Año del Acordeón

Well, it’s certainly not the year of social media. I don’t have time for social media. Or I don’t prioritize it, I should say. What I have left is the blog that I’ve had since 2008 or 2009… don’t remember. Sadly, I meant to return to jilldomschot.com after killing it, but it was purchased by an Asian company and is parked with what appear to be Chinese words on it. So, while I’ve been blogging for over ten years, the blog has had peaks and valleys, and I’ve lost a lot of content. Not that I care really. Most of my posts were throwaway, trying to meet post quotas while following my interests at the time. I have some sadness over losing my 18th century historical content, but it does not go deep.

I’ve determined this to be the year of the accordion because it’s what I value at the moment. I don’t mean that I don’t value God, family, work, etc. Those are on another tier of value. When I was in my late thirties, I used to read a blog written by a British lady who had dedicated her forties to learning to play the accordion and to doing the other things she’d put off as a younger person. It was called Rainbows and… I can’t remember. I believe she also gardened and wrote poetry or did photography. I wish I could find her blog again, but alas, I don’t have a blogspot follow widget any longer. How time marches on. Her blog inspired me to dedicate my forties to several goals. Being that I will turn fifty in 2023, I’d like to assess how far I’ve gotten.

My goals were these: learn the accordion, write and publish a science fiction novel, and finish a mechanical engineering degree. Let’s start with the accordion.

When my husband bought me my Hohner, I had just turned forty, and it was therefore our 20th anniversary. We were a little drunk at the local pub, and he bought it from his phone, just like that. At first, I found it a little difficult to learn. The typical norteño accordion is a diatonic, with different notes played squeezing in vs pulling out. I went through the tutorial books that came with the accordion, one of which taught reading music in a handful of lessons before forcing the student to suddenly read it with no help. I have had little formal musical education. While I know the music system, I never learned to read music well enough to use as a guide for songs. I looked for other ways to learn my instrument but ended up leaving the accordion in Socorro when we moved to Roswell. This was no slight toward the accordion. I moved over here before the rest of the family and brought almost nothing with me, not even my books. At some point, I went back for the accordion and still did not play it for some time because I was busy and overwhelmed. Finally, I decided I would dedicate a half hour a day to really learning the instrument. You know the rest of the story, I think. Just as I was familiar and proficient enough to play my instrument sans craning my neck to look at the buttons while I played scales and songs, it was destroyed in a car accident, and I had to learn the feel of a new, slightly bigger Gabbanelli. I’ve since doubled my practice time. Have I learned to play the accordion in my forties? Yes, but there isn’t a magic line to playing an instrument, is there? In a year’s time, I will play it better than I do now. And a year after that…

Did I publish a science fiction book? Sure, a jokey one called The Minäverse and then one about the Roswell aliens called Order of the PenTriagon. I doubled my goal regarding that, and I somehow managed to do it while working full-time. This is where my forties began to blur into desperate attempts at achieving my goals in whatever manner possible. On my days off or before my shifts, I would take classes at the community college and stop at the local coffee shop to work for a while on my books. I did not, however, achieve the degree. There isn’t a full university here, in any case, but I still tried to scrap it all together. I even considered finishing a math associates degree and taking a welding course. But the welding course was very expensive and seemed an impossibility while working. The last attempt I made at this goal was to sign up for online classes in January 2020, but I had a strange feeling in my gut that it would be a bad idea to use my savings on these classes, and I dropped them at the last minute. When the Covid shutdown hit, I lost my work and didn’t have money coming in for months. I was a contract and freelance laborer by that time, and while I’d heard I could go before a hearing to get the Covid unemployment for this kind of work (I had several friends who successfully achieved this), I chose to wait until people stopped being ridiculously afraid and depressed and send work my way again. I could understand the tutoring and substitute teaching disappearing, as schools were closed and parents were afraid to have people come to their houses. But losing the editing I didn’t really understand. I had a number of books scheduled during this time, but the authors couldn’t concentrate to write, I guess. They were depressed and distracted. I tend to throw myself into work to avoid depression, but not everyone operates that way.

The upshot is, people can make all the plans they want, but life throws you the unexpected. For example, when I turned forty, I didn’t expect to move to Roswell, of all places. And while science fiction predictions have often become real, it’s difficult to ascertain which will and which will not turn into reality. The world wasn’t ready for the absolute ridiculousness of 2020 and beyond. So, that’s where I sit. I don’t know that I’m going to make any life goals or dedicate my fifties to anything. I’m just going to keep going and putting work in, as work is what I do; it’s what I’ve always done. Perhaps I will dedicate the coming decade to trying to hear God’s voice better and living in his will. Meanwhile, I’ve been learning a song on the accordion called Corrido de Juanito. It’s a very sad song by Calibre 50. I might or might not have posted the video before.