"What if you weren't any good at the thing you wanted to do?... "

[starfrosting]

I miss my guitar. She is at home in the black hardshell case leaned up against the wall scratching the paint. She is a she, her name is Caramelo. Archtop darling.

So yeah, I really miss my guitar. I want to strum barum pick! bass and slam syncopation in perfect chords to my words, get down that reggae rhythm and just be able to feel my fingertips pressing down above the frets. Maybe I'll bring it back up after break.

Except whenever I play I get sad, cos I'm not really playing, I'm trying to play. I'm flailing. Honestly, I'm failing. I used to take lessons and I would practice sometimes. Then I stopped taking lessons and I stopped practicing, and because I stopped practicing I sounded worse, and cos I sounded like such shite I didn't want to practice...You can see where this is going. But I'm so grateful to have this guitar, body like ropes of ribbons of burnt sugar caramel and pale wood, shiny metal fingerprinted and neck held with such good posture, that I want to do it justice. I wanna start playing again. I mean, I don't want to be great at it or anything. I know some people have a knack for it and others don't, and I'm one of the others and that's fine. (So I can write poetry instead of play guitar, okay. You cain't always git what ya want.) I just wanna be able to play some Wailers, or pick out some Ferrick tunes, yknow?

Cos my stomach wants that smooth stretch of wood pressed laquer up against it, the slope of its semihollow body cupping mine as I bend over. Cos my fingers want to move easily over thick strings and not feel them too loose underneath. I just want to play, but it makes me hate myself when I pick it up. I get all inspired to play by the yearning in my hands and then I take it out of the case and the musical livation turns to frustration and disgust. It's really lame. It makes me feel lame.

But goddammit I miss my guitar.


"...And what if every time you tried, someone tried better than you?
What if every day has a refrain like 'what am I supposed to do?'
Or 'how shall I live?' or 'what shall I improve?'"

Comments

[my-better-half.livejournal.com]

Hi, I know this is exceedingly random, but could you please comment on cuddled's journal? She seems to be a really nice person, and she's looking for 1000 comments by Christmas. If you don't want to, that's ok, but I, and she, would really apprieciate your time.
You can comment here, (http://www.livejournal.com/users/cuddled/58913.html) if you're feeling nice.

Merry Christmas, or Happy Hanukah, or Happy Kwanzaa, or whatever you celebrate. :)

sounds familiar

[cactus_rs]

I stopped practicing, and because I stopped practicing I sounded worse, and cos I sounded like such shite I didn't want to practice


ick. i know how that goes. :: hisses at her violin in spite ::

[jaclyn325mink.livejournal.com]

Wow, you have no idea how I understand. Lately I've been singing and I've been listening to The Who, and when I hear those riffs they just carry me away. So, naturally, I'm yearning for my guitar, too. I want to be able to sit somewhere, strum away, and sing a song I love. I want the guitar to hum in perfect accompaniment with my voice. I want the riffs to flow from my fingers so that I can be a part of them for real. The thing is, though, I have a desire for a flat top or an arch top, an old one that looks a little worn but sounds wonderful. I can't get rid of my black beast because man, could it rip the world to shreds if I knew how to play it and if my fingers were strong enough. I guess you could say I'm one of those people who wants to amass as many guitars as possible. Well, if I get around to asking my uncle if he'd like to go to the Guitar Barn with me this Thursday, I'll learn something nice like "Married With Children" (I just realized how much it describes me right now) and I'll try to play/sing it for you sometime. Wish me luck, and I'll wish you the same.

Here's to old dreams.

(Haha, sorry for rambling. Again, right after I wrote you that long-ass email.)

so paint me a wish on a velvet sky...

[starfrosting.livejournal.com]

dude, "Married with Children" is just about the only song I can consistently play. Maybe someday I'll learn the lead. I'd love to hear you sing it.

I don't think I'll ever quite get over not being a Gallagher, yknow? I still want a rock n roll band somewhere. £300 and all the rest.

yeah, here's to verbosity. we're both blessed.

[corium.livejournal.com]

despite these dexterous fingers from seven years of weaving & an aching in the heart sooo bad... guitar practice ends in some sort of inward humiliation. can't do something i feel so much & want sooo good.

[lessness.livejournal.com]

You forget, my bright-eyed friends, in your guitars' absence, the Luciferion blight administered by the black-hearted, nefarious guitar string. After perhaps two hours of warfare with the poisonous, razor-toothed eels of wrath (one and the same as those primordial strands crowned atop the skull of the withering christ -he who knows my suffering), I return to the surface world bloodied and scarred, with wounds too many to count, the worst of which a large, painful, malignant blue swelling beneath the flesh of my thumb's first joint. How can such horrors result from such a thin, delicate string of nearly weightless steel? Why did they not reap all that could be taken while I was in their grasp, puncture my eyes as in days past? They bide their time, await my return, and then for the pupils they shall fly, with relentless malice, until all is gouged and pouring forth blood and tears and bilious woe. Why is it not the fair maiden Nylon with whom my fingers are damned to dance? Ponder not, there is no salvation, only violence, hatred, and despair.

Give me a kazoo.

why am I talking like a pirate?

[starfrosting.livejournal.com]

yar Matthew, if thar's a healthfood store outside this hell of wound gauged metal someplace in Montana, ye should get some balm of Gilead. It is waxy and herby and pretty cheap fer all the healin' it does. Ay, it'll help fix up yr wretched wounds.

[lessness.livejournal.com]

I appreciate your concern, and respect your swashbuckling, even if you have yet to understand your own seafaring predilections.