He lives -- and laughs -- in my music

Written last night:

Dear Friends,

I wasn’t going to ever tell you, but I’m learning to play the ukulele.  Oooo-kulele. That’s how they say it.

I’m sure Clark made this happen, and I can hear him laughing out loud. Most of you know I kind of didn’t care too much about ukulele when he was obsessed with the instrument. Yes, I adored it when he played songs just for me — his serenades would bring tears to my eyes. But until Meredith asked me to draw an ukulele for her I didn’t even know how many strings are on the instrument (four). 

All Clark’s beautiful ukes are in good hands now, but I did keep the Fluke that Patrick painted for Clark years back. It was on the table for decoration and memory. That is, until my neighbor Kevin spotted it during the condo crawl a few weeks ago. Turns out Kevin is learning the ukulele himself. He asked if I’d like to join the class. It wasn’t like me at all, but something (Someone??) nudged me and I said OK. Tonight was my third class at a community center not far from here. And, Oh, I’m terrible! I couldn’t even put together my music stand. (It involves a lot of screws.), let alone figure out how to move the fingers of my left hand into different shapes while strumming with my right (thumb?) (forefinger?) (flesh?) (nail?) 

It’s a wonderful class at Mission Oaks Community Center. The teacher, Mark, is superb. He subtly does the music part while his sidekick Auntie urges us to learn the Hawai’ian words for songs, and she tells about the way Hawai’i developed. 

Something has happened to me, and I think it’s name is Clark. Still.  

Love,

k

Mark with tonight's song