.

***

I don’t know what sense to make of, if any, this short little blog about fathers, sons, guitars, and lingering summer breaks.

It doesn’t seem that long ago that I was struggling to play blues licks to impress Dad. Developing callouses and being annoyed with my small fingers. And then thirty years passes. And thirty years isn’t that long. And now my son is developing callouses, being annoyed with his small fingers, and showing his dad what he is learning. In some ways, I’m both the little kid struggling with an A chord and the adult expressing pride in his son. There’s a strangeness in being multiple people that only grows more strange with age.

And I guess, with that, I’ve just written another blog about aging. So sue me! But don’t actually. I’m poor.

Aging is strange and, if nothing else, these silly little journals capture something about how I’m experiencing the passage of time. With chords. A chords. I’m 282 blogs in on this word press site. It keeps track and I noticed the number this morning. That’s a lot of silly blogs. A lot of open journals. Whew.

Incidentally, I prefer an E minor to an A chord. There’s a sadness to the E minor that the bright strum of an A cancels out. I’m a little emo. Always have been. I suspect Solomon will be less emo than me, but we’ll see. Time will tell as it always does.