
My fingers hurt. Specifically, the three fingers on my right hand that aren’t my pinky or my thumb hurt. I got my bass guitar on Friday night and spent the weekend playing with it (not to be confused
with playing it).
I stink, so far, which is neither discouraging nor surprising because I expected to stink at first. But what is discouraging is that my fingers hurt so much. I’ve wanted to own and play a bass for 20 years. When I hear music, I hear the bass line. If there’s a band, I watch the bass player. I want to learn, I want to play, but it hurts, and not just when I play the bass, but when I type, too. Writing this is killing me, at least the j and h and k and o and u and m and n are killing me.
Maybe I should quit. I don’t believe I’ll be that good, anyway, and I have so many other things to be doing. Maybe I should quit, but I won’t. I won’t quit because, simply, playing the bass is what I want. I will put up with the pain until the pain gives up and goes home. I am tougher and more determined than pain.





