Easy Lizzy!

"D minor- pluck E and A strings...hammer on the third note, third string..then..hold and down strum, sliiiide to the seventh and then, down stroke again" said her online guitar tutor Roshan with a 'you can do it' smile as he played the same pattern again.

Lizzy stared at Roshan's finger placement through the laptop screen, a little longer than needed. As she imitated the chords with red fingertips, she hesitated to fail. 

Roshan advised gently "Give it try again"

Roshan had been a lead guitarist with a small band for 5 years now and also taught few students for some side income. He was brilliant at his skill and that bought him Lizzy's admiration and envy both. She wondered at co-existence of these emotions. 

"Yeah..yeah sure" Lizzy sighed heavy with the weight of her feelings and repeated the pattern. A fizzled D minor pluck, a hammer which only she could hear, a four string down strum, a slower slide across third to seventh fret and strum sound made by giving up fingers. She managed to complete the pattern and her 10th guitar lesson.

"No worries! It will need patience and practice. Next Saturday let's keep a test of whatever we have learnt. Okay?!"

"No test please Roshan. This week will be busy at work." She jumped with a quick self assessment.

" Don't stress for it. All I want is you to revise previous techniques before I move on. And obviously I won't charge more if you fail. But try your best"

" Fine..."

"So we meet next Saturday!"

"Sure. Thank y.." she greeted with an embarrassed smile and hasty click on leave meeting button.

"Bruh!!"

Lizzy laid her headphones on the table that was a reflection of her desires. In one word it was messy! A look at it was not enough to guess that it used to be a well polished red oak card table. It was now a reflection of multiple identities except it's own. A corner teared songbook, randomly chilling picks, a 'too soon to be around' capo; A sucked glue stick, ready to flow haywire ribbons, polka dot colored tapes, a half cut plastic bottle supposed to be reused; A squeezed white acrylic paint tube lying out of the pack, jumbled paint dryed, square and round brushes criss-crossed, a paint soaked handkerchief, a swamp colored water in a mug stolen from bathroom for painting, A4 sized watercolor drawing book. Her headphones mixed up with the mess and became a part of it.

And in the center of this passion garland was her laptop. This was the only thing common to all her passions. She threw her hands on one of the flowers in the garland and after displacing few of them plucked a size 6 flat brush to clean guitar neck. That's what it was being used for after she gave up on painting. 

----------***----------***----------***----

A week passed by and came Saturday. Tadaa! Test day. She practiced for the whole week in a day. Her sore fingers stumbled on the strings like a drunkard. 

She lifted her guilt heavy head to look into the screen.

"Okay so how much did you practice. Honest answers only" Roshan had a newly acquired tone. He was not the same Roshan who would pass every mistake with a smile.

"I practiced whole day today" Lizzy said without looking at him.

"Only today. What about rest of the week?" 

"Roshan I am sorry. I had lot of workload at office."

"Well if you don't want to do something you can think of multiple reasons, but if you want it a single reason is sufficient. So tell me why did you want to learn guitar? Why not something else?"

"Haha this is not my first. I have tried acrylic painting, writing and kathak dance before it..." She judged from Roshan's stern face that he meant something else.

"Ohh sorry...as in choosing guitar as instrument! Initially I chose it because guitar gives such a rockstar feel. And now if I think about this, it makes me happy. When I play well, even an insignificant melody, it pumps me up. I feel better about myself after sucking at work and that's what brings me back to the guitar, even if I don't practice it whole week. Also I want to play like you some day. Flawlessly, flowing in the rythm."

Roshan softened a bit.

"Hey, it took me 5 years to play like this and I am still learning. Plus it's my profession not a hobby. For every skill you choose how much of it you want in your life."

"I just want my hobbies to hang around in my life. To just be my escapism. But I also want to be good at whatever I do." 

"And for that you need to give it few minutes every day atleast till know the basics, else you will look for escapism from escapism." 

"Amazing, I didn't know you knew me so well. I think that's what I do everytime. I choose something, then I try to be so damn good at it. I try to learn everything at a go and when I can't follow it I give up on it. That's what happened to painting. Few days it went well, I enjoyed it but then I couldn't make perfect brush strokes for a lilly."

"Just for this reason you have abandoned paint brush with white paint on it."

"God! What all is visible in my camera." She thought to herself picking up the brush and throwing it away.

"Then, by same logic I guess we are meeting for the last time today."

"Nooo! No please! I want to stick to it. I want to learn."

"Then do it because it makes you happy as you told me. Do it because it lets you put your unexplored thoughts out in the world. Thoughts which even you didn't know existed. 

Always remember world quotes tortoise and ants as successful because they never stop moving towards their goal even at their slowest pace. You dont give up something because reality doesn't match up with your dreams. You work on it to make it look like a dream."

Awespired Lizzy had nothing left to say. She was startled by a "pop!" a message on screen. It was Roshan's zoom call. "Lol! I wish I could talk so much to him in real" queen of teleportation was back in real world I inspired to try better than she imagined.