Or even, starting.
I haven't had the concentration to stick to something regular in years. Not even a TV series. Not even my daily walk from work, which generally ends up a meandering wander through Dublin sidestreets with as little people as possible.
That tells me something though. Maybe it tells me I'm hiding from view. Or maybe it tells me I'm looking for something. Maybe both.
Maybe I'm looking for something that's hiding from me.
Generally, I’m a sentimental person anyway. For anybody that wouldn't know me very well, that would come as a surprise. I keep a box of items that have certain meaning to them. Pertaining to certain events I like to remember and whatnot. For example, it's without question that I keep all concert tickets. This is waning however, as concerts are getting more and more like sponsorship junkets.
I fell in love with procrastination when I did my Leaving Cert in 2002. I'd neither intention nor inclination to study. For me, school was another institutional thing that we all just had "to do", until the next thing we had "to do". It was at this point that I also found that it was possible to be creative in life and thus subvert the institutional way of life. So, during my Leaving Cert, I started to teach myself music.
Like most teens who only wanted to find a lady (cough) and rebel, I of course picked up the guitar. In 1991, my brother bought a classical Spanish guitar, because his teacher told him to and they were going to learn music. Now it was later found that he was of no way shape or form musical - he was actually found to be autistic - so that died a death and the guitar went to the "spare room" (read: personal rubbish dump of items with a sentimentality rating of 0.01). Several years later, when it was my time to join the same music class, I eagerly rescued the then-beauty of an instrument and went on my way to future musical stardom.
I went to school in Tuam, the Christian Brothers. Grand place, never had any problem with it. I started school around the time Capital Punishment was abolishing (I think), so all my teachers were young, upwardly mobile, fresh out of Uni' and probably some form of drama person/arts student. There was one nun, but we'll leave her alone. She was grand once you wrestled the lump of a sellotape ring from her. Or as we called it, Brass Knuckle Junior.
First guitar class, grand, we learned G, C and D and was sent off with Leaving On A Jetplane to learn for the next week. It was a fitting song, since me trying to learn that was nothing short of a plane crash. Grand, my brother was a bit slow so maybe I was too - I’d hope in myself - I’ll stick it out.
Second guitar class, a wet Wednesday in 1994 when I really just wanted to go home and eat my fish fingers and beans and watch the Turtles, we had all failed miserably, and were told to try the chords again, this time with E and A to lump on top. It couldn't be done. It wasn't either, since The Den was probably especially good that day.
Third guitar class. Somehow the other lads had received some miracle over the week and excelled in their chord structuring skills. It must have been my latent, ten-year-old concept of atheism, but no dice for me. I'd blame lambing season, but it was April and I was a lazy farming son anyway.
I think I managed a D and a G, but week 3 brought the major F. This was like asking to join in with Man United with a broken leg. There was no way. What was the song? It was Tuam. We know all the major chords now lads, so let’s go for it. The Saw Doctors - I Useta Lover. Fast, familiar, c'mon, ye'll have to know this lads, right?
Besides the fact that this song (other than mentioning the town, the school, and a vague but growing concept of a girl), was completely irrelevant to 10 year olds. Never mind learning the chords, trying to remember the lyrics while my mind is stuck on Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles (and, how crap Biker Mice From Mars is), I had no hope.
And so, my earliest and therefore most sentimental memory of procrastination is this:
I'm sitting on the side of my bed at home. I'm miserable. I'm 10. I'm getting this feeling I’ve never felt before. Do I sit, and push myself, and learn this song if it breaks all the fingers in my little left hand, and the skin of my fingers is coarse and bleeds; or do I quit. Will I go and ignore what I have to do, or will I just go and do something else and forget about it for now.
And quit I did. I wandered around in the woods for a while and said nothing to nobody. I think I even "lost" the sheet into the fire.
I walked into the class on the Wednesday, 4pm on a Spring day in 1994.
I try to take the teacher aside, but no dice. We're a small group, its casual - sit over on the bench there with the lads. Now, are ye ready to play. No. Why not? I didn't learn it. Why not. I just didn't. Is it too hard for you. I dunno.
It went on like this. I eventually just left the room. As anyone with a memory of their childhood knows, it's the worst feeling in the world to be sitting, waiting for the teacher to come check your copy, when you haven't the homework done.
So back to 2002. I'm doing the Leaving Cert. I'm not studying; I’m arsing around killing time again. I pull out that old guitar on a Saturday night and sit on the very same bed on which the last time I held this guitar in this seat, I decided for the first time that i'd quit. And I played a G chord. And then a D chord. I looked them up on the internet (not an early adopter - I'd won a Unison box in a draw some time before). I found a song - a personal favourite - Nothing Else Matters by Metallica.
E minor - D - C - G
Repeat.
I'm playing a song for the first time, and I was never as proud.
