The moment Dwight’s name popped up on my caller ID, my stomach clenched. We’d been dating for more than a year and were going out to dinner Friday night. I knew exactly what he was going to ask. How am I ever going to get out of this?
“Hello,” I said, trying my best to sound relaxed.
“Pick you up around six?” he said. The words I’d been dreading.
I glanced over at the bulky shapes in the corner of my living room, wedged in next to the dust-covered piano nobody played. A brand-new full set of drums. What would Dwight think of this?
“Or I could just meet you there,” I said hastily. “No reason for you to come all the way out here.”
Silence. Dead silence. My heart was beating like, well, you know. “All right,” he said finally. “But I don’t mind. Wouldn’t you like it if I picked you up?”
“Of course!” I said. I was really crazy about Dwight. He’s an engineer—a sensible, stable guy, someone I could always count on. The opposite of my off-the-wall decision with the drums. “Just not this week. If that’s okay.”
Finally he agreed. I stared at the drum set. What was I thinking? Middle-aged women don’t take up drumming. Maybe painting. Or tennis. Gourmet cooking. Yoga, sure. But not drumming. Definitely not drumming.
It had been embarrassing, the looks I got at the music store when I confessed the drum set was for me, not my kids. Me, a divorced single mom.
There were so many other things I needed to be doing—painting the back porch, writing my novel, catching up on my Bible reading. The laundry, for goodness sake. Sane, constructive activities, like I’d done my whole life.
But worse than that, even after weeks of lessons I was a total flop. Completely uncoordinated. Unable to sustain the most basic beat.
Besides my daughters and my dad, I hadn’t told anybody my strange secret. I knew as soon as word got out people would think I’d lost it. Dwight especially. Even God was probably up there somewhere shaking his head. Or more likely covering his ears.
“This isn’t the talent I gave you,” I could imagine him saying before unleashing a thunderbolt.
But here was the thing. Ever since I was a little girl I’d thought the drums were really cool. My dad had been the leader of a band called the Orbits, and his tales of their gigs around Tuscaloosa, Alabama, had captivated my fertile young imagination.
What could be more awesome than throwing down a backbeat or knocking out a perfect roll, my hands barely visible, just a flurry of motion and that pounding, primal rhythm? Beyond awesome, probably the coolest thing I’d ever do.
If only I weren’t such a klutz. That’s what had always held me back. As a teenager I was constantly dropping things, running into walls and furniture. That’s why my dad had jokingly nicknamed me Grace. Drumming, I knew, required coordination. I was afraid to even try.
Instead I shelved any thought of playing the drums and focused on what I was actually good at. Writing. I loved writing about people who took risks, huge leaps of blind faith. But in those stories no one ever looked like a flop or a fool.
So why had I gone and done this now? Was it some sort of midlife crisis? A need to prove my independence? I’d told myself it was research for my next novel, whose main character was a girl drummer.
I didn’t have the answer. Really, what was the plan? I was never going to be one of the cool kids.
At first I was just going to take lessons without telling anyone. I signed up at the music store at the end of the summer and my teacher patiently showed me how to hold the drumsticks, read music and keep time. Then we moved on to actually drumming—four beats to a measure, over and over. Right, left, right, left.
Simple, no? Not for me. I flailed about like I was swatting bees. “It’s okay, you’re just starting,” Chris, my teacher, said. “And the drums require more grace than any other instrument. You’ll get better the more you practice.”
Grace? That was me all right! At first I didn’t have a drum set, so I arranged pots and pans on the kitchen table. Big mistake. The girls peered at me from the hallway, their hands clapped tightly over their ears. “Mom! Stop!” they groaned. “That sounds horrible!” They were right.
I should have quit right then. But something wouldn’t let me. Persistence or obstinacy, I couldn’t tell you. I broke down and paid $425 for a drum set. Daddy was thrilled when I told him. He came over that very afternoon to help me set it up.
“Drumming is like rubbing your head and patting your tummy,” he said, as he fastened a leg onto the bass drum. “You’ll get the hang of it.” Minutes later he sat on the stool and laid down a groove from the old days.
I watched him rock back and forth, flawlessly alternating the high hat with the bass. I swayed to the beat. Why couldn’t I do that?
At my next lesson I worked on coordination exercises, repeated movements with my hands and feet. Left, left, right, right, left right… Rub your head and pat your tummy? Was Daddy kidding? Why not twirl flaming batons while I was at it?
I couldn’t help but laugh at my clumsiness. Chris laughed too. But it was a kind, understanding chuckle.
“Seriously, am I the worst student you’ve ever had?” I asked, after blowing a pattern. Again.
“Uh, no, I wouldn’t say that,” he said.
“You don’t sound so sure,” I shot back.
He smiled and pointed to the lesson. Sigh. Left, left, right…
I practiced the drums every morning. By then the girls were in school and I could pound away without assaulting anyone’s ears but my own. Chris had taught me a few more backbeats and fills. I went over them again and again. And every so often, when I actually kept a rhythm for just a few beats, I felt like Buddy Rich.
Funny thing about drums: They’re loud. Really, really loud. Bold. Daring. Not like me at all. There was something incredibly freeing about that. Exhilarating. I could feel something in me shaking awake, coming to life.
After practice I rushed to my computer, my mind overflowing with plot points and dialogue, description and character development. A story about a teenage girl who just happens to be one terrific drummer.
Still, my playing had barely progressed at all. I couldn’t hold onto my secret much longer. Dwight was starting to wonder what was going on. Finally, I relented and let him pick me up for our next date, the following Friday.
That night I held him at the door for as long as I could, then said, “Close your eyes. I have a surprise for you.”
I took his hand and led him into the living room. I took a deep breath. Please, don’t let him think I’m a total dork, I prayed. Could I really do this? Did I have a choice? “Okay, you can look,” I said.
He opened his eyes and caught sight of my drum set. “Wow!” he said. “That’s soooo cool.”
He sat down and held the sticks in his hands. Then he pounded out a perfect backbeat.
“You never told me you played the drums,” I said.
“I don’t,” he said. “I was just messing around. Here, you play something for me.”
I wanted to die, right then and there. “No way,” I said. I sat on the couch and covered my face with my hands.
“What’s the matter?”
“I’ve had like a dozen lessons and I still can’t do what you just did,” I said. “I’m awful. I’m always going to be awful. That’s why I didn’t want you to know.”
He didn’t laugh. He didn’t say anything. Slowly I pulled my hands away from my eyes.
“Okay,” he said. “But are you having fun? Do you like playing the drums?”
Fun? What did that have to do with anything? Wasn’t the point to be good at it? All those mornings practicing. Those fleeting moments when I actually nailed a backbeat. The sizzle of the ride cymbal. That deafening, cacophonous sound of me pounding away, oblivious to everything around me.
Fun? It was a blast! The coolest thing I’d ever done. A joy that went beyond awesome, that could only come from…
Maybe God wasn’t covering his ears at my playing after all. Did I dare believe he might actually be urging me on by making me so stubborn?
“I know this sounds crazy,” I said, “but I really do like it. I like it a lot.”
“Well, then, you should keep doing it,” he said. It all sounded so simple and sensible when he said it. Like always.
One day I hope to be able to play an entire song. But until then I’m happy to groove to my own beat. It’s not a secret anymore. No one seems to care that I’m a terrible drummer. They get a kick out of how much fun I’m having.
I finished writing my novel. “I didn’t know you were a musician,” my agent said after she read it. Ha! The biggest thing I’m working on now is planning my wedding. It turns out Dwight didn’t think I was a dork at all. Funny thing about dreams and grace. You never know where they’ll take you. But God does.
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