Licks Off Of Records

Last night I dreamed that I was strolling about my home, strumming a guitar. I wasn't doing anything too flashy, but it was some nice folksy sort of picking and grinning that made people (myself included) feel like singing. In my dream, it was effortless.
At the same time, even while I was still sleeping, I knew that it wasn't. I know what it takes to play guitar like that, not because I ever achieved anything of the sort, but because I have seen friends and acquaintances over the years acquire the skills of guitar. They have nimble fingers with callouses and a head full of chords that make sense to them. I never managed to get anywhere near that.
For Christmas my parents bought me a guitar: a steel string Martin and a beginner's book of how to play. This was in my senior year of high school, and I had been taking music lessons of one sort or another for ten years, and I never even entertained the idea of having a guitar teacher. I spent a week, over Christmas vacation, staring at pictures and chord diagrams trying to imagine how to keep my fingers on the strings with my left hand, and strum with my right.
I had a notion that I was doomed from the start, since the digits on both my hands are best used for blunt force trauma, or maybe pushing the valves of a sousaphone. Even my piano playing suffered from my stubby appendages, and I started to become disillusioned even before I headed back to school.
I carried that guitar with me when I moved away for college. I didn't work at it very hard. Every so often, I would take out my beginner's book and try to make it through "Beautiful Brown Eyes" (two chords), and after an hour of futility, it was back in the case and into the closet for another few months. I had a roommate who, with his quick spidery fingers managed to teach himself the opening of Queen's "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" - about four bars of cheery strumming. He used to break that out at parties, and girls would beg for more. "Not right now," he'd say with all the humility in the world. He couldn't play a lick after that, but how would the girls know that?
My father left a banjo as part of his legacy. He always wanted to be able to sit out on the porch of our cabin, playing "Foggy Mountain Breakdown". He never managed to get past the first couple of lessons. I felt his pain. I play air guitar with the best of them, and my younger brother makes it look easy when he picks up his acoustic for a bash. For now, I'll play in my dreams, and keep my fingers callous-free.