Jen Plays Ukulele

Once upon a time...

Well, not really. This is a story that I've been wanting to tell for a while, and maybe I have told it in other places or other spaces, but tonight, for whatever reason, under the almost-full moon in the middle of a global pandemic and economic meltdown, here it is.

In May of 2019, my mother-in-law gave me an L.L. Bean gift card for my birthday. Most other people would probably think about buying shoes, or boots, or clothes, or hiking gear, or just about anything else that L.L. Bean is known for and sells. But not this girl. No, this girl decided that she had enough boots and clothes and hiking gear and everything else that L.L. Bean sells, and instead decided to see what kinds of fun and interesting toys she could find.

Somewhere in the dark recesses of the L.L. Bean website, I found...my first ukulele. 

Now, I have no idea what made me think that buying a ukulele from L.L. Bean would be a good idea. When I was a music major in college (playing piano), I nearly flunked my first semester of guitar before I switched majors. But man, I was so excited at the idea of learning how to play. 

The gift card wasn't quite enough to cover the whole cost of the ukulele. Since it was May, and my summer farmer's market and craft show season was just about to get started, cash was a little tight. And because this was my 45th birthday, and because I had been feeling a wee bit insecure about my suddenly perimenopausal weight gain, I had actually been thinking about taking the last of my cash before market season began and buying some kind of body-shaping underwear so that I didn't bulge in all the wrong places when I was standing outside and selling jewelry.

Instead, I bought the ukulele.

Which was probably a MUCH better move, since when I actually DID buy some of that body-shaping underwear it did absolutely fuckall to hold my bulges in. (But more on that later. Maybe.)

Anyway, the day my uke was due to arrive, I was beside myself. As I drove my son and myself to a chiropractor appointment, we saw a UPS truck. I turned to my son. "Do you think it would be bad if I shot out his tires and searched the back of the truck for my ukulele?" I asked. My son couldn't decide if I was serious or not, but either way, he laughed so hard he snorted.

I knew that it was going to be magic as soon as I unwrapped that little instrument. The first day I had it, I played for literally hours and hours. I learned a few chords, looked up some YouTube videos by my friend's guitar teacher, and went to sleep that night feeling like I had learned a new language as I went over the chord shapes in my head.

The next morning, I woke up and ate breakfast and started to dig through an old tote bag full of music from the days when I played piano and violin and sang in a little folk group. I had literally hundreds of songs with chords all written out right at my fingertips for me to start playing. 

It's hard to describe what my life has been like since I first picked up that little ukulele just over a year ago. My life has come together and fallen apart and started to come together again. Everything that I thought I knew about myself has been just completely blown apart. 

At one point last fall when I was in bed for twelve weeks with the excruciating pain of a herniated disc, I would lie in bed and imagine myself telling this story in front of an audience just before I performed a song. It was a way of keeping myself sane while I waited for my body to heal. It gave me something to look forward to so I would keep going, instead of giving up.

So here tonight, I'm going back to the beginning. Going back to my roots blogging about something I'm passionate about and going to share everything I know about the uke, and everything I learn as I go along. If you're here, now, reading this, it's no mistake. Thank you for getting this far in my first post, and I hope you'll come back for more.