So I've got my mother's old Ovation guitar on my lap, with its smooth rounded back that fits the curve of my body and its golden wood top with three hairline cracks in the veneer. I pluck the E string, and the tuner's LCD screen displays a gauge with a needle. The needle wobbles up toward the center. The note is flat, so the red light to the left lights up, and the needle falls short of the middle. If the note were sharp, the red light to the right would light up and the needle would swing past the center. These are warnings. I fiddle with the key on the head to tighten the string. When the needle hits the center of the gauge and the green light goes off, I know I'm golden. The note is in tune.

It works for guitars. And for clarinets and trumpets and pianos. But wouldn't it be great if it worked for other things. Like decisions. Especially job-wise. With this magical tuner I could know when my judgement was wildy wrong, far from beautiful. Unfortunately I'm getting the feeling that the whole point is screwing up and figuring things out from there. But I'm just realizing this now. Instead, making decisions usually seems like I'm walking a delicate balance all the time, between almost right and terribly wrong.

One false move and I'm eons behind, is the implicit message around here, at this career-focused college. I have four short years to squeeze in all the stellar academic and extra-curricular achievements that I can, before the egg timer runs out and I end up working at the public library in Amherst, NY. Everyone else is going out and finding jobs that will actually enable them to pay off their student loans, and here I am, chasing art and honor. (Ostensibly.) Maybe they are, too. Who knows. But they'll get paid for it.

A life tuner would've been great comfort when I was deciding to go away to college. I'm the first-born in my family and part of only the second generation to go to college. I'm the only one of my cousins who went away to school. The decision to leave was mine alone. My parents' input was just that I had to pay everything back, we'll miss you so much. That left me without any indication that they actually supported my decision. Had they even thought about it? They just left things up to me, as they often have. My parents were still in college when I was born, and they didn't want to be like their parents. They were starting from scratch, and I was the test batch.

It gave me a lot of freedom, and I'm not complaining -- I think we turned out to be a pretty unique bunch, without any reason to call the police, the fire department or social services. Except for that time the toaster started to smoke so we called 911, when I was four. But it's made me directionless sometimes. I'm just not as confident in my own choices or abilities the way that I could be. And at the same time I'm under a lot more pressure to do something good. After all, I went away, spent all their money and had some big dreams. I made an important choice, and if it doesn't work out, it's all my fault.

Now, if I had my magical chromatic tuner, I could find out if my choice was a bad one beforehand.

Unfortunately they don't exist. And sitting here with my mother's Ovation guitar, I'm thinking that there's no perfect plan for a perfect future. This time I might just believe it. I pluck the A string. It's a little flat, the tuner says, as the red light blinks on. So I turn the key to tighten the string.

3/14/2002 09:47:22 PM

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