To Uke or Not to Uke

I’ve been trying new things lately.  I signed up for a water walking class but learned that rushing to a pool based class in the middle of a workday is not my favorite thing.  Schlepping all the wet gear out into the cold while rushing back to work is not relaxing.  Neither was being the only woman younger than 70.  I don’t need to hear how much joint pain I’ll endure about twenty years from now.  Shudder. 

Then I heard about ukulele lessons.  My neighbor started a group in my condo building.  It sounded like fun and I signed up.  Then I had second thoughts.  Was I ready to try something so outside my comfort zone?  I decided it couldn’t hurt to give it a go. 

I had a couple lessons and then joined in on the ‘jam sessions.’  I learned about frets and chords and strumming.  I progressed from Three Blind Mice and Row, Row Your Boat to new songs such as My Darling Clementine.  I faithfully practiced everyday.   I was starting to feel very musical.  Although if you’ve ever heard me sing you would know that I can’t carry a tune.  In fact that could be problematic for a uke player.  It’s not like when I took piano lessons in high school.  On a piano you are playing the whole song.  On a uke it’s just the chords and you’re suppose to sing along.  But I was excited to try this new venture. 

As the days of practice went on I realized it was aggravating an old hand injury.  I rested it and tried again on another day.  Same thing.  Sigh.  Since I need to be able to use a laptop for my day job I had to admit defeat.    It seems I am not meant to uke after all.   At least I have the memories of trying something new and getting to know a few of my neighbors.