For a few weeks, my guitar teacher has been working with me on some chords for a blues sequence--the rhythm part or background part. Last night, he taught me the a minor pentatonic scale so I can start improvising the lead. It was very difficult for me to just lean back and improvise--to let the music carry me away. My teacher joked that maybe my life is too happy to play the blues. To a certain extent, that's true. In many ways, I am living exactly the kind of life that I want to live.

When I shared this conversation with my husband, he helped me remember some experiences that were more doleful. So now I can work on the "I'm a new momma, and my twins won't let me sleep blues" and the "I'm a first year teacher and nobody listens to me blues" or the "I'm part of the 'Religious Left' and there is nobody for me to vote for blues."