| We've all heard the old saying, "If at first you don't succeed try, try again." I agree with the sentiment but there is a little more to trying than meets the eye. Sure. Success cannot be demanded on the first attempt even though the expectation of triumph is healthy and positive. After all, if you defeat yourself mentally before you even walk into a situation (like a job interview or tryout for a sports team), chances are good that you won't make it. Failure has a way of telegraphing itself. We're winners or losers before we utter the first word in an interview or before we step onto whatever the court happens to be for the tryout for the sports team. And winning and losing cannot be solely defined in terms of whether or not we accomplish the desired goal. Sometimes winning can simply mean showing up and giving it (whatever it happens to be) our best effort. If you're sitting at home while the game is going on, there is no way you can play. Your absence has erased any possibility of your participation. The playing field will not be brought to your living room. If you've taken the huge step of showing up at the field instead of talking about all the wonderful things you could do from the comfort and safety of your couch, then you're a winner. You have taken a vague, almost non-existent, wish and catapulted it into the realm of possibility -- due in large part to the fact that you showed up, you were there and you had the courage to make your purpose known. But what does it mean to try? Does it necessarily require a great deal of sweat? Do we have to eat, drink, sleep and breathe the desired outcome? Do our efforts necessarily have to be observed by or at least observable to onlookers? Or is the quality and persistence of our trying more of a personal matter, something that only we know -- something that we may or may not have the words or even interest in explaining to others? Here is a story that has stayed with me through the years. I know that it holds profound lessons for me and I hope that it has some meaning for you. I must also confess that I do not pretend to totally understand the lessons, nor have I been successful (there's that word again) in generalizing these truths to other areas of my life. Here is the story: When I was in elementary school, it was clear that I loved the saxophone. I loved watching big bands play on our black and white television set with three channels and four on days when the reception was very good in the not-so-grand canyons of the housing projects where I grew up. My father had a collection of 78 rpm records with the jazz greats of the day like Billie Holiday and her sax player Lester Young, otherwise known as Prez. When we graduated from the old 78 record player to a hi-fi and 33 rpm records, I listened to the likes of Gene Ammonds playing tenor on an album called "Boss Tenor." Our very first 33 record album was "Take Five" by the Dave Brubeck Quartet. Paul Desmond played alto sax and his sound was unmistakable. To top it all off, my father had a good friend named Paul who worked in the same factory as my father during the day, but at night and on weekends he spent his time fixing television sets and playing his tenor sax at assorted functions around the city. Birthday parties on Long Island. Gigs at jazz clubs every now and then. And quite often in the living rooms of his television- repair customers like my father and his family. Those were the days when television and radios used huge tubes and the other working parts were far from compact and light. The long and short is that Paul's television-repair box was as big and heavy as a fully packed foot locker. And on the evenings when he came to fix our television, he would lug his tenor sax right along with his television-repair box. He'd fix our television then play a tune or three. My father was like most in that he wanted the best for his son. He used to bring home brochures advertising the Selmer Mark VI tenor saxophone. The photos were so glorious they looked like you could play them. I remember like yesterday, the Mark VI cost about $500 which I suspect was about one-tenth of my father's yearly income. He used to tell me that he'd buy me a Selmer Mark VI just as soon as he hit the number (as soon as he won at off-track betting) for a large amount of money. The big hit never came. I never got to play a Selmer. But one Christmas morning I woke up and wandered to the living room and peeked under the tree with eyes partially crusted shut. There was a battered but beautiful instrument case in the shadow of a few other presents. It was way too small to be a tenor sax. It was even too small to be an alto. My father and mother wandered into the living room and looked at me proudly and contentedly as I picked up the case and opened it to reveal a trumpet. A beautiful trumpet with only a few dents, slightly tarnished, with three gorgeous white pearl keys. It wasn't a Selmer sax, but I loved it. It wasn't even a woodwind, but I was determined to learn to play it sweetly. I somehow learned (maybe because it's easy to know many secrets in tiny housing project apartments) that the trumpet was bought from the pawnshop on Avenue C right down the street from John and Mary's Delicatessen for $28. The purchase price was a far cry from the $500 it would have cost to buy a Selmer Mark VI, but it was a large amount of money in the late '50s or early '60s, and it's a nice chunk of change today especially if you don't have it. I know. I was rifling through my pants pockets this morning and didn't turn up a single bill. Anyway, the trumpet was more than a pawnshop horn. More than a Christmas present. It represented sacrifice and potential and art and expression and all sorts of other important things. I was compelled to learn to play it. I had to play it. I wanted to squeeze pleasant notes out of the thing more than I had wanted to do anything else up until that point in time. I put it to my lips and blew. A raucous, ugly sound came out along with a lot of gasping and gurgling that sounded like indigestion. My father was delighted. I was mortified. I tried harder and harder, day after day, night after night and the result was pretty much the same. My tones sounded like a wounded animal that anyone with an ounce of decency would have killed on the spot, and the murder would have guaranteed a spot in Heaven. Surely this kind of suffering could not be allowed to continue despite the sixth Commandment. Opening the trumpet case had the effect of a loud bell clanging to announce the beginning of the next round of a bloody prize fight with exhausted, pitiful boxers. I blew the thing until the veins in my temples threatened to explode. I went to school most mornings with lips that were so swollen, from blowing on my nemesis the mouthpiece, that I looked like the loser in a fist fight. I found myself at the end of my rope. I had spent weeks trying harder and harder and harder. I spent more time and more time and more time. The sounds that came out of the horn just got uglier and uglier until I got to the place where no sounds came out at all. Then one day, totally defeated, I picked up the trumpet and leisurely put it to my lips. I didn't care anymore. My expectations were gone. Head-splitting tension had been replaced with the most exquisite and indescribable "I don't care" kind of feeling. I blew. A long, mellow, sweet note filled the room. If at first you don't succeed, try like hell for a time that can only be determined by you, and then blow. Just blow. Breathe and blow. The sound you want has been waiting for you. |
| Simple things/Lang Kenneth Haynes If at first |
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