Sure, I've kind of searched the ticket prices (which I need to get down to), and half-heartedly gone through some of my clothes. But today, I had my first root yanked from the chilly Denver soil. The trowel in use was Craigslist.
Yes, after months of talking about it, I did it. I sold my banjo. Emerson, my first 5-stringed love. Sold him callously for cold, hard cash. On the internet (which somehow makes it seem all the more banal).
I needed to sell him. Since I got Olive, my other banjo, at the end of the summer, I haven't really played Emerson at all - he was neglected, and, as with children, neglect is abuse. Also, I need to be practical. Traveling by Greyhound, I really can't bring all the components of my one-woman orchestra along with me. I decided a month ago that of my instruments I was only going to bring Olive and my as-yet unmastered viola (nameless for lack of inspiration for the moment).
So, a few days ago, I put an ad on Craigslist: 5 String Banjo - Lakewood. I said things like "in perfect condition..." "Has a beautiful resonator..." Oh, I was heartless. If ever an instrument could be compared to a piece of meat, that's what I did, in essence.
Incredibly, about 10 people responded in the next few days. I guess I underestimated how much Sufjan Stevens has popularized banjos in recent years. I had to eliminate the people who couldn't text thanks to my peanut butter-filled phone's gift of garbling any attempt at conversation.
A text-friendly and banjo-interested couple came to our little house this morning to look at Emerson. They were looking, they said, for a banjo for their daughter for Christmas. (She likes Sufjan Stevens)
After a little bit of looking at him and comparing him to Olive (who I brought out for the occasion), the decided they wanted to keep him and a hairline fracture ran through my heart. We chatted for a few minutes about banjos and the possibility of me getting together with their daughters before I leave for a little jam session, and then the lady reached into her purse, pulled out an obscene wad of cash and gave it to me. (Blood money. When you sell your child, it's blood money). I made some joke about feeling like I was losing a son, and they joked back that I could be like a birth mother with an open adoption plan - I could stop by any time and visit him.
They stood up to leave and, as watched them trek back through the fast-falling snow to their car, the hairline fracture split into a yawning, gaping chasm and I realized that I had, for the first time, actually accepted money for one of my instruments. (The time I pawned my brother's saxophone for the viola and some extra cash doesn't count). Could this be considered trafficking?
All I know is that, turning back from the window to my living room, the Emerson-less room never seemed so desolate.
