I picked up my guitar today.

As I write this, I’m listening to that newish single off of Jay-Z’s most recent album. the one he did with Alicia Keys at the VMAs. You know, the one where Lil Mama randomly jumped on stage at the end, and we were all thinking WTF is she doing? Empire State of Mind. The one that makes a NYer all proud to be a NYer, and makes other people wish they were NYers.

So I got inspired. Actually. I looked at my guitar sitting in the corner of my living room and realized it’s been sitting there for nearly a month and I still hadn’t picked it up yet. What was I afraid of? I opened the lesson book to the first part. About the first string. And I just put my left hand on the frets, my right hand on the strings, and just blazed through 3 sets of lessons. Three strings. Three weeks of guitar lessons. By the time I got to the 4th lesson — what would have been the 4th week, I realized why I hadn’t picked up my guitar in 8 months. (I know I said 9 on Twitter, but I was thinking the last time I picked it up was January, now it’s October, 10 minus 1 is 9…etc…) It’s been 8 months. I love music. I love my iPod. I love assigning memories and emotions to songs. And then I remembered why I hadn’t picked up the guitar in months.

Two nights before what would have been my 4th lesson on basic 3 note chords, I made the decision that 2009 would be the year I would move out and find a place of my own. By the way, I’m sitting in the living room of what is the endpoint of that decision. Anyway, the night I made that decision. January 22, 2009. Jack Johnson was my album of choice. The one that had Sitting, Waiting, Wishing and Better Together on it. 4 days before I made the decision to end my relationship of 2 years and 2 days. Yes, I was that girl who decided 2 days after the 2nd anniversary to end it. It was a good decision. A smart decision. I don’t regret it at all. I made the decision to move. I don’t regret that decision either. But it was an uprooting of sorts. I haven’t picked up the guitar since I left it at home. I decided to pick it up tonight. October 1, 2009. I officially moved August 3, 2009. Nearly 2 months ago.

I like dates. I like remembering exactly when things happen. I can usually remember quite vividly what I was thinking, what I was listening to, what sorts of things I was doing.

He bought me formal guitar lessons. I’ve had 8 years training as a classical pianist. I know how to sightread. My fingers have muscle memory. Everyone says that’s why I type really fast. I had a guitar teacher because of him. I broke up with him. I left the guitar behind. And I picked it up again tonight.

It was cathartic, even though all I know are notes on a few strings. I know a few 3 note chords. I cannot express myself the way I would love to if I could move my upright piano here. My gorgeous warm brown upright piano that I’ve had since I was 4 years old. And I’m 27 now. A piano isn’t easily portable like a guitar is. But I can still sit at the keyboard, take an hour to do scales and finger exercises. Love the emotion and intensity I could inject from a few rote exercises. I can pour my soul into those scales. A few measures of a long ago piece.

The thing I know by heart is a piece my last piano teacher made me play for 3 yrs straight, even though I had perfected it and gotten an O in NYSSMA the first year I played it. That piece killed my love of piano. I know that by heart. I can see myself playing it in my mind’s eye. I can play it on a table edge. I can play it on my computer keyboard. I can see the notes as they are played in my mind. I know it, intimately, inside and out. When I play it, there is no feeling. It killed my love to play piano.

The thing that I know the best, with my heart is the Fur Elise. My mom always told me that it was her mother’s favorite song to play (I never knew my maternal Lola. She passed when my mom was still a young girl). Therefore it was her favorite song to hear on piano. And by trickle down logic, I have a special connection to it myself. I don’t have my piano here. in my new apartment. It’s my ringtone on my phone. I can hear myself play it in my head. The last time I played it on the piano for real was a few months ago. I had the house to myself, before I moved, and I moved all the clutter off the piano bench and the piano. I dug out the battered copy of the Fur Elise. I adapted some fingering. And I played. And it was gorgeous. And I played the same three pages over and over. And I miss that feeling. Knowing that I can create something that moving and that beautiful, even if it’s only a few minutes long, and I know I don’t know the whole piece. That it’s just a few pages in a lesson book. But it reminds me that I can still play. And I can still feel it. I miss that process of creating.

When I listen to my iPod or iTunes, I don’t just listen to it. I can see the notes as they are played. I can imagine the exact motions to produce the noise. To produce the sound. I can see the different instruments. I can pick apart the notes, each individual sound, injected with a different intensity, a different feeling. I think they call it synaesthesia (spelling, anyone?). But I went to a psych study in college, and they claimed I didn’t have it. But every note is different. They have their own personalities. I listen to a song over and over again, separating the instruments from one another. Picking apart the notes, the beats. Picking apart the tracks.

This is what calms me.

So I picked up my guitar today. The notes aren’t perfect. I don’t know any songs. I don’t know any chords, I can play the piano better than I can play guitar.

But I picked up my guitar today.