The Guitar That Judges Me
My acoustic guitar sits in the corner of my bedroom, looking increasingly smug with each passing day. I bought it six months ago with the kind of optimism reserved for New Year’s resolutions and IKEA furniture assembly. The plan was simple: learn three chords, maybe impress someone at a campfire, become the kind of person who casually strums while thinking deep thoughts.
Instead, I’ve mastered exactly one and a half chords. The G major sounds decent on good days, passable on most others. The C major is a work in progress that sounds like I’m strangling a small animal. My fingertips have developed the calluses of someone who should be much better at this by now. The guitar doesn’t say anything, but I swear it’s keeping score.
Bread That Refuses to Rise
Last weekend was my seventh attempt at sourdough starter. The first six attempts produced what can only be described as biological warfare experiments. Jars of bubbling disappointment that smelled like feet and looked like abstract art nobody asked for. My kitchen counter has become a graveyard of mason jars, each one proof of my inability to keep simple organisms alive.
The thing about sourdough is that it requires the kind of patience I thought I had but apparently don’t. You’re supposed to feed it every day, like a pet that only eats flour and water. You’re supposed to watch for bubbles, test the pH, maintain the right temperature. Instead, I keep forgetting it exists until I open the fridge and remember I’m supposed to be nurturing life.
My mother, who baked bread with her eyes closed forty years ago, keeps asking about my “baking hobby” with the careful tone people use when discussing someone’s unfortunate haircut. She offered to send me her old bread recipes, the kind written in her careful cursive on index cards stained with decades of use. I haven’t had the heart to tell her I can’t even keep wild yeast happy.
The Language That Keeps Slipping Away
Portuguese seemed like such a good idea in January. I downloaded Duolingo with the enthusiasm of someone planning to surprise their Brazilian coworker with fluent conversation. Five months later, I can confidently say “the cat drinks milk” and “I am a woman” with the pronunciation of someone who learned Portuguese from a robot.
The problem isn’t the app, which cheerfully reminds me every day that my streak is broken and my owl is disappointed. The problem is that learning a language requires the kind of sustained attention that modern life seems designed to disrupt. I practice during my commute, between meetings, while brushing my teeth. Ten minutes here, five minutes there, like trying to build a house with weekend trips to Home Depot.
My coworker Ana speaks three languages fluently and is working on her fourth. She grew up switching between Portuguese and English at the dinner table, learned French in high school, picked up Spanish in college. When I told her about my Duolingo adventure, she smiled with the kindness reserved for well-meaning amateurs and offered to practice with me. We’ve scheduled three coffee dates. I’ve canceled three coffee dates.
The Garden That Teaches Humility
The tomato plants in my backyard are having what can only be described as an identity crisis. They’re supposed to be cherry tomatoes, according to the labels I carefully saved from the nursery. Instead, they’re producing these weird, lumpy things that look like they’re questioning their life choices. The basil is thriving, which feels like a cosmic joke since it’s the only thing I’m not actively trying to grow.
I’ve read three gardening books, watched countless YouTube videos, and joined an online forum where people post pictures of their perfect vegetables with the casual pride of parents showing off honor roll students. My posts in that forum are notably absent. There’s something deeply humbling about plants that refuse to cooperate despite your best intentions and expensive organic fertilizer.
The pepper plants are doing fine, which surprises me since I’ve barely paid attention to them. They sit in their neat rows, producing actual peppers that look like they came from a grocery store. Meanwhile, the tomatoes continue their abstract art phase, and I continue to water them with the hope of someone buying lottery tickets.
The Unexpected Teachers
Here’s what I’m learning from learning badly: the things you struggle with teach you more about yourself than the things that come easily. My guitar reminds me daily that muscle memory takes time and repetition, two things I’m apparently stingy with. The failed sourdough starters are teaching me about consistency, about showing up even when the results aren’t Instagram-worthy.
Portuguese is slowly rewiring my brain to think about language differently, even if I still sound like a toddler with a head injury when I try to speak it. The garden is teaching me patience and the art of accepting things I can’t control. Also, that basil is apparently indestructible and should probably be classified as a weed.
Maybe the point isn’t to become good at these things quickly. Maybe the point is to stay curious about them long enough to let them change you in small ways. The guitar will eventually sound like music. The bread will eventually rise. Until then, I’m learning what it means to be genuinely bad at something and keep showing up anyway.
