Guitar lessons

When I was young, I was wary of girls. Weird, because I had sisters. But I found being surrounded by lots of girls quite scary. There was always somebody being excluded and invariably a lot of drama. I dislike confrontation and will go out my way to avoid it.

Boys are easier, they’re straightforward, honest and a hell of a lot of fun. I had a friend growing up called Michael. When we were little we called him Mikey. Mikey grew up and insisted we call him Michael. It took years before we got the hang of calling him by his grown up name. We were a tight threesome, Trina, Michael and I. Often my sister Julia would join us too. During our school holidays we would hang out. We always found something fun to do, whether playing tennis, making up dance routines or riding our bikes to wherever they would take us.

For a while we had guitar lessons, an extra curricular at the school.

Our Biology teacher took the classes. He had dead straight hair, cut into a short bob, his fringe flatly combed to the side. Bell bottom jeans were the order of the day, socks and Jesus sandals. An extremely strict teacher in the classroom, but as soon as he picked up his guitar he became a melodic crooner. He would gaze into our eyes singing softly There Is A House In New Orleans. I’m not sure what would set me off, I think it was being serenaded by my Biology teacher, but it would take all my energy not to laugh. I tried to follow, changing chords clumsily and stifling my laughter with some out of tune singing.

Michael sat next to me or rather I sat next to him. He was a natural or shall we say he was able to look past the crooning. I wasn’t a natural and I couldn’t multi task so I ended up a hysterical, uncoordinated mess barely able to keep up. Sally was not taking her guitar lessons seriously. A common remark from teachers throughout my school career.

Naively I imagined I was the life and soul of the class, Mr Rowlands called me a disruption and a waste of my mother’s money. I was given marching orders to leave. After arguing my point (surely this was an optional extra curricular?) Mr Rowlands allowed me to re join the class. Waltzing back in, guitar in hand and taking up my place once again next to Michael, I had the nerve to think that I’d done everyone a favour, how could guitar lessons be the same without me.