I'm all about that bass

Today I was driving my Prius through Lower Hutt, just minding my own business, when something took me by surprise. It overpowered me. It was the urge to ROCK OUT.

This was about 3pm, so I still had five hours or so before my bedtime. With no place to be, I gave in to the emotion. I knew it was kind of nutty. But I turned my hybrid the hell around, after indicating my manoeuvre, and headed straight for the Rockshop.

I like music, and I used to learn it ages ago, when I was a kid. I never really found an instrument I liked, never really found the dexterity to play it. But I liked seeing music in my head.

Any music of any style, from any time or place, is constructed. Someone must build it, making choices of metre and key and harmonics, putting them together. I am practical, have an impulse to tinker with stuff. I used to like taking music apart in my mind. You can see the skill that way, the craft.

I haven't learned music for a long time. I realise as I write, I haven't done much for a while beyond the day-to-day; since COVID, even less. I'm not sure I have any particular reason.

Inside the Rockshop, I made my way awkwardly to the counter. Feeling conspicuous, I tried to explain to the young guy behind the till that I hadn't played heaps of music since thirty years ago. I stopped talking when I realised he probably didn't have much concept of 'thirty years ago'.

The young guy ushered me to the corner where the bass guitars hang on the wall. He lifted down a Fender Squier, handed it down to me. I sat on a stool, perched the bass on my thigh. I tried to remember stuff from my high school music room in Invercargill. I tested the strings with fingers that had forgotten.

The young guy picked up the cable attached to the amp and said, 'Do you want me to plug you in?".

"NO", I hissed.

I don't really know how to be a middle aged woman. For all the feminist battles we've fought, the scripts available to us remain reductive and few. You can fade into the background, accepting what you are. Or you can draw praise by refusing to be middle aged, refusing self-acceptance, showing you're still youthful and slim and fun. After all, you haven't given up on life just yet.

Grateful for the anonymity of my face mask, I turned my back to the shop floor, and hunched over the bass in the corner. Some other guy - younger than me - picked up another bass beside me, effortlessly busting out smooth 70s riffs. I scowled, but I wasn't beaten, picking out a halting but perky E major scale after nine attempts. And in that dorkful moment, I knew I was hooked.

As I played, I nervously eyed the price tag. It turns out, bass guitars are expensive. Who knew? So I promised myself, if this bass came home with me, I wouldn't buy an amp just yet - not until I'd mastered my scales and remembered to read music again.

Yep. My new amp is to the right.

I am happy. I don't have to be invisible, or run on some shitty treadmill to earn the right not to be.

And I remembered, I remember - it feels like a joy and a miracle - how to do music. When I got home, I plodded through the bassline of 'Swallowed' by Bush, a silly old grin on my middle aged face. Let's just say, my musical tastes come from the same era, and are of the same quality, as my carpet.

I am a 45 year old woman. I want to do my own thing. And I bloody will.

I realised today, in the shop, I can handle people asking, maybe eye-rolling or laughing a little, WTF is she actually doing? Maybe I will learn to laugh a little too. After all, it's a question I've heard before, and I kind of hope I'll hear it for the rest of my days.

__________

My thanks to the Lower Hutt Rockshop staff. It would have been easy to patronise me, but you didn't. You guys are great.