Yesterday I had my first guitar lesson, 27 days after the day I bought my first guitar. Of course, everything I had practiced from online tutorials had to be thrown out the window. I like my teacher. He gave me exercises, but the first exercise he gave me was this: finger independence.

In the finger independence exercise, you lay all fingers down on one string and slowly shift one finger one at a time to the next string. You are never to do two or three at once, even though you will find your fingers doing it. I found my fingers were not as dextrous as I had always been pleased and proud to consider them, and I’ve been enjoying struggling through the exercise this morning as I slowly woke up. I’m on my second coffee.

This exercise makes no sound. You do not pick, you do not strum. The strings are muted. This is simply an exercise in movement control of the left hand. I am trying to re-teach my hands to “think” independently, so that when called on, each individual finger can act adverse and contrary-wise to the other.

As the sky went from the deep dim blue of early morning to the light white of the usual Seattle day fog, I have been doing this exercise on and off. Slowly, in my mind, an idea was developing, though I did not know what it was yet.

“Are you practicing? Can I play music?” asked my husband after he woke up, a bit later than me because he is sick.

“I am practicing, but it doesn’t make sound,” I said. “Go ahead.”

With the music and my husband, the apartment began to wake up. My cats started leaping about. One even showed interest in my guitar for the first time, much to my horror. Coco, the one who had surgery and is recovering very well, was sulking on a blanket, miserable in her protective cone.

All the time I was thinking of my fingers as numbers, like I used to when I played cello years ago. “4,3,2,1” I whispered as I released each corresponding finger. “1,2,3,4.”

I put my second coffee in a pink mug with a gold handle and eyelashes painted on it. It was the first purchase I made for myself that had no use other than aesthetics. I still feel a little strange using such a leisurely commodity.

The idea awakened. I gained financial independence only months ago. This morning, slowly, I realized… I am back at square one, where even my fingers can become independent.