After the fireworks subsided last week, I sought out a new sound to fill the silence.  Not live entertainment or even a date with a booming baritone, but a four-stringed, rosewood escape to paradise.   

And it was only right that I introduce my tropical instrument to my happy place, Fort Monroe, and play through the sunset last night.  Just me and my ukulele.

Our backdrop was a horizon gradient, brimming up from deep sapphire swells to puffs of clouds etched into a hazy blue fading into linen, pierced by rays of the setting sun.  We were mostly alone, me and… my new uke needs a name.  I handled a dozen before I knew I’d found that sweet sound at 2^nd and Charles. 

A joint symbol of my favorite season and most treasured promise, Summer Sarah, with a double first name like me.

The stretches of sand typically littered with beachgoers were void save for a few teens lingering by the boardwalk, and, eventually, a group of ladies and girls dressed similarly took pictures against my session backdrop.  No one seemed to mind the tune I practiced, which was soon identifiable, much to my surprise.

Alone in my room at the Crawford’s home, I’d strummed Summer Sarah with a felted pic and heard it resonate, impossible to feel inconspicuous teaching my fingers where to go on the strings and frets.  But on Day 2 at the beach, we faded into the evening breeze, cool off the ocean, the perfect practice arena to get it right.

Besides, “Stand by Me” is an inherently interconnected song.  We were all opting for the view of the sky reflecting the sunset, pinks and oranges cascading in the clouds.  My front-facing camera likewise records a mirrored image of me, the one I’m most accustomed to seeing. 

I can’t say most comfortable seeing, because let’s face it, if you’ve met me, you’ve heard one of the following come out of my mouth, student or friend or family or even stranger: “Well, I was pretty when I was younger… I should get Botox on my forehead wrinkles… My face looks to fat in that picture… I could wear that if I didn’t have this belly fat.”

I’m not so conceited at forty.  I realized last week with all my dating shenanigans that I don’t like the reflection I see in the mirror, and that projects in how I carry and esteem myself.  My oldest brother, David, mentored me in adolescence that you could divide life into seven strings: mental, physical, social, financial, spiritual, intellectual, and vocational.  In each area, you set a goal that you’re working on. 

At any given time, you’re working on seven things.  It keeps things in perspective.  I’m losing weight because I want to like the reflection I see in the mirror, but when that’s the only goal I’m focused on, that mirror image gets knit picked and criticized… and I find myself thinking about body image even more. 

So, I decided to revisit my brother’s sacred seven this summer.  I had clearly established physical goals: daily exercise including cardio, free weights, and cables and a restricted calorie intermittent fasting plan in action.  What about the rest?

I asked one of my recent dates if he thought it was possible to change your perception of what you see in the mirror while you’re trying to change what’s there.  He believes that our perceptions are harder to change than our bodies, and maybe that’s why I’ve always cut calories when I see a bikini bulge that dissatisfies. 

Summer Sarah and I played through the backdrop of the reflection of a sunset that satisfied and tantalized.  And so, my mental goal is to feel the same way when I look at my reflection – the way it is now, not eight pounds from now.  The “how” of this is realized in the other spheres, like spiritual. 

At night, I read the Psalms, and I’m reminded how God fashioned me, substituting mental putdowns for promises, fighting the misperception with affirmation that I am fearfully and wonderfully made in His image. There, I also read truths about who my God is, and while I can lie to myself about what the mirror says, I can’t lie about who He is. 

I’ve got a financial goal establishing my freelancing business, a social goal dating, and a vocational goal of an online course.  That leaves intellectual. 

And for the musically inclined, what better friend to find for a season of intentionally growing a better me, seven-strand style, than Summer Sarah, this sweet-stringed ukulele.

My God-niece, Josie, got one first.  I fiddled with hers for a half hour and was hooked.  She’s away at camp for the week, and my goal on the beach last night was to perfect that song to play for her when she returns.  Josie, her sister, and her mother – the Crawford ladies – are the kind of people that stand by me, and I by them. 

Summer Sarah is teaching me that what hurts me does make me stronger.  It will take weeks to build calluses, but strangely, the sting in my fingertips doesn’t stop me from strumming and picking my way to another intelligent way of connecting with humans that I haven’t tried yet.  In a month, my fingers will be better able to play the pieces I’ll be able to play by then… alongside Josie!

Summer Sarah’s also teaching me that transitions take time, but that you can still play through them.  Each string is a note, and there are four: G, C, E, and A.  Without any fingering, I can strum the C string and play that note.  If I strum all four at once, there’s dissonance.  But adding the right fingertip to the right fret on the right string, I can play the C chord. 

When I look at the sunset, I see a chord manufactured by God, not a note.

I suspect I’ve been looking at my reflection in the mirror and seeing just one note, I’m afraid to admit, too fixed on fat to soak up the harmonious, resonating chord God orchestrated when he made me. 

There’s four strings on my new best friend, seven strings in my summer plan for improvement, and a much improved perception with a ukulele in the picture.