I've begun to play my guitar again when I'm feeling desperate and alone. My fingers have been softened since a number of years ago, my fingerprints cohesive and clean for way too long. I distinctly remember telling people that I'd only been playing for two years. God, that went on for so long. I think I got stuck in that year for way too long. My uncle plays keyboards and guitars and sings in his own band. They play country and western music and I remember seeing them on TV once when I was really, really young. He's sold records and cassettes and CDs. I don't think I'd recognise one of his songs. I remember him telling me once that I wasn't playing enough because my fingertips were still so soft, and I felt so hurt and so hard done by because it was all I did every day for so, so long. Sometimes I think I should just cut my losses and let go. I can't play anymore. I'm not sure if I ever really could. My fingers are short and clumsy and just don't want to reach the notes anymore. I want to reach the notes. My body doesn't.
The first chord I ever learned was the D major chord. I started lessons with a middle aged American woman named Patti Ellen, and fuck, in retrospect, those were so damn interesting. She was a real character, she had a story for every note and every chord. She always taught me these ridiculous songs that she thought I'd like, only I never really did, but there was a charm to them all in their own way. One week, she gave me Moonshadow by Cat Stevens to go home and to practice, and when I came back the next week, I played it perfectly. I never felt awkward around her, funnily enough, considering we never really talked much about anything. She played Moonshadow from this old record player she had, and she danced around that room in the funniest little way I've ever seen a woman dance and she looked so happy and content in her own skin. Even though she was probably pretty much insane, I couldn't help but wish I could know a happiness like that when I was her age. She pushed me a lot to get better, I picked it up quickly and she told me that I was her best female student, but what kept me going was that she always told me that no girl was ever going to be better than the boys she taught. Some people she taught for years, and after I'd been going about six months or so, she told me that I was getting up on a par with the boys, and I left. At the time, she used to irritate the fuck out of me, all of her insane little quirks, but I look back on it now with fondess. She did make me laugh a lot. And plus, she got me started with the guitar, and taught me some of the funniest little songs in the world. Sometimes I don't play guitar for a while, and I think about her, and I feel guilty for not having picked it up in ages, and I find myself picking it up and trying to remember the chords to some random song she'd taught me. Do you think you could imagine a world without music? I was going to say 'deaf' but you still have rhythm when you're deaf, you can feel it through the vibrations and stuff. God, I love music so much, I just don't understand people that don't care much for it. I just love that feeling right inside me when I find a song that I just fucking adore. And it's such a personal thing too. I remember my drama teacher telling me that the reason we like the music we like is that the rhythm of it compliments the rhythm of our own heartbeats, and I liked that idea. But I'm pretty sure there's very little truth to it. She was always telling me crazy stuff, probably because I looked at her with eyes so wide and she just couldn't help it. Sometimes it's just the thing I need, to strum and to quietly sound the words to myself. I'm always worried that one day I'll pick up a guitar and there won't be any feeling of familiarity from the way it rests across my lap and in my arms. I know it's not wholly possible if I go on living life with full health, but it really is something that scares me just a little. There's a real comfort in just knowing that it's there in my room with me, even if it never much serves any purpose other than taking up space in my room. I never did much have the confidence to play for other people. Anybody that ever did hear, they just overheard. I sing too, you know, and I sing well. I played guitar and sang at my maternal grandmother's funeral when I was sixteen and there were a lot of people there and every one of them cried when I sang because it was a sad, sad song, and nobody knew I could. I played and sang once for a few different people, and they clapped and cheered, and later, a middle aged man told me that I reminded him of something like Radiohead. He looked at me in that funny way that means somebody's complimenting you and they don't really know how to do it, but they try anyway. I used to play sometimes too with these certain friends and we'd sing and we'd laugh and we'd be serious and it'd mean so much to each of us.
Really, all I want is a friend that I can play music to again when the sun's disappeared and it's just the universe and me again.