the story behind the guitar photo

I’m not one for selfies. I think they enable our most narcissistic traits and bring out the worst in people. Blogs are a close second in many cases as well. There are, however, exceptions and I think it’s when those selfies or those blogs capture a moment that is so exceedingly special in a person’s life that they absolutely have to remember it. Our memories are just that, memories. Intangible things that we’re unable to take out of our heads and review with the aid of a pensieve (sp?) as they did in the world of Harry Potter. So what do we have otherwise? Selfies and blogs.

Today I had one of those moments that I need to remember in both places. They say a picture is worth a thousand words but the picture I took could simply be interpreted as this girl playing her guitar. Those that know me as Dae Noctem might think, “Oh, she’s writing a new album. Cool!” They would be wrong. Those that know me as Dae Sloat might think, “Oh, she’s practicing her guitar. How nice.” They, too, would be wrong. My husband would think, “I don’t think she’s played that thing maybe once or twice in the three years we’ve lived together… what’s changed?” He would be asking the right question.

That guitar, an Ibanez GAX75 , a beautiful guitar that was given to me for Christmas in 2005 as a “I’m sorry I’m cheating on you and I won’t be here for Christmas, have fun,” gift has essentially sat unused for the past 9 years. It has the original strings, I’ve maybe picked it up to play it once or twice and I’ve tried, unsuccessfully, to sell it but was never able to get what it was worth. To be honest, I lost my desire to ever play guitar after so many things happened that year and beyond it. I lost my love of music finally in 2008… pretty much after I released my album. I did some live shows from 2011 to 2012 but trying to write music was impossible. I just didn’t have any joy in it. I was dead inside when it came to creating anything. Who or what killed that could be blamed on so many things. I could blame people, I could blame medication, I could blame life. It could be depression. But the fact remains that my first love (sorry Shaun) had left me and there has always been this ache without it. Taking music away from a musician, not being able to play anymore when that’s all I’d done from the age of 5 is like losing a limb.

Something was different today though. I had some music playing and I heard “I would for you” by Nine Inch Nails playing and I’ve always loved the chord progression in that song. Though sitting down and trying to play it proved there really is no chord progression per se. Nevertheless, hearing it made me want to try and I got my guitar and I began to noodle like I used to as a kid in my room. The surly teen playing along to “Broken” and “Pretty Hate Machine” thinking I was so cool because I figured out the line to “Wish.” But it was U2 that did it for me then and did it for me today. Forgive me as I become a bare and emotional person for a moment but sound has always been my memory maker.

It was either my 8^th grade year or my freshman year but I was mercilessly teased because I was a geek and didn’t fit in at all. But for whatever reason my mother agreed to get me guitar lessons with a woman named Jodee whom I thought was the coolest person in the world at the time. She taught me how to pick out songs by ear and for that hour in Mr. C’s each week we would take songs I liked and learn how to play them my own way based on the bass lines, turning the root notes into bar chords. Today I heard “Every Breaking Wave” off the new U2 album and found myself homing in on the bass notes and just like that 13 or 14 year old kid I was back then, sitting with Jodee, in that small as hell room, I began to play like I’d just put the guitar away yesterday. A day hadn’t passed. I didn’t realize that I was crying until I felt the tears on the fret board and my fingers. Whatever it was that I was feeling, that was hurting inside me, that still hurts a little, was coming out as I strummed those notes. In the photo you can see the tears on the fret board and it’s the most painfully honest selfie I’ve taken in a long time.

I’ve sworn to you all that you’d never see me cry. But maybe that’s not so true… You can see some of it. J